Management Motivation, Ethical Responsibility or Social Pressure: How Top Managers Improve Green Behaviors Through Behavioral Strategic Control?

Improving green behaviors has become an essential strategy for organizations due to its significant impact on organizational reputation, competitiveness, and performance. However, there is still a lack of understanding of how managers perceive green innovation practices in emerging economies. Therefore, this study examines whether managers are motivated, or deem it an ethical responsibility, or have social pressure, to improve green behaviors in organizations and how behavioral strategic control moderates these relationships. Based on data from 236 Chinese firms, our results indicate that top management motivation, ethical responsibility, and social pressure significantly enhance green behaviors within organizations. However, contrary to our expectations, we found that behavioral control strategies negatively moderate the relationship between top management support and green behaviors. Moreover, behavioral control strategies do not moderate the relationship between ethical responsibility and green behaviors. Interestingly, our findings reveal that behavioral control strategies significantly strengthen the relationship between social pressure and green behaviors in Chinese organizations. Based on these findings, we recommend that organizations maintain a balance between behavioral control strategies and green behaviors to ensure that managers effectively contribute to sustainable practices.