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Article

Development of Scales for the Measurement of Executive Green Leadership and Exploration of Its Antecedents

by
Yang Wang
1,
Chenling Tian
2,
Xia Jiang
3,* and
Yang Tong
4,*
1
Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, 299 Bayi Road, Wuhan 430072, China
2
School of Economics and Business Administration, Central China Normal University, 382 Xiongchu Road, Wuhan 430079, China
3
Business School, Nanjing University, No. 22 Hankou Road, Gulou District, Nanjing 210093, China
4
College of Economics and Management, China-Africa International Business School, Zhejiang Normal University, 688 Yingbin Road, Jinhua 321004, China
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 9882; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15139882
Submission received: 25 April 2023 / Revised: 9 June 2023 / Accepted: 15 June 2023 / Published: 21 June 2023
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Management)
Browse Figure
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
Drawing on the existing research on green leadership, this paper first examines the concept and structure of executive green leadership and develops a preliminary scale to measure executive green leadership. The confirmatory factor analysis is adopted to verify and revise the scale. The results show that green leadership and green person are the two main structures of executive green leadership, and the scale developed in this paper is of good reliability and validity. After data analysis, this paper then explores the antecedents of executive green leadership. The results show that factors such as corporate executives’ internal moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environmental intention, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and corporate green image have a significant positive correlation with executive green leadership, while their short-term orientation has a significant negative correlation with the green leadership. This paper defines the concept and structure of executive green leadership and develops the corresponding scale for measuring it, to improve scholars’ and managers’ understanding of executive green leadership.

1. Introduction

In recent years, we have witnessed remarkable progress in global economic development. However, the blind pursuit of high economic growth has led to a slew of ecological and environmental problems and global climate changes, bringing great challenges to sustainable economic development [1,2]. In response to these challenges, more and more countries are elevating “carbon neutrality” as a national strategy, with visions of a carbon-free future. China, for example, has set a goal of “achieving carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060”. In order to keep abreast with national policies, enterprises across the country are also accelerating the pace of green transformation and implementing green transformation in both production and life to promote the attainment of the goal of carbon peaking and neutrality as scheduled.
At present, studies have already focused on corporate policy-level factors such as environmental management activities, green human resource management, and green supply chain management [3,4,5,6,7], and environmental practices have been found to significantly improve corporate environmental reputation, enhance employee commitment [8], and improve environmental performance [9]. However, the effective implementation of corporate environmental management depends largely on leaders at all levels [10,11]. On the one hand, the organization’s environmental policies and initiatives rely on leaders for downward communication, concrete implementation, monitoring, and feedback; on the other hand, given their position and formal authority, employees are more likely to pay attention to and be influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of leaders [12,13]. The success of a company’s green transformation depends in large part on whether its leaders advocate and practice green management. Corporate executives with green leadership orientation tend to establish more stringent environmental policies, guide enterprises to research, develop, and produce green products, provide environmental protection services, and balance the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection, in addition to paying attention to the performance improvement of employees and the organization itself. Therefore, executive green leadership plays an important role in the green transformation of enterprises.
The previous literature describes the green behaviors and abilities of enterprise leaders mainly in some specific leadership styles, such as green transformational leadership, responsible leadership and ethical leadership. Green transformational leadership is the concretization of transformational leadership behavioral characteristics in green activities [14], which are mainly manifested in motivating subordinates to achieve green goals and inspiring subordinates to achieve environmental performance beyond expected levels [15]. Currently, the concept of green transformational leadership is relatively uniformly defined, with most studies [16] conducted from Chen and Chang’s (2013) perspective [15]. Some scholars point out that green transformational leadership includes four aspects: green influence, green motivation, green intellectual stimulation, and green personalized care [11]. Among them, green influence means that through their own words, actions and behaviors, leaders can influence employees’ environmental awareness and behaviors. They should not only convey environmental protection ideas but also practice environmental protection actions in their daily work and life. Green motivation aims to stimulate employees’ environmental awareness and responsibility, making them realize that environmental protection is not only a part of corporate social responsibility but also everyone’s responsibility. Through rewards and incentives, leaders stimulate employees’ motivation and creativity, encouraging them to come up with innovative solutions for environmental protection and to contribute to the sustainable development of the company. Green intellectual stimulation requires leaders to have green thinking and environmental awareness and to be able to encourage employees to change old ideas and use new thoughts and methods to solve environmental problems. Green personalized care means that leaders recognize and encourage employees’ contributions to environmental protection, such as energy conservation, environmental advocacy, and participation in volunteer activities, and help employees understand environmental knowledge and skills, such as waste separation, energy conservation, and environmental technology [11]. Green transformational leaders focus on environmental protection and sustainability and will actively promote environmental awareness and behaviors among employees and encourage them to demonstrate green behaviors beyond expected levels. Responsible leadership emphasizes the relationship network between leaders and stakeholders, which occurs in social interaction processes [17]. Responsible leadership contains three core elements, namely, effectiveness, ethics, and sustainability. That is, leaders play an active role in managing the organization, guiding employees, and helping achieve the long-term development of the enterprise by focusing on social responsibility and business ethics. Responsible leadership promotes the accumulation of corporate social capital, which can directly or indirectly improve organizational performance [17]. As responsible leadership regards the natural environment as an important stakeholder, they will follow high-standard business ethics in environmental management, and develop and implement management measures to enhance social responsibility and environmental protection during their work. By showing ethical behaviors and management styles, ethical leaders can set ethical examples for employees to emulate, thus improving their ethical levels and environmental awareness [12,13] Moreover, existing studies have shown that ethical leadership can bring about positive outcomes for individuals and organizations and promote the ethical behaviors of their subordinates [18,19]. In addition to being strict with themselves, ethical leaders also ask employees to observe certain ethical standards [18]. They will reward employees with ethical conduct while disciplining those with unethical conduct [20]. In this way, ethical leaders can motivate employees to increase their environmental behavior.
Some studies have pointed out that executive green leadership is the product of the integration of green management and leadership, which is a concept of green-oriented leadership [14]. However, in general, the academic community has not yet proposed an explicit concept of “executive green leadership”: rather, it is included in some specific leadership styles (i.e., green transformational leadership, responsible leadership, and ethical leadership). The topic of executive green leadership has not yet received widespread attention from domestic scholars. However, with the rising environmental pressures on companies and the demand for upgrading the development model, companies need to rely on leaders at all levels to promote the implementation and effective execution of green management practices in order to achieve a smooth transition to sustainable development. Leaders at all levels need to promote the implementation and effective execution of green management practices in order to achieve a smooth transition to sustainable development. The lack of a precise definition of this concept has hindered our further study of green topics. Therefore, we consider it important to define this concept clearly.
In addition, there is no scale designed specifically for the measurement of executive green leadership in the existing literature. Previously, scholars mainly measured leaders’ behavioral performance in green management by adapting the scales of transformational leadership, responsible leadership and ethical leadership, that is, adding “green” and “environmental protection” to the previous scales. Although these scales are a helpful exploration for measuring executive green leadership, the modification or deletion of some content of these classical scales is prone to damage the reliability and validity of the scales [21]. Moreover, the above scales are of all single-dimensional structures, so people would be likely to doubt whether they can fully reflect the characteristics of executive green leadership. To make the scale content more accurate and comprehensive, Robertson (2018) created a new scale for green transformational leadership and determined the four-dimensional structures of green transformational leadership [21]. This scale provides an important measurement instrument for subsequent research on environmental leadership and can effectively promote research on environmental leadership. However, the exploration from the perspective of transformational leadership theory may be difficult to reveal the nature of green leadership. Given the important role of executive green leadership in the process of corporate green management, we believe that it is necessary to clarify its concept and structure, improve the understanding of executive green leadership in the academic and corporate sectors, and provide more scientific and effective decision-making support for enterprises to achieve sustainable development. It also provides a more accurate measurement scale for empirical studies to help corporate executives assess their own green leadership level in order to develop more scientific environmental protection strategies and measures to promote sustainable development.
Therefore, this article attempts to explore the following three questions: First, what are the specific definitions and connotations of executive green leadership? Second, what dimensions does executive green leadership contain, and how should they be measured scientifically? Thirdly, what are the specific factors influencing executive green leadership from the perspective of internal personal reasons and external environmental factors? In order to solve the above questions, this study will examine the definition, scale development and possible factors influencing executive green leadership via both qualitative and quantitative methods.

2. Concept of Executive Green Leadership and the Existing Measurement Methods

Treviño, Hartman, and Brown (2000) argue that as an ethical leader, the CEO should be able to create a strong ethical message that can capture the attention of employees and influence their thoughts and behaviors [22]. However, an ethical leader is not just about being an ethical person. The leader must also find ways to focus the organization’s attention on ethics and values and to instill in the organization the principles that guide the actions of all employees [22]. We believe that green leadership depends on two basic dimensions: green person and green manager. A green person refers to a person who protects the environment and saves energy; a green manager refers to a person who is able to attract the attention of employees, act as a role model through visible actions, transmit green values to the employees, and influence and guide their green behaviors. The reason is that the vast majority of employees in large organizations do not have direct access to interaction with executives, and all information they receive from executives has been filtered by leaders of different ranks [22]. Employees only know the decisions and outcomes made by the executives. They do not know about the personal characteristics of the executives. As a result, employees cannot directly perceive the characteristics owned by the executives, such as environmental protection and resource conservation awareness. Therefore, in addition to showing environmental behaviors, executive green leadership should also have an impact on the attitude, cognition and behavior of employees. Based on this, this study defines executive green leadership as the ability to “maintain internal and external consistency in environmental protection, improve subordinates’ environmental awareness with their own leadership, and drive employees to participate in environmental protection programs”.
At present, no mature structural dimension and measurement method for executive green leadership can be found in the existing literature. Existing literature mainly discusses the scale for leadership styles, such as green transformational leadership and environmental leadership, and few studies have been conducted on the structures of executive green leadership as well as the relevant measurement tools and quantitative analysis in this regard. Since measurement methods of leadership styles cannot completely cover all dimensions of green leadership of enterprise executives, their utility is limited, which is not conducive to the empirical test and in-depth analysis of the theoretical model related to executive green leadership. To this end, the development of effective structural dimensions and measurement instruments has become a key issue that needs to be solved urgently in the field of executive green leadership. A review of the existing literature shows that researchers mainly adopt the following three methods in measuring green leadership.
(1) Appropriate items are selected from the multi-factor leadership questionnaire for employees or the leaders themselves to evaluate the frequency of each behavior by leaders. For example, Robertson and Barling (2013), in consideration of the simplicity of the questionnaire, selected seven items from the multi-factor leadership questionnaire that can reflect the four dimensions of transformational leadership and made appropriate modifications to ensure that they are appropriate for the environmental context, to measure the transformational leadership with an environmental orientation [14]. Later, Liu and Yu (2023) also used this scale [23]. Graves, Sarkis, and Zhu (2013) selected three items for each of the five aspects of environmental leadership [24]: that is, behaviors and characteristics of leadership charisma, as well as vision motivation, intellectual stimulation, and personalized care, containing a total of 15 items, to measure the environmental leadership. However, the practice of deleting or modifying items may affect the original reliability and validity of the scale, limit its scope of use due to the copyright of the multi-factor leadership questionnaire [11], and make it difficult to manifest the unique characteristics of green leadership.
(2) The existing questionnaires on transformational leadership are used after appropriate modification. For example, Chen and Chang (2013) [15], drawing on the transformational leadership questionnaire by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, and Bommer (1996) [25], selected six items for measurement, which mainly reflected leaders’ behaviors in such aspects as formulating environmental protection vision and plans and motivating employees’ environmental protection awareness. For example, “leaders of green product development projects provide project members with a clear vision of environmental protection”. Kura (2016) [16] adopted the seven-item transformational leadership scale by Carless, Wearing, and Mann (2000) to reflect the concept of transformational leadership and adapt it to the context of environmental sustainability [26]. Specific questions such as “My leader delivers a clear and positive vision for the future” are raised for measurement, and employees are asked to answer these questions to show their identification degree of each item. Robertson and Barling (2017) [11], drawing on the transformational teaching questionnaire by Beauchamp et al. (2010) [27], selected eight items after adapting them to the experimental context for measurement. In this scale, participants are asked to answer such questions as “The leader claims that he values environmental protection” to evaluate the frequency of each behavior. However, this measurement method blurs the boundary between green leadership and transformational leadership and makes the two concepts intertwine with each other, which may hinder in-depth exploration of the concept of green leadership.
(3) Developing new scales for green leadership. In view of the problems with the existing scales, Robertson (2018) adopted a deductive approach to develop a scale for green transformational leadership [21]. Through the creation and screening of items on green transformational leadership and its four dimensions (leaders’ charisma, vision motivation, intellectual stimulation, and personalized care), 12 items (four items in the abridged version) are finally obtained, which are of higher validity. There are three items in each dimension: for example, the item “My leader serves as an example of environmental behavior” in the dimension of leaders’ charisma, and the item “My leader urges me to think innovatively about how to improve the environmental performance of the organization” in the dimension of intellectual stimulation. However, in the process of scale development, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results showed that the single-factor model was more appropriate, while confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results found that the four-factor model boasts the best goodness of fit, and the second-order model was also acceptable. Robertson (2018) stated that since the single-factor model is generally adopted in the measurement of transformational leadership, it is recommended that subsequent research should also measure environmental leadership as a whole [21]. This scale provides an important measurement instrument for subsequent research on environmental leadership, which can effectively promote research on environmental leadership. However, the exploration from the perspective of transformational leadership theory may be difficult to reveal the nature of green leadership.
All in all, there is still a lack of scales designed for the measurement of executive green leadership. The existing scales are limited to various leadership styles, which will greatly limit the research development of green leadership. To this end, the development of effective structural dimensions and measurement instruments has become a key issue that needs to be solved urgently in the field of executive green leadership.

3. Development and Test of Scale for Executive Green Leadership

3.1. Creation of Scale Items

The process of our scale development was executed in strict accordance with the existing literature. This study followed the standard scale development steps: formulate a research question, specify measurement entries, develop the initial version of entries, purify initial entries, form a new scale, and test its validity. Apart from following the standard scale development steps, the assessment of the reliability and validity of green leadership measurement instruments requires a validation factor analysis. This can help assess the quality and reliability of the scale and its applicability in different contexts [28].
The items can be created either in an inductive or deductive approach. When there is a sufficient theoretical basis, a deductive approach may be more appropriate. Therefore, we took a deductive approach. However, a flexible approach can be taken to adding new items when submitting the initial item pool for team review. These items come in both Chinese and English, and all team members are bilingual to ensure that they are identical in both languages.
First, we created an initial pool of 68 items based on a review of the existing literature on green leadership. We carefully reviewed and edited these items to ensure that they were clear and concise. Next, we submitted these items to a panel of 18 members, including 5 management professors, 3 management consultants, and 10 professional staff. Panelists then received a document that included the definition, dimensions and tools for measuring the initial items on green leadership. They evaluated the items by replying to the following questions: (1) Whether the items are understandable, (2) Whether the items belong to a specified dimension, and (3) Whether additional items can be proposed that are consistent with a given definition and dimension of green leadership. The feedback was then used to make the items more clear and more concise. To be specific, irrelevant items were removed, and additional items were created for each dimension, leading to the creation of a total of 28 new items.
Next, the revised item pool was evaluated for content validity by a second panel consisting of eight Ph.D. students majoring in management. In line with Hinkin’s (1998) approach [28], I provided panelists with a definition of green leadership and its dimensions. I asked them to categorize items independently into each dimension. If an item was considered to belong to any dimension, it would be labeled as “Not Suitable”. According to Hinkin (1998) [28], items show the acceptable validity of the content. Items can be retained when no less than 75% of the panelists correctly divide them into their dimensions. On this basis, we retained 20 items related to the two dimensions: green person and green manager.

3.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis

In this study, we take the corporate executives as the research object. We surveyed corporate executives from 10 enterprises in Guangdong, Shenzhen, Hubei, Hunan, and other places through questionnaires, which are distinguished by the company names filled in. The questionnaire survey was conducted from June 2022 to August 2022. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed, and 377 were recovered. Among them, 369 valid questionnaires were obtained by deleting the samples that did not meet the requirements, with an effective recovery rate of 83.78%. In the valid samples, males account for 43.90% and females for 56.10%. In terms of age, most of them are aged 30–50, accounting for 71.70%. In terms of educational background, 18.16% hold a high school or lower-level diploma, 23.04% hold a junior college degree, 43.36% hold a bachelor’s degree, and 15.44% hold a master’s degree or higher degree. In terms of ranks, senior managers account for 1.90%, middle managers for 11.65%, junior managers for 20.33%, and junior employees for 66.12%.
Confirmatory factor analysis is performed to assess the measurement validity of the scale. The CFA results showed that there are 20 measurement models with poor goodness of fit: χ2/df = 7.553, CFI = 0.900, TLI = 0.886, RMSEA = 0.132, SRMR = 0.033. The results also showed that the questionnaire could form a clear two-dimensional structure, but some items share low commonality (below 0.40), indicating that these items fail to fully explain the factor, so they are deleted. In addition, 5 out of the 20 items are with a low factor loading (below 0.20), so they were deleted. Therefore, our final questionnaire for executive green leadership consists of eight items, that is: “I will motivate employees with environmental programs”, “I will get employees to work together towards environmental goals”, “I will encourage employees to achieve environmental goals”, “I will reward employees for their green behavior”, “I will show that I value the natural environment”, “I will emphasize the importance of contributing to improving the environment”, “I will participate in environmental activities”, and “I will thoroughly understand the company and its environmental goals”. The CFA results showed that the eight-item scale had acceptable goodness of fit: χ2 = 199.936, CFI = 0.956, TLI = 0.932, RMSEA = 0.164, SRMR = 0.033.

4. Antecedents of Executive Green Leadership

In this study, a theoretical network of antecedent variables of green leadership is constructed to further test whether the relationship between green leadership and these antecedent variables conforms to theoretical expectations. The factors influencing green leadership can be explored from the individual level and the organizational level.
(1)
Internal Factors
The first one is the values of the individual. The most mentioned values about environmental leadership are those within the dominant social paradigm (DSP) and new ecological paradigm (NEP). The dominant social paradigm is a human-centered worldview, holding that human is superior to nature and priority should be given to satisfying human needs. It is typically characterized by a belief that natural resources are infinite and capable of supporting unlimited physical and economic growth: further, that humans can use science and technology to solve ecological problems. On the contrary, the new ecological paradigm is an eco-centric worldview that focuses on ecosystem balance and emphasizes the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, holding that natural resources are limited, which will restrict economic growth. In particular, it is skeptical of technological solutions to ecological problems [29,30]. Egri and Herman (2000) found that compared with for-profit environmental organizations, leaders of non-profit environmental organizations emphasize the new ecological paradigm to a greater degree [30]. Research by Jang, Zheng, and Bosselman (2017) also shows that the environmental values of senior executives are positively correlated with their environmental leadership styles [31]. However, Andersson, Shivarajan, and Blau (2005) did not support the relationship between the new ecological paradigm and leadership environmental behaviors [32]. They suggested that it might be attributed to a higher commitment of the sample organizations to environmental protection, while in those organizations where environmental values are not valued or where sustainability is not publicly emphasized, environmental values might have more obvious impacts on leaders’ behaviors. In addition, the relationship between value types and environmental behaviors proposed by Schwartz (1994) has also attracted the attention of many researchers [33]. Schwartz (1994) proposed 10 values with different motivation types, including achievement, kindness, obedience, hedonism, power, self-orientation, security, motivation, tradition, and universalism, and further divided these values into two dimensions: self-enhancement/self-transcendence, and traditionality/openness [33]. The self-enhancement focuses on the pursuit of one’s own achievement and power, while self-transcendence emphasizes equal acceptance of others and concern for their welfare, including universalism and kindness. Traditionality calls for self-restraint, preservation of traditional practices, and maintenance of stability (including safety, obedience, and tradition), while openness refers to independent thinking and support for changes, involving self-orientation and motivation. Studies have found that individuals with self-transcendence and openness values are more likely to participate in environmental protection behaviors, while those with self-enhance and traditionality values are negatively correlated with environmental protection behaviors [34]. Surveys of leaders of environmental organizations also confirm that environmental leaders are more likely to hold values of openness and self-transcendence than general managers [30].
The second one is the consciousness development stage. Researchers have also explored the relationship between the consciousness development stage and environmental protection leadership from the perspective of leadership competencies. The consciousness development stage is a system in which individuals construct meanings, which affects the cognitive, emotional and behavioral logic of individuals and can be divided into three stages: (1) Pre-conventional stage. The number of managers at this stage is the smallest. They are opportunists, mainly characterized by selfishness and egocentrism, viewing the environment as a resource pool available for exploitation and do not care about environmental protection issues. (2) Conventional stage. Most managers are at this stage. They pay attention to group norms, and support environmental issues in line with social trends or market requirements. They tend to integrate environmental issues into organizational goals and processes in an attempt to mitigate conflicts with stakeholders. (3) Post-conventional stage. Only a few managers can reach this stage, and some of them tend to develop innovative environmental protection programs to encourage employees to participate in environmental protection behaviors. Some managers put forward the environmental protection vision of the organization based on a long-term perspective. They are committed to building an environmental protection culture. The least number of managers would reset their organization’s missions, participate in various environment protection-related organizations and activities, and support the global humanitarian cause [35]. Boiral et al. (2009) proposed through the analysis of the behavioral logic of each stage that managers may contribute to solving ecological problems at each development stage [29]. For example, managers at the pre-conventional stage can use external constraints to urge themselves to take environmental protection-related actions. However, managers who reach the post-conventional stage are more capable of effectively implementing environmental leadership. Later, Boiral et al. (2009) found after a further case study of small and medium-sized enterprises that leaders at the post-conventional development stage were more likely to participate in environmental management practices, while those at the conventional stage were less likely to adopt sustainable management practices [29].
(2)
External Factors
Organizational factors are also important antecedents affecting leadership styles. A study on multinational corporations has found that perceived organizational environmental commitment is positively correlated with leaders’ environmental support behaviors [32]. Organizational environmental norms perceived by leaders will also promote their adoption of environmental leadership [14,36].
Overall, there is currently less discussion of the antecedents of green leadership. This study will explore the factors influencing executive green leadership from both internal and external factors. The antecedents include the following two aspects: (1) Internal factors of executives, including the internal moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environment intention and short-term orientation of corporate executives; (2) External factors, including command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, employment period and corporate green image.

4.1. Internal Factors and Executive Green Leadership

Moral identity can exist as a cognitive schema that converts moral intention into moral behavior. It can reflect the recognition degree of moral norms in an individual’s heart and the importance of moral qualities in an individual’s psychology. Individuals with high moral identity take the common moral norms of the group (including thoughts, attitudes and behaviors) as a reference to form moral self-cognition and thus engage in behavioral activities consistent with those of the group [37]. In other words, individuals with high moral identity will follow the common moral values of the organization, making them more likely to take the initiative to perform ethically as expected by the organization. The view that moral identity is an important regulating mechanism for moral judgment to be transformed into moral behavior and an important motivation to stimulate moral behavior has been proved by a large number of studies. For example, Aquino and Reed (2002) found that individuals with a high level of moral identity participate more frequently in public welfare activities, and are attuned to altruistic behaviors such as donations [38]. That is, individuals with high moral identity reported doing more volunteer activities than those with low moral identity. Given that green leadership is a specific form of ethical leadership in the workplace and moral identity is an important motivation to stimulate green leadership, we propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1.
Corporate executives’ moral identity is positively correlated with green leadership.
Conscientiousness refers to the ability of individuals to exercise self-control to promote task-oriented and goal-oriented behaviors. It is characterized by the trait that competent, orderly, responsible, achievement-oriented, persistent, self-disciplined and prudent leaders who, in the course of their work, include the natural environment and environmental protection groups in the scope of their key stakeholders. They are committed to assuming social responsibility, promoting environmental protection, and pursuing the harmonious development of the company and the natural environment. Leaders encourage organizations and employees to incorporate social responsibility and environmental protection into their core work tasks, supporting employees in demonstrating behaviors that are in line with the expectation of society and the organization. In addition, corporate executives with a strong sense of responsibility will also limit the negative environmental behaviors of their subordinates through supervision and management measures such as disclosure, reprimand, alienation, and even punishment of their subordinates’ unethical behaviors or actions, so as to further strengthen their sense of social responsibility and awareness of environmental protection and to make their behaviors more in line with the requirements of green management practices. Therefore, we believe that the higher the conscientiousness of corporate executives, the more likely they are to perform green leadership. We propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2.
Corporate executives’ conscientiousness is positively correlated with green leadership.
Pro-environmental intentions represent the core values of individuals in pursuit of environmental wellbeing, which can motivate leaders to advocate, encourage and implement green environmental protection in their work. The stronger the pro-environment intentions of corporate executives, the more enthusiastic they are to pass on the strategic significance of green production to all departments of the enterprise. For example, Zhang, Wang, and Lai (2015) found after the research on Chinese enterprises that the environmental awareness of senior executives is an important driving force for managers to integrate green environmental protection into daily management activities [39]. Based on this, we suppose that the stronger the pro-environmental intention of corporate executives, the more likely they are to generate green leadership. We propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3.
Corporate executives’ pro-environmental intention is positively correlated with green leadership.
The long-term orientation of enterprise executives refers to the attention and importance paid by senior executives to the future development of enterprises, which represents the long-term orientation behavior of enterprises [40]. First, executives with a long-term orientation prefer future value [41]). They are able to endure and accept the decline in corporate performance in the short term caused by environmental protection, with a focus on long-term returns, while those with a short-term orientation tend to get quick results, focusing only on immediate interests. Second, executives with a long-term orientation are able to capture the market demand for green products earlier so that enterprises can be aware of the potential value of green innovation in advance and thus promote it. For example, Haier, the first company to release environmental reports in China, has long realized that all sectors of society would pay increasing attention to environmental issues. Since 2005 (or even earlier), it has latched onto the green development strategy and carried out green technology innovation, involving investing in the development of smart energy technology and developing green products related to clean production technology. Finally, executives with a long-term orientation focus more on long-term development. They will actively pay attention to changes in the environment, timely identify strategic information, and propose new assumptions about environmental changes, thus leading the organization’s strategic learning behavior through new practices. To sum up, we consider that executives with a long-term orientation are more likely to produce green leadership, and propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4.
The short-term orientation of corporate executives is negatively correlated with green leadership.

4.2. External Factors and Executive Green Leadership

Command-based environmental regulation refers to the laws, regulations, policies and systems formulated by legislative or administrative departments to directly require pollutant dischargers to make environmentally friendly choices. Carter and Ellram (1998) found that environmental protection standards issued by the government are the most important external pressure affecting enterprises’ green innovation, and the worry of being subjected to mandatory regulations such as warnings, supervision, or penalties is the main driving force for enterprises to adopt environmental behaviors [42]. As the principal persons in charge and leaders of enterprises, senior executives have the responsibility and obligation to actively respond to the laws, regulations, and policies formulated by the government on resource conservation and pollution emission reduction. Therefore, we suppose that command-based environmental regulation can promote executive green leadership. We propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5.
Command-based environmental regulation is positively correlated with executive green leadership.
Market-based environmental regulation refers to the system designed by the government using the market mechanism, which aims to guide the emission behavior of enterprises with the help of market signals, encourage pollutant dischargers to reduce their emission levels or ensure the overall pollution of society tends to be controlled and optimized. Regarding market incentive-oriented environmental regulation, pollution charges are the main measure adopted in China, which will urge corporate executives to guide their companies to comply with environmental regulations and pay pollution fees on time according to emissions, thus reducing carbon emissions. Moreover, corporate executives, as leaders and persons in charge of enterprises, may choose to increase investment in environmental protection and take more initiative in market-based environmental regulation in order to offset the cost of pollutant discharge and environmental tax and obtain greater economic benefits. Therefore, we suppose that market-based environmental regulation can promote executive green leadership. We propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 6.
Market-based environmental regulation is positively correlated with executive green leadership.
A green image is the public’s cognition and evaluation of the environmental protection behavior shown by enterprises [43]. As an intangible resource, a green image can promote executive green leadership. First, a positive green image can help enterprises gain the trust of the government, reduce punishment for violations, and obtain policy support and positive publicity from the government. This is undoubtedly a kind of positive feedback and affirmation for corporate executives, which will encourage them to further enhance their green leadership. Second, from the perspective of revenue, a green image can attract more consumers for enterprises, forming the premium of green products and the brand reputation [44]). Meanwhile, the sale of waste products also creates additional income for enterprises. Third, from the perspective of enterprise development, a green image is usually closely related to its environmental legitimacy. In order to show an environmentally friendly image of the enterprise to external stakeholders, corporate executives have the responsibility and obligation to be accountable for the green performance of the enterprise. For example, by developing their own green leadership, corporate executives can reduce pollutants generated during the production process to lower their negative impact on the environment. In this way, they can elevate the environmental protection performance of enterprises to a higher level than the industry standard, thus avoiding environmental risks and improving the legitimacy of enterprises. In a nutshell, a positive green image can help enterprises obtain government resources, stimulate customers’ purchase intention, improve employees’ satisfaction, maintain the green image of enterprises, and thus, enhance executive green leadership. On this basis, we propose the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 7.
Corporate green image is positively correlated with executive green leadership.
In summary, the model framework of this study is shown in Figure 1.

4.3. Measurement and Results of the Antecedents of Executive Green Leadership

4.3.1. Data Collection

In this study, we took the corporate executives as the research objects and surveyed corporate executives from 206 enterprises in Guangdong, Shenzhen, Hubei, Hunan, and other places via questionnaires. As companies in the manufacturing industry generally pose a greater threat to the environment than those in other industries, it has become an urgent task for China to comprehensively improve green, low-carbon, and circular development, promote technological innovation, and upgrade process equipment for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. As a result, these companies should assume green responsibilities in consideration of the interest of their employees and more stakeholders in the community in addition to fulfilling their economic and legal obligations. The research team sent out a total of 206 questionnaires, of which 152 valid questionnaires were recovered after two rounds of matching. The distribution of samples is as follows: In terms of gender, males account for 43.42% and females for 56.58%. In terms of age, 19.08% are aged 31–40, 43.42% are aged 41–50, and 37.50% are aged 51 and above. In terms of educational background, 5.92% hold a junior college degree or above, 51.97% hold a bachelor’s degree, 38.82% hold a master’s degree, and 3.29% hold a doctor’s degree. In terms of the employment period, 44.08% have worked for 10 years or less, 32.24% for 11–20 years, and 23.68% for more than 20 years.

4.3.2. Measures

All variables were measured using a well-established Likert 7-point scale: that is, 1 point for “Completely Disagree”, 2 points for “Disagree”, 3 points for “Slightly Disagree”, 4 points for “Neither Agree Nor Disagree”, 5 points for “Slightly Agree”, 6 points for “Agree”, and 7 points for “Completely Agree”.
Green leadership. The eight-item scale developed in this study was used to measure green leadership, including items such as “My leaders motivate employees with environmental programs”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.933.
Moral identity. The five-item scale developed by Reed and Aquino (2003) [45] was used to measure corporate executives’ moral identity, including items such as “Being a person who is caring, compassionate, fair, friendly, generous, helpful, hardworking, honest, and kind makes me feel good about myself”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.855.
Conscientiousness. The 10-item scale developed by Saucier (1994) [46] was used to measure the conscientiousness of corporate executives, including items such as “I think I am a productive person”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.847.
Pro-environmental intention. The five-item scale developed by Lalot, Quiamzade, Falomir-Pichastor, et al. (2019) [47] was used to measure the pro-environmental intention of corporate executives, including items such as “I want to do more for the environment”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.815.
Short-term orientation. The three-item scale developed by Peterson (2004) [48] was used to measure the short-term orientation of corporate executives, with sample items such as “The way to success at my company is to plan ahead”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.842.
Command-based environmental regulation. The five-item scale developed by Zhang and Wang (2022) [49] was used to measure the command-based environmental regulation, including items such as “The government has made very strict regulations on the environmental protection, such as waste discharge and clean production”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.868.
Market-based environmental regulation. The five-item scale developed by Zhang, Liang, Feng, et al. (2019) [50] was used to measure the market-based environmental regulation, with sample items such as “The government provides tax incentives for green innovation”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.931.
Corporate green image. The three-item scale developed by Wu and Qu (2021) [51] was used to measure the corporate green image, including items such as “It increased awareness of environmental risks and impacts”. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.879.

4.3.3. Data Analysis and Results

(1)
Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis
Table 1 shows the mean, standard deviation and correlation coefficients among various variables such as demographic variables, green leadership, moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environmental intention, short-term orientation, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and corporate green image. As can be seen from the correlation coefficient in Table 1, moral identity is positively correlated with green leadership (r = 0.359, p < 0.01), indicating Hypothesis 1 is initially validated; Conscientiousness is positively correlated with green leadership (r = 0.385, p < 0.01), indicating Hypothesis 2 is initially validated; Pro-environment behavior intention is positively correlated with green leadership (r = 0.366, p < 0.01), indicating Hypothesis 3 is initially validated; Short-term orientation is negatively correlated with green leadership (r = −0.241, p < 0.01), indicating Hypothesis 4 is initially validated; Command-based environmental regulation is positively correlated with green leadership (r = 0.340, p < 0.01), indicating Hypothesis 5 is initially validated; Market-based environmental regulation is positively correlated with green leadership (r = 0.397, p < 0.01), indicating Hypothesis 6 is initially validated; and Corporate green image enterprises is positively correlated with green leadership (r = 0.328, p < 0.01), indicating Hypothesis 7 is initially validated.
(2)
Regression analysis
To verify the proposed hypotheses, we conducted regression analysis with corporate executives’ moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environmental intention, short-term orientation, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, corporate green image as independent variables, and executive green leadership as dependent variables. The results of the regression analysis are shown in Table 2.
Models 1 to 7 show, respectively, the regression analysis results of corporate executives’ moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environmental intention, short-term orientation, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and corporate green image on executive green leadership after controlling demographic variables. The results show that corporate executives’ moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environmental intention, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and corporate green image have a significant positive impact on executive green leadership (r = 0.345, p < 0.001; r = 0.393, p < 0.001; r = 0.367, p < 0.001; r = 0.333, p < 0.001; r = 0.383, p < 0.001; r = 0.311, p < 0.001), while corporate executives’ short-term orientation has a significant negative impact on executive green leadership (r = −0.137, p < 0.01). Therefore, Hypotheses 1–7 are all valid.

5. Discussions

5.1. Conclusions

This paper clearly puts forward the definition and features of executive green leadership with reference to related literature, which can provide references and theoretical bases for future research and will also contribute to the rational understanding and effective use of green leadership by enterprises and their executives. Meanwhile, this paper develops a measurement scale for executive green leadership. Our research finds that executive green leadership consists of two dimensions: the green person and the green manager. A green person refers to a person who protects the environment and saves energy; a green manager refers to a person who is able to attract the attention of employees, act as a role model through visible actions, transmit green values to the employees, and influence and guide their green behaviors. The scale for executive green leadership in the present study consists of eight items. In addition, we examine the logical relationship between executive green leadership and its antecedents. The results show that factors such as corporate executives’ internal moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environmental intention, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and corporate green image are of significant positive correlation with executive green leadership, while their short-term orientation is of significant negative correlation with the green leadership.

5.2. Theoretical Implications

This study contributes to the existing theories and literature in three aspects. Firstly, this study clearly defines executive green leadership, dividing it into the notions of green person and green manager, which enriches the literature on green leadership. At present, studies related to green leadership include green transformational leadership [15], environmental leadership [52], and environmentally specific servant leadership [53], among others. However, the existing studies do not present a clear definition of “executive green leadership”, which, to some extent, hinders the empirical research related to executive green leadership. Therefore, this study defines executive green leadership as the ability to “maintain internal and external consistency in environmental protection, improve subordinates’ environmental awareness with their own leadership, and drive employees to participate in environmental protection programs”.
Secondly, this paper develops an effective instrument for the measurement of executive green leadership from the point of view of organizational management. Existing studies on green leadership mainly focus on green transformational leadership, arguing that green leadership is a derivative style of transformational leadership when it comes to environmental protection. Therefore, most of the scales adopted or developed are based on the theory of transformational leadership. Although this approach fills the gap in the content of the current scale for green leadership and promotes relevant theoretical and empirical studies, it, to a large extent, ignores the uniqueness of green leadership, which will hinder a more in-depth understanding of green leadership and the advancement of related studies. Therefore, based on the definition and division of the above concepts, this study divides executive green leadership into two dimensions: green person and green manager. The scale development steps in this study were performed in strict accordance with the existing literature, as follows: formulation of the research question, specification of measurement items, development of an initial entry version, and purification of the initial entries, resulting in a new eight-item scale with good reliability and validity. This laid some foundation for subsequent empirical research related to executive green leadership and has important theoretical implications.
Thirdly, this study explores the antecedents of executive green leadership from a more integrated and comprehensive perspective, including both personal and external environmental factors for executives. There are relatively few studies on the antecedents of green leadership in executives, and most of them have focused mainly on the team leader and employee. In addition, few studies have explored the combined influence of individual executive internal factors and external environmental factors on green leadership systematically, which is obviously not conducive to a profound understanding of the formation mechanism of executive green leadership. Therefore, based on the definition of executive green leadership and the division of constructs, this study explains the reasons why corporate executives advocate and practice green management from both internal and external factors. These factors mainly include the personal characteristics of corporate executives (internal factors) and the external environment faced by enterprises (external factors). Internal factors include corporate executives’ moral identity, conscientiousness, pro-environment intention, and short-term orientation, while external factors include command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and corporate green image. Exploring the antecedents of executive green leadership helps understand how to effectively improve executive green leadership and promote corporate green development.

5.3. Practical Implications

Firstly, companies should vigorously cultivate green leadership in executives, actively advocate green leadership, consciously train executives on green leadership, improve leaders’ environmental knowledge and skills, and teach executives how to set an environmental example and how to motivate employees to be environmentally friendly. This will help companies implement green management, promote sustainable development, and enhance the competitive advantages of enterprises. A basic fact of the industrial layout has always been the transfer of polluting enterprises from economically developed areas to economically underdeveloped areas. If regions want to develop their economy, they must keep up with the times and develop a green economy, instead of permanently bearing the cost of transferring polluting industries. However, economic development is essentially inseparable from management talents, so we need to cultivate a group of executives with green leadership who not only can demonstrate and practice green values by themselves but also can take various green management measures to encourage employees to adopt green behaviors.
Secondly, the government and related departments should strengthen environmental regulations and guide enterprises to achieve green and low-carbon development. To achieve the goal of “double carbon”, as expected, relies heavily on diversified environmental regulation policies, such as establishing carbon emission standards to directly curb the high carbon emissions of high-energy-consuming and high-emission industries, accelerating the elimination of backward production capacity, promoting the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure; applying carbon taxes and low-carbon subsidies to encourage enterprises to use clean energy under the drive of profit, and increasing the investment in green low-carbon technology, etc., based on specific analysis of each case, to mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises in low-carbon practices.

5.4. Limitations and Directions for Future Research

First, this study attempts to develop an effective scale for the measurement of executive green leadership, but there is a long way to go for the scale to be further developed and revised so as to deliver a desirable result. This study only identified the specific forms of executive green leadership from limited aspects, which can be further explored in the future to fully demonstrate the core characteristics of executive green leadership. Second, this study follows the practice of previous researchers to verify the correlation between executive green leadership and its antecedence variables when testing the antecedence network of executive green leadership, but it does not provide sufficient evidence of causality. Therefore, more rigorous longitudinal study designs or experimental methods can be used for further verification in future research. Third, all the research samples in this paper are from Chinese enterprises, which to some extent, reflect the main characteristics and functions of executive green leadership, but the lack of foreign samples also makes it impossible to conduct comparative research on executive green leadership at home and abroad with different backgrounds. In the future, comparative research on green leadership under different policies can be conducted based on different countries and regions.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing—original draft, Resources: Y.W.; Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing—original draft, Visualization: C.T.; Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing—review and editing: X.J.; Supervision, Writing—review and editing: Y.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

All procedures in studies involving human participants were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Sustainability 15 09882 g001 550
Figure 1. Antecedents of Executive Green Leadership.
Figure 1. Antecedents of Executive Green Leadership.
Sustainability 15 09882 g001
Table
Table 1. Mean, Standard Deviation and Correlation Coefficient of Each Variable.
Table 1. Mean, Standard Deviation and Correlation Coefficient of Each Variable.
123456789101112
Age1
Gender0.198 *1
Educational background0.1180.1031
Employment period0.411 **0.071−0.0831
Moral identity0.0150.030.0690.0351
Conscientiousness0.188 *0.0230.1190.0490.751 **1
Pro-environmental intention0.074−0.0340.075−0.1120.660 **0.642 **1
Short-term orientation−0.152−0.106−0.136−0.028−0.349 **−0.368 **−0.304 **1
Command-based environmental regulation0.1440.0770.064−0.1390.574 **0.624 **0.619 **−0.313 **1
Market-based environmental regulation−0.0120.0530.078−0.185 *0.540 **0.601 **0.541 **−0.208 *0.587 **1
Corporate green image0.008−0.0250.097−0.090.568 **0.643 **0.623 **−0.217 **0.628 **0.735 **1
Green leadership0.04−0.0140.079−0.040.359 **0.385 **0.366 **−0.241 **0.340 **0.397 **0.328 **
M47.5791.5662.39513.8495.8825.7285.8342.8425.8685.7535.7655.411
SD6.3940.4970.6538.8760.9430.9100.9111.6060.9590.9690.9540.926
Note: *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.01.
Table
Table 2. Regression Analysis Results.
Table 2. Regression Analysis Results.
VariableExecutive Green Leadership
Control variablesModel 1Model 2Model 3Model 4Model 5Model 6Model 7
Age0.003−0.0020.0010.004−0.0030.0060.007
Gender−0.37−0.038−0.017−0.086−0.085−0.093−0.033
Educational background0.0510.0460.0740.0620.0930.0720.060
Employment period−0.02−0.0050.001−0.0050.0030.003−0.003
Primary variable
Moral identity0.345 ***
Conscientiousness 0.393 ***
Pro-environmental intention 0.367 ***
Short-term orientation −0.137 **
Command-based environmental regulation 0.333 ***
Market-based environmental regulation 0.383 ***
Corporate green image 0.311 ***
R20.1310.1530.1370.0320.1210.1640.111
F4.396 **5.279 ***4.620 **2.0134.030 **5.732 ***3.663 **
Note: **: p < 0.01; ***: p < 0.001.
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Wang, Y.; Tian, C.; Jiang, X.; Tong, Y. Development of Scales for the Measurement of Executive Green Leadership and Exploration of Its Antecedents. Sustainability 2023, 15, 9882. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15139882

AMA Style

Wang Y, Tian C, Jiang X, Tong Y. Development of Scales for the Measurement of Executive Green Leadership and Exploration of Its Antecedents. Sustainability. 2023; 15(13):9882. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15139882

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wang, Yang, Chenling Tian, Xia Jiang, and Yang Tong. 2023. "Development of Scales for the Measurement of Executive Green Leadership and Exploration of Its Antecedents" Sustainability 15, no. 13: 9882. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15139882

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