Employee environmental responsibility: empirical analysis and typology

Environmental responsibility of employees is a key prerequisite for achieving environmental goals of an organization and improving its environmental performance at the managerial and executive levels. Forming environmental responsibility in employees requires an understanding of the mechanisms and drivers of individual environmental behavior that may differ considerably, depending on the environmentally significant professional and personal qualities that encourage their conscious manifestation at work. The purpose of our study is to provide theoretical and empirical substantiation of the types of employee environmental responsibility. Methodological basis for our work includes the concept of individual environmental responsibility and environmental behavior of employees. The empirical base of the study is formed by the data from a survey of employees at Russian pro-environmental enterprises of the oil and gas industry. According to the results of the cluster analysis of the data obtained, we reveal characteristics for the role models of environmental behavior and identify four types of employees: ecoconservatives, eco-pragmatists, eco-activists, eco-pro-activists, differing in the awareness and acceptance of the company’s environmental values, compliance with environmental requirements in work activities, interest in participating in additional environmental activities and initiative in addressing environmental issues. The results obtained can be used to study the nature of individual environmental behavior and environmental responsibility; they can be also useful for companies in developing and improving human resource management policies and practices aimed at employees’ environmental development. The main limitation is the fact that we have chosen major oil and gas industry enterprises as the object of research, and they have a highly developed environmental policy, environmental management and the practice of environmental development of personnel; this narrows the significance of the results obtained within one industry, not allowing us to draw generalized conclusions and give practical recommendations.