Managing carbon anxiety: the mediating roles of green training and green value co-production

This study proposes a novel organizational construct of carbon anxiety and examines its impact, along with regulatory pressure, on business greening through the mediators of green technical knowledge and skills training (GTKST) and green value co-production. The study develops a research framework based on the S-O-R model. Carbon anxiety and regulatory pressure are used as antecedents (stimuli, S). These factors are mediated by organizational mechanisms (organisms, O), including GTKST and green value co-production, to affect business greening as the response (R). To validate the research framework, 179 valid responses were collected from the Taiwanese manufacturing industry and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that both carbon anxiety and regulatory pressure positively affect GTKST and green value co-production. Moreover, GTKST plays a mediating role between carbon anxiety and business greening, as well as between regulatory pressure and business greening. The results indicated that GTKST has a stronger mediating effect on this association than green value co-production. When companies commit to implementing GTKST, they can effectively transform carbon anxiety into business greening.