Double-edged sword effects of green HRM on employee organizational citizenship behavior for the environment: interactive effects and mediation mechanisms

Purpose Employee green behavior contributes to the achievement of hospitality organizations’ sustainability goals. However, there is a need to examine how green human resource management (GHRM) fosters employees’ green behavior. Anchored on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we anticipate that GHRM may have double-edged effects on employees’ organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) via two opposing mechanisms (e.g. environmental passion and emotional exhaustion). Moreover, we expect that the relationship of GHRM on environmental passion and emotional exhaustion depends on environmentally specific empowering leadership (ESEL). Design/methodology/approach The data were garnered from 356 hospitality employees in Pakistan and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings The findings revealed a significant and positive link between GHRM and employee OCBE and environmental passion and a significant and negative relationship between GHRM and emotional exhaustion. Similarly, the link between environmental passion and employee OCBE was significant and positive and between emotional exhaustion and employee OCBE was significant and negative. Our results indicate that the impact of GHRM on OCBE among hospitality employees was mediated by environmental passion and emotional exhaustion. Further, ESEL strengthened the association of GHRM with environmental passion while mitigating the effect of GHRM on emotional exhaustion. Originality/value Anchored on the COR theory, our study provides novel empirical evidence by investigating the mechanisms and boundary conditions between GHRM and employee OCBE nexus in the hospitality realm.