Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/313137 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Business Ethics [ISSN:] 1573-0697 [Volume:] 183 [Issue:] 4 [Publisher:] Springer Netherlands [Place:] Dordrecht [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 963-981
Publisher: 
Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht
Abstract: 
This paper examines the effects of employees' sense that they work for a purpose-driven company on their workplace sustainability behaviors. Conceptualizing corporate purpose as an overarching, relevant, shared ethical vision of why a company exists and where it needs to go, we argue that it is particularly suited for driving employee sustainability behaviors, which are more ethically complex than the types of employee ethical behaviors typically examined by prior research. Through four studies, two involving the actual employees of construction companies, we demonstrate that purpose drives the sustainability behaviors of employees by causing them to take psychological ownership of sustainability. In addition, we show that the sustainability-enhancing effect of purpose is stronger when employees perceive that they have higher autonomy in enacting their sustainability actions and for those employees for whom being moral is more central to their sense of self.
Subjects: 
Corporate purpose
Employee sustainability behaviors
Sustainability ownership
Job autonomy
Moral identity centrality
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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