Hotels’ green leadership and employee pro-environmental behaviour, the role of value congruence and moral consciousness: evidence from symmetrical and asymmetrical approaches

The study uses person-organisation fit and norm activation theory to develop conceptual models to clarify the green leadership (GL) non-homogenous effect on employee pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in the hospitality industry. Two psychosocial antecedents, value congruence (VC) and moral consciousness (MC) were the mediators in elucidating the unexplained variations between GL and employees’ PEB outcomes. The models were tested using partial least square-structural equation modeling to explain the unidimensional effect and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to clarify the diverse causal configurations sufficient to predict hotel workers’ PEB. The study collected data from managers and employees in the Ghanaian hotel industry. The study findings strengthen the interactive role MC plays in employee behavioral outcomes and confirm its importance in stimulating PEB among employees in the hospitality sector. Results from the fsQCA affirm that solely using unifinality approaches for GL and PEB studies may be inadequate to provide a complete understanding of a proposed model. With the unifinality analysis, MC constituted the only variable mediating the GL and PEB relationship. Under the fsQCA, VC and MC became sufficient conditions underpinning GL’s impact on employees’ PEB. The study concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.