Environmental Actions and Leadership Integrity: Unpacking Symbolic and Substantive Pro‐Environmental Behavior Impact on Organizational Perception

This study applies signaling theory to investigate how an organization's environmental actions, in the form of symbolic (Sym) and substantive (Sub) pro‐environmental behavior (PEB), impact the perceptions of organizational hypocrisy and perceived integrity of its leaders. The authors collected data from a sample of 211 employees working in various industries at three different points with a 1‐month interval and used AMOS‐SEM for data analysis. We found a positive relationship between Sym‐PEB and organizational hypocrisy, while Sub‐PEB was negatively associated with organizational hypocrisy. Findings for mediation analyses revealed that organizational hypocrisy mediated between (a) Sym‐PEB and leaders' integrity, and (b) Sub‐PEB and leaders’ integrity. We contribute to the leadership and workplace ethics literature by highlighting important paths through which organizational environmental action impacts perceptions of organizational hypocrisy and leaders' integrity. The study reveals the multifaceted nature of organizational pro‐environmental behavior and its impact on the integrity of leaders. Our study has important implications for theory and practice.