The Impact of Leadership on Employee Behavior Through Green Attitudes and Human Resource Management

In previous research, scholars found that when interacting with leaders, employees' efforts to achieve balance and regulation are influenced by emotions, which mediate the relationship between movement regulation and employee happiness. Using resource conservation theory, this study will contribute to the literature in several ways. First, it adds to the body of knowledge on green behavior in the workplace by clarifying the role of leaders in promoting green behavior among their followers. Second, it investigates the underlying mechanism through which green leadership affects employees' green behavior via green attitudes and emotional exhaustion. Third, this study employs resource conservation theory to support the development of hypotheses regarding the direct, mediating, and moderating mechanisms by which green leadership and human resource management interactions influence employees' green behavior. Finally, the findings will provide new evidence and insights on green leadership, green human resource management, and their outcomes in the construction sector of emerging economies, which have not been extensively studied. Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine the impact of green leadership on employees' green behavior through green attitudes and green human resource management in manufacturing companies in Shahrekord. 

This study is applied in nature and employs a descriptive correlational method for data collection. The statistical population comprises 660 employees working in manufacturing companies in Shahrekord, from which a sample was drawn. Given the limited size of the population, the sample size was determined to be 244 individuals using Cochran's formula. A stratified sampling method proportional to size was utilized. The research instruments included standard questionnaires: the Green Leadership Scale by Su, et al. (2020), the Green Behavior Questionnaire by Block et al. (2015), the Green Attitude Scale by Shah (2023), and the Green Human Resource Management Questionnaire by Shah (2023). The validity of the questionnaires was assessed through expert opinions and feedback from a subset of the statistical population. Reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha, yielding values of 0.90, 0.88, 0.77, and 0.90, respectively. To assess the validity of the content, the questionnaires were reviewed by experts and professors for localization before implementation. For face validity, the questionnaires were evaluated by 30 individuals from the statistical population, and after conceptual revisions, they were approved. In terms of construct validity, all items were analyzed using LISREL software, with fit indices above 0.90, indicating that the items are acceptable.

The results indicated that green leadership has a positive and significant impact on employees' green behavior through green attitudes, with a coefficient of 0.76. Additionally, green leadership positively and significantly affects employees' green behavior through green human resource management, with a coefficient of 0.65. Furthermore, green leadership directly influences employees' green behavior, with a coefficient of 0.66.The findings also showed that the lower bound of the confidence interval for green attitudes, as a mediating variable between green leadership and employees' green behavior, is 0.770, while the upper bound is 0.110. The confidence level for this interval is 95%, with a bootstrap sample size of 5000. Since zero falls outside this confidence interval, the mediating relationship is significant; thus, green attitudes play a mediating role in the relationship between green leadership and employees' green behavior.Similarly, the lower bound of the confidence interval for green human resource management, as a mediating variable between green leadership and employees' green behavior, is 0.885, and the upper bound is 0.225. The confidence level for this interval is also 95%, with a bootstrap sample size of 5000. Again, since zero is outside this confidence interval, this mediating relationship is significant; therefore, green human resource management also serves as a mediating variable in the relationship between green leadership and employees' green behavior.

This study aimed to investigate the impact of green leadership on employees' green behavior through green attitudes and green human resource management, with all hypotheses being confirmed. The findings align with previous research in this field (Afsar, Badir, & Kiani, 2016; Khan & Khan, 2021; Khan, 2023; Saleem et al., 2020; Zeng & Starik, 2017), which tested these relationships across various industries. However, the current study specifically focuses on manufacturing companies in Shahrekord.In interpreting the first hypothesis, it is noted that this is one of the first studies in management literature to measure the impact of green leadership style on employees' green behavior. It also aims to assess the mediating effects of employees' green attitudes and green human resource management on the relationship between green leadership and green behavior. While there is a substantial body of literature on leadership styles and green behavior in other industries (Afsar, Badir, & Kiani, 2016; Zeng & Starik, 2017), studies that integrate these three constructs are scarce.Ultimately, this research demonstrates that green leadership and green human resource management have both direct and indirect positive effects on employees' green behavior. This can assist researchers in gaining a better understanding of how two types of contextual factors related to green practices influence employees' green behavior, thereby enhancing scholars' knowledge regarding the formation processes of green behavior.Previous research has focused on the effects of leadership on employees' green behavior (Olorunsola & Alola, 2021; Khan & Khan, 2021) or the impact of green human resource management on employees' green behavior (Choudhary, 2020; Mishra, Sarkar, & Kiranmay, 2014). However, they have overlooked the combined effects of these two critical situational factors. The existing findings are insufficient to provide a comprehensive overview of "how to effectively encourage employees' green behavior." Employees are not solely influenced by leadership behavior or human resource management; rather, their workplace behaviors are often affected by various resources in the work environment (Aburamadan, Kundi, & Farah, 2021).As a result, this study is the first to combine green leadership and green human resource management as organizational resources for employees when examining the mechanisms of inducing green behavior. The depth of understanding regarding the mechanisms of employees' green behavior is enhanced by exploring the combined effects of these two sources of green management on employees' green behavior.