IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v35y2026i1p374-388.html

Organizational Greenwashing and Work Engagement: Evidence From the Hospitality Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Hong Zhu
  • Morgan X. Yang
  • Jia Chen
  • Yili Duan

Abstract

Current research on organizational greenwashing primarily focuses on its impact on customers, while its effects on employees—crucial internal stakeholders—remain underexplored. Drawing on Affective Event Theory, we investigate the relationship between organizational greenwashing and the work engagement of hospitality employees. Utilizing a 2‐week time‐lagged survey (Study 1, N = 324) and an online experiment (Study 2, N = 226), we provide corroborating evidence that greenwashing behaviors by hospitality firms lead to employees' contempt for the organization, which subsequently decreases their work engagement. Additionally, family motivation negatively moderates the relationship between contempt for the organization and work engagement, indicating that the negative impact of contempt on work engagement is attenuated when employees have a high level of family motivation. This research enhances the theoretical understanding of how organizational greenwashing affects employees' job‐related behaviors and offers practical implications for hospitality firms to prevent and manage greenwashing practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Hong Zhu & Morgan X. Yang & Jia Chen & Yili Duan, 2026. "Organizational Greenwashing and Work Engagement: Evidence From the Hospitality Industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 374-388, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:35:y:2026:i:1:p:374-388
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.70163
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.70163
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.70163?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:35:y:2026:i:1:p:374-388. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.