Cognitive Dissonance of Self-Standards: A Negative Interaction of Green Compensation and Green Training on Employee Pro-Environmental Behavior in China

PURPOSE: Studies of GHRM practices number in thousands; however, they have failed to provide Chinese contextual evidence for their interactive effects on employee pro-environmental behavior (EPEB). To bridge this research gap as well as to address organizational practitioners’ concern in GHRM practices, our study explores the possible interactive effect of green compensation (GC) and green training (GT), which are two core practices of GHRM and are widely employed by Chinese organizations simultaneously, on EPEB drawing on self-determination theory, and unravels the underlying mechanism by introducing employee green self-accountability (EGSA) as a mediator based on the cognitive dissonance theory of self-standards. METHODS: Using on-line survey and five-point Likert rating method, employees (N=847) working in Chinese organizations were requested to self-rate GC, GT, and EGSA; their direct supervisors were invited to evaluate EPEB. The mediated moderation testing procedures with SPSS and the bootstrapping approach with MPLUS were adopted to test the mediated moderation. RESULTS: When being used separately, GC and GT are positively related to EPEB (β=0.426, p < 0.001; β=0.368, p < 0.001). When being adopted simultaneously, a negative relationship (the simple slope=−0.454, t=3.671, p=0.000) exists between GC and EPEB at higher-level GT. EGSA partially mediates the negative interaction with 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals [−0.054, −0.018]. CONCLUSION: In the Chinese context, when being used simultaneously with high–high combination, GC and GT negatively interact with each other to engender the squeezed effect of intrinsic motivation by extrinsic motivation, which directly impairs EPEB, and cause employee cognitive dissonance of self-standards, which indirectly weakens EPEB through reducing EGSA. This paper is an attempt to show novelty in identifying negative interactions between GC and GT in EPEB in China and a mediating role of EGSA. Additionally, it addresses organizational practitioners’ concern well and provides important implications for decision-making in GHRM practices and EPEB enhancement.