How hospitality employees’ pro-environmental behavior negatively affects organizational citizenship behaviors: the multilevel moderating effect of green transformational leadership

Purpose This study aims to explore whether and how hospitality frontline employees' pro-environmental behavior (PEB) affects organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Design/methodology/approach Guided by moral licensing theory and social learning theory, a multilevel path analysis was conducted based on multitemporal data collected from 121 frontline employees over five consecutive workdays and nested data from 22 corresponding departmental supervisors. Findings The results indicated that employees' PEB promotes psychological entitlement (PE), which in turn leads to a reduction in organization-directed and customer-directed OCBs. In addition, supervisors' level of green transformational leadership negatively moderated the positive relationship between PEB and PE and consequently weakened the indirect negative effect of PEB on OCBs. Originality/value This study examines the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of the negative effects of employees' PEB on OCBs, using PE as an entry point for the idea that a positive behavior of an employee may have an inhibitory effect on other positive behaviors and emphasizing the importance of matching the leadership styles of departmental supervisors to this process. In addition, this study extends the application of moral licensing theory and social learning theory.