How Does Environmentally Specific Servant Leadership Fuel Employees’ Low-Carbon Behavior? The Role of Environmental Self-Accountability and Power Distance Orientation

Environmental problems caused by excessive carbon emissions are becoming increasingly prominent and have received heightened attention in recent years. Encouraging people to adopt low-carbon behavior to reduce carbon emissions is desirable. Based on social learning theory, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model to investigate when and how environmentally specific servant (ESS) leadership impacts employees’ low-carbon behavior (i.e., private low-carbon behavior and public low-carbon behavior). We tested our theoretical framework with a sample of 483 subordinates and their direct supervisors working in northern China. The results indicate that ESS leadership is positively related to employees’ low-carbon behavior, and that environmental self-accountability plays a mediating role in this relationship. In addition, power distance orientation strengthens the direct effects of ESS leadership on employees’ environmental self-accountability and low-carbon behavior, as well as the indirect effect of ESS leadership on private low-carbon behavior via environmental self-accountability. Our findings contribute to the literature surrounding ESS leadership and low-carbon behavior, and help to promote green development and thus achieve the goals of carbon neutrality and decreasing carbon dioxide emissions.