Studying Executives’ Green Behaviors: An Environmental Theory of Planned Behavior

Global concern about climate change has markedly increased in recent years (Pew Research Center, 2007). Unfortunately, without cohesive national or global initiatives to ameliorate or even counteract the footprint of human activities on nature, it becomes essential to encourage businesses to adopt sustainable, environmentally-friendly practices. Executives and managers, primary decision-makers in business, are to be studied to better understand the appearance of pro-environment attitudes, and the link between these attitudes and the implementation of sustainable business practices. Our study-in-progress develops, validates, and evaluates an Environmental Theory of Planned Behavior model aimed at predicting green (i.e., environmentally-friendly) behavioral intentions using a large multinational sample (n=162). An additional executive sample (n=50) has been collected and will be used to examine preservation and utilization attitudes and behaviors in organizational settings.