The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Promoting Environmental Friendly Behaviour in Organization

Abstract

Preserving the environment can only be done by changing individuals’ behaviour towards environmental friendly in addressing the problem of the environmental degradation leading towards organizational sustainability. Nevertheless, the existing models pertaining to environmental friendly behaviour in the workplace is not sufficiently taken into account in the current studies. Considering this, the present study extends the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) that identifies the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in promoting environmental friendly behaviour in the universities in Malaysia. This model proposes that EI as the mediator between intention and behaviour in TPB construct. This proposed model includes 5 hypotheses and is based on the TPB. A total of 420 questionnaires are distributed among six universities in Malaysia (Klang Valley area) which yielded 344 usable questionnaires to proceed for further analysis. The partial least squares based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results indicate that out of all 5 proposed hypotheses, 4 of them are supported while the remaining 1 are not supported. The study findings suggest that, in order to achieve the organizational sustainability, EI play significant roles in promoting environmental friendly behaviour in the universities. Overall, this study proposes and verifies an extended model of the TPB in promoting environmental friendly behaviour. It reveals positive results in not only having a theoretical significance but also enhancing the understanding of the employees’ behaviour in universities.