Social Media Environmental Engagement and College Students’ Organizational Citizenship Behavior for the Environment: The Mediating Role of Green Self-Identity and the Moderating Role of Perceived Pro-Environmental Organizational Climate

This study examines how social media environmental engagement (ESME) is associated with college students’ organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) through green self-identity (GSI), and whether this indirect association varies across levels of perceived pro-environmental organizational climate (PEOC). Although digital environmental engagement has received growing attention, less is known about the identity-based mechanism linking such engagement to students’ offline pro-environmental citizenship behavior and the institutional conditions under which this mechanism may differ. Drawing on social identity theory, we propose that ESME is positively associated with GSI, which, in turn, is associated with OCBE. We further propose that PEOC moderates the association between ESME and GSI. Using a three-wave time-lagged self-report survey of 481 college students in China, we tested the proposed moderated mediation model using regression and bootstrap analyses. The results provide evidence consistent with the proposed model: GSI mediated the positive association between ESME and OCBE, and this identity-based association was stronger when perceived institutional environmental support was relatively weak. This study contributes to research on digital environmental engagement and university sustainability education by clarifying the joint roles of online engagement, green self-identity, and perceived campus climate. The findings suggest that universities may benefit from connecting online environmental engagement with supportive and visible campus sustainability practices.