An Empirical Study of Environmental Practices and Employee Ecological Behavior in the Hotel Industry

Abstract

This study examines the relationships among environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, environmental concern, and employee ecological behavior to implement green practices across the hotel industry. Structural equation modeling with a bootstrapping estimation was used with 385 employees from international tourist hotels in Hong Kong. The results show that environmental knowledge positively influences environmental concern and ecological behavior. In addition, employee environmental awareness mediates the relationship between environmental knowledge and concern, while both environmental awareness and concern appear to mediate the relationship between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of study results are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

Keywords

environmental practices knowledge ecological behavior hotel employees structural equation modeling SEM

Introduction

Despite the growing interest in studying environmental management and its potential benefits to industry, few studies have examined the relationship between employees’ environmental knowledge and their ecological behavior in the hospitality sector. Research on environmental management has mainly been devoted to different perspectives such as motivations for adopting environmental management systems (EMSs) in hotels (Bohdanowicz, 2006; E. S. W. Chan & Wong, 2006), barriers to EMS implementation (E. S. W. Chan, 2008, 2011), energy consumption and water use management (Deng & Burnett, 2002a, 2002b), environmental management practices (Enz & Siguaw, 1999; Kassinis & Soteriou, 2003; Mensah, 2006), the application of environmental management in facilities management (Wan, 2007), financing strategies supporting EMS development (W. W. Chan & Ho, 2006), hotel green marketing (E. S. W. Chan, 2013a, 2013b; Dief & Font, 2010), the relationship between environmental management and hotel performance (Rodriguez & del Mar Armas Cruz, 2007), managerial views on environmental management (W. W. Chan, Yeung, Chan, & Li, 2013; Jones, Hillier, & Comfort, 2014; Kasim, 2009; Kirk, 1995, 1998), customer views on green hotels (Han, Hsu, & Sheu, 2010; Teng, Wu, & Liu, 2013), customer perceptions on “green” restaurant and their purchase intentions (DiPietro, Cao, & Partlow, 2013), customer willingness to pay more for the “green” restaurant experience (Dewald, Bruin, & Jang, 2014; Young & Jang, 2014), and the Generation Y consumer segments’ selection attributes and behavioral intentions toward green restaurants (Jang, Kim, & Bonn, 2011).

Implementing environmental programs normally require the support and involvement of hotel employees. Some previous studies on the relationship between employees and environmental programs indicated that staff morale and satisfaction are enhanced by the implementation of the programs (Poksinska, Dahlgaard, & Eklund, 2003; Rondinelli & Vastag, 2000; Kirk, 1998). Notwithstanding this, performing additional environmental job tasks, such as cutting condemned lines into smaller pieces for other uses in housekeeping department will directly or indirectly affect their present job duties (Green Hotelier, 2002). The introduction of environmental initiatives may result in employees’ resistance as a result of changes of routine and habitual operations. This can be attributed to human psychology, as most people are unwilling to change their old habits (Hon, Bloom, & Crant, 2014; Oreg, 2003). However, research on the relationship between environmental programs and employees’ willingness to implement green policies is underdeveloped. This requires our attention because the successful implementation of green practices relies on employees’ cognitive and affective understandings of different environmental programs (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). Currently, researchers have developed different theoretical frameworks to explain the gap between the possession of environmental information such as knowledge, awareness, and behavior; however, no conclusive answers have been reached (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). In filling this research gap, this study aims to investigate a list of processes on how employees’ environmental knowledge is related to their ecological behavior. More specifically, we examine the relationships among employees’ environmental knowledge, awareness, and concern—all of which eventually drive ecological behavior. In the proposed relationships, the potential mediating role of environmental awareness and concern is of particular interest in this study. Figure 1 presents the hypothesized model. This study’s objectives are to

Investigate how environmental knowledge relates to environmental awareness, and how environmental awareness relates to environmental concern

Examine the relationship between environmental concern and employee ecological behavior

Investigate the mediating roles of environmental awareness and concern between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior in hotels

Figure 1

Hypothesized Model of Hotel Employees’ Ecological Behavior

Relationships Among Hotel Employees’ Environmental Knowledge, Awareness, and Concern, and their Ecological Behavior

In terms of environmental protection, we believe that an individual’s environmental knowledge, defined by Fryxell and Lo (2003) as “a general knowledge of facts, concepts, and relationships concerning the natural environment and its major ecosystems” (p. 48), will possibly lead to his/her ecological behavior, defined by Axelrod and Lehman (1993) as actions that “contribute towards environmental preservation and/or conservation” (p. 153). For instance, people might buy an eco-washer after acknowledging the meaning of its green label and benefits, if their budget allows. In addition to the important role of environmental knowledge in the process of developing ecological behavior, some environmental scholars (Kotchen & Reiling, 2000; Mostafa, 2009; Perron, Côté, & Duffy, 2006) have indicated that an individual’s ecological behavior can also be affected by environmental awareness—defined by Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) as “knowing of the impact of human behavior on the environment” (p. 253)—and environmental concern—defined by Zimmer, Stafford, and Stafford (1994) as “a general concept that can refer to feelings about many different green issues” (p. 64). As noted earlier, this study aims to investigate the relationships between environmental knowledge, awareness, concern, and ecological behavior. We propose that hotel employees’ environmental knowledge, awareness, and concern influence their ecological behavior to implement green practices in hotels. The proposed relationships and hypotheses among these factors are discussed in the following sections.

Environmental Knowledge

As mentioned before, environmental knowledge is defined by Fryxell and Lo (2003) as “a general knowledge of facts, concepts, and relationships concerning the natural environment and its major ecosystems” (p. 48). According to the study conducted by E. S. W. Chan (2008), one of the main barriers to adopting a formal EMS in hotels is the lack of required environmental knowledge of the system. This implies that increased environmental knowledge could lead to more enlightened ecological behavior. In fact, Frick, Kaiser, and Wilson (2004) indicated that three environmental knowledge forms exert different influences on conservation behavior. The studies by K. Chan (1999) and Ibrahim, Aliagha, and Khoo (1999) have also noted that information and knowledge about recycling are significant predictors of recycling actions and related environmentally friendly behavior. Other scholars (Aman, Harun, & Hussein, 2012; Amyx, DeJong, Lin, Chakraborty, and Wiener, 1994; Corral-Verdugo, 1996; H. H. Hu, Parsa, & Self, 2010; Mostafa, 2006) have shown that knowledge generally influences proenvironmental attitudes, which, in turn, motivate ecologically or environmentally responsible behavior. Following this school of thought, we propose that hotel employees’ environmental knowledge contributes to their ecological behavior through the development of environmental awareness and subsequent environmental concern within their companies.

Hotel employees may perform their environmental duties in several ways. For instance, E. S. W. Chan and Hawkins (2010) suggested that employees’ environmental awareness can be enhanced through the hotel’s EMS training. According to their findings, hotel employees can improve their understanding of how the environment is damaged by people or even by their duties and business decisions once they have been “educated” and armed with environmental knowledge. It seems that the more hotel employees know about their environment, the more appropriately and environmentally they will behave. Increasing employees’ environmental knowledge fosters their environmental awareness throughout the hotel. E. S. W. Chan and Hawkins’s study suggested that employees’ environmental awareness can be enhanced through hotel’s EMS training (i.e., knowledge); their study was a single case study only without any advanced analytical methods to support, however. To supplement the weakness, we extended our study to further develop the hypothesis and test the relationship by using an empirical study with full-time workers in the hotel industry. Other studies have also indicated that access to environmental information is an important factor in determining the extent of environmental awareness (Lepoutre & Heene, 2006; Roberts, Lawson, & Nicholls, 2006). Werner, Rhodes, and Partain (1998) also reflected that equipping oneself with knowledge through different information campaigns is often an effective way to increase awareness of environmental issues. On the basis of these arguments, our first hypothesis is as follows.

Hypothesis 1: Hotel employees’ environmental knowledge is positively related to their environmental awareness.

Environmental Awareness

In addition to the abovementioned definition of Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002, p. 253) describing environmental awareness as ‘knowing of the impact of human behavior on the environment,’ environmental awareness can be viewed as an individual’s attention and sensitivity to environmental problems (McHenry, 1992, p. 1150; Soukhanov, 1992, p. 2140). Realizing that the greenhouse effect is a serious problem is an example of environmental awareness. It is believed that an individual’s environmental awareness triggers his or her environmental concern to do something to tackle problems, activity that eventually increases with his or her ecological behavior. For instance, people may purchase products with eco labels, consume organic foods, and participate in recycling programs as a result of their increased awareness of environmental problems. There has been a decrease in using aerosol hair spray after acknowledging the serious consequences of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) release and the resulting depletion of the ozone layer (Church, 1994; Stamm, Clark, & Eblacas, 2000).

Some previous studies have demonstrated the importance of environmental awareness. For instance, Musser and Diamond (1999) investigated the factors affecting the improvement of kindergarten students’ environmental awareness. Perron et al. (2006) examined the benefits of environmental education and awareness training in companies. Gadenne, Kennedy, and McKeiver (2009) examined how the influence of various stakeholders relates to environmental awareness, and how that awareness relates to actions taken within businesses to reduce the environmental impact of their operations. Huang, Zhang, and Deng (2006) studied the public’s perception of local environmental quality, awareness, and performance, examining their willingness to make green purchases. Uzunboylu, Cavus, and Ercag (2009) investigated the use of mobile technologies, data services, and multimedia messaging systems to develop students’ environmental awareness. When examining some restrictive factors blocking the implementation of energy-saving measures in organizations, Zilahy (2003) found that one of the most important was environmental awareness. In these studies, scholars have recognized the importance of evaluating the role of environmental awareness in the process of ecological behavior. It is believed that an aware individual is conscious of the threats related to environmental problems, such as global warming, and understands that he or she may eventually suffer from the consequences. As a result, the individual exhibits concern. Other studies have indicated the close relationship between environmental awareness and concern (Mahees & Silva, 2011; Markie, 2008; Yuniarto, 2012). These arguments prompt our second hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2: Hotel employees’ environmental awareness is positively related to their environmental concern.

Environmental Concern

Environmental concern defined by Zimmer et al. (1994, p. 64) as “a general concept that can refer to feelings about many different green issues” is often used interchangeably with the term environmental attitude (Luo & Deng, 2008), which is defined as “the collection of beliefs, affect, and behavioral intentions a person holds regarding environmentally related activities or issues” (Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, & Hazian, 2004, p. 31). For instance, people with environmental concerns about the greenhouse effect think that some attention or immediate remedial action is required to tackle the problem. Several studies have indicated a positive relationship between a person’s environmental concern and environmentally friendly behavior, although the concern may not be positively related to the previously mentioned environmental knowledge (Kellstedt, Zahran, & Vedlitz, 2008). For instance, Ellen, Wiener, and Cobb-Walgren (1991) indicated that a general attitude of environmental concern is a significant predictor of purchasing environmentally safe products and recycling. Other studies have also confirmed that environmental concern positively affects proenvironmental intentions and behavior (Mostafa, 2006; Pierce, Dalton, & Zaitsev, 1999; Pooley & O’Connor, 2000; Stern, Dietz, & Kalof, 1993). In the tourism industry, it is suggested that female wine tourists possessing stronger environmental attitudes about protecting wine region destinations may be willing to pay for environmentally friendly wines (Barber, Taylor, & Deale, 2010). All of these studies have presented environmental concern as a predictor of an individual’s ecological behavior.

In contrast, other studies have indicated a weak or moderate relationship between environmental attitudes or concern and ecological behavior (Axelrod & Lehman, 1993; Hines, Hungerford, & Tomera, 1986-1987; Smith-Sebasto & Fortner, 1994), with some even reporting the absence of such a relationship (Gamba & Oskamp, 1994; Lansana, 1992; Oskamp et al., 1991). Other empirical studies related to environmental attitudes or concern and environmental performance have produced mixed findings. For instance, Schaper (2002) indicated that there is no relationship between positive personal environmental attitudes and positive environmental performance, whereas Naffziger and Montagno (2003) found that managers with high levels of environmental concern spend more time and resources on environmental initiatives than those with a low level of concern. Based on results of previous studies, we follow the logic of environmental knowledge and propose that environmental concern makes people act in a more environmentally friendly way. E. S. W. Chan and Hawkins (2010) also indicated that nearly all hotel employees interviewed in their study do not mind doing extra green jobs because of the job significance. Kuo (2007) further stated that hotel employees with good attitude generally perform better. Thus, our third hypothesis is as follows.

Hypothesis 3: Hotel employees’ environmental concern is positively related to their ecological behavior.

Ecological Behavior

Ecological behavior is defined as actions that “contribute towards environmental preservation and/or conservation” (Axelrod & Lehman, 1993, p. 153). Energy and water conservation, reusing shopping bags, and recycling used paper are examples of ecological behavior. Employees’ ecological behavior is regarded as one way of obtaining and maintaining a competitive edge in a changing market and the successful implementation of green practices relies on employees’ knowledge, awareness, and concern about environmental programs (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). Therefore, to protect the environment, environmentally friendly employees can perform ecological actions when performing their different job tasks and even when serving customers.

Knowledge is information processed by individuals, including ideas, facts, expertise, and judgments relevant for individual, team, and organizational performance (Bartol & Srivastava, 2002). Environmental knowledge can occur through organizational culture, policy, work description, or face-to-face interactions with others. As employee’s ecological and behavioral processes are time- and effort-consuming, organizational information dissemination is extremely important. When employees receive messages from top management exhibiting implementation of environmental practices is important, their awareness arises and makes them focus on environmental protection. Because of the enhanced awareness, they will likely pay more attention and concern on environmental practices, which in turn exercise ecological behavior more. Hence, environmental knowledge clearly encourages employees by supporting a strong sense of self-awareness and self-concern for green practices in the organization, thus promoting ecological behavior that facilitates the implementation of green programs. In addition, environmental awareness is likely to affect an individual’s self-consciousness as a person interested in protecting the environment, to the extent that he or she may perceive it as a central component of his or her job (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). Employees with environmental awareness exhibit more concern about their environment and are more likely to behave in an environmental friendly way, in both their work and personal lives.

Employees’ environmental concern is probably based on how much information and knowledge about an environment employees receive when performing a certain task (Corral-Verdugo, 1996; Mostafa, 2006). The major focus of the hospitality industry is to deliver quality services and meet customer expectations (Crawford, 2013; Crick & Spencer, 2011; H. H. S. Hu, Kandampully, & Juwaheer, 2009). An employee’s awareness of and concern about being an environmentally friendly employee can be positively influenced by gathering more environmental knowledge from top management, enabling him/her to experience concern about ecological behavior to serve customers (E. S. W. Chan, 2008). That is, because of the important role that an organization plays in providing information and education about green management that make employees aware and concern about their environment, the employees are more likely to perform their green duties in order to protect the environment. Environmentally aware employees exhibit more concern about their ability to mobilize environmental resources and materials and greater motivation to implement green practices in hotels. Hence, when hotel managers provide more information about green practices to employees to equip them with environmental knowledge, it could positively influence environmental concern through their own environmental awareness, positively influencing employees’ ecological behavior through environmental awareness and concern.

To summarize, Hypotheses 1 to 3 demonstrate that environmental awareness plays a mediating role between environmental knowledge and concern, whereas environmental awareness and concern both mediate the relationship between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior (Hypotheses 4 and 5). Accordingly, we propose the following hypotheses.

Hypothesis 4: Environmental awareness mediates the effect of environmental knowledge on environmental concern.

Hypothesis 5: Environmental awareness and concern mediate the effects of environmental knowledge and ecological behavior when implementing green practices.

Methodology

Research Setting

This study used data drawn from employees who work in international tourist hotels in Hong Kong. A questionnaire consisting of 26 statements was used that was translated from English to Chinese and then back-translated to English to ensure the accuracy of translation (Mount & Back, 1999). All of the employee-reported variables were measured using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The instrument was pretested in the hotel setting to prove its measurement reliability and validity. Six hotel professionals highly involved in their hotel environmental programs were invited to comment on draft of the research instrument. Most of them commented that the questionnaire developed is easy to read and understand while some suggested that statements about the ecological behavior should be more specific. Therefore, some wordings used in the statements were changed according to their comments. For instance, the statement, “As the last person to leave a room, I switch off lights” was changed to, “As the last person to leave a room in hotel, I switch off lights.” Another statement, “I have consulted my superiors about an environmental management issue” was also added in the section. The first part of the questionnaire—developed by Kaiser, Wölfing, and Fuhrer (1999)—measured employees’ environmental knowledge (e.g., climate change, species reduction, and the melting of the polar ice caps). The second part—developed by Morgil, Arda, Seçken, Yavuz, and Özyalçin Oskay (2004)—measured employees’ environmental awareness. The third part—developed by Minton and Rose (1997)—measured employees’ environmental concern. The fourth part—developed from previous studies (Dolnicar & Leisch, 2008; Kilbourne & Pickett, 2008; Kaiser, Oerke, & Bogner, 2007)—measured employees’ ecological behavior, specifically implementing green practices (e.g., how often they engaged in particular forms of environmentally friendly behavior). The final part measured employees’ demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, education and company tenure, as these factors may potentially influence employees’ ecological behavior in implementing environmental programs. Therefore, we controlled these demographic characteristics that may generate some confounding effects on employees’ ecological behavior. Controlling the variables is important because it can also control the effect caused by hotels with different star rating.

Participants

We contacted hotel managers and human resource managers to gain access to the target hotel employees in Hong Kong. Eventually, 10 hotels, of which 8 were 4- to 5-star hotels and 2 were 3-star hotels, supported the project and allowed us to send our questionnaire to their employees. We distributed the questionnaire to hotel employees either through human resources department or department heads. As requested by a hotel, we also stationed at the hotel’s staff entrance to distribute the questionnaire. To encourage a high response rate, a return envelope was provided so that respondents could return the completed questionnaire sealed in the envelope to human resource office for our collection. A total of 623 questionnaires were eventually sent to hotel employees and 385 usable responses were obtained, with a response rate of 62% that met the general range for conducting structural equation modeling (SEM; in which the ratio should be 5-10 per case; Bollen, 1989). Hair, Anderson, Tatham, and Black (2002) also indicated that 10:1 (sample to attribute) is desired for most types of multivariate analysis. The sample size for this study exceeded the required 10:1 ratio. About 58% of the participants were female, 41% were between the ages of 20 and 29 years, 36% were between 30 and 49 years old, and the remainder were older than 49 years. Less than half (43%) had a bachelor’s degree or higher level education with a managerial or supervisory-level position (36%). Less than half of the respondents (47%) had worked in their current company for 5 years or more.

Analytical Strategy

The collected data were analyzed using SEM with AMOS 6.0 to test the hypotheses. SEM provides a maximum-likelihood estimation of the entire system in a hypothesized model, which enables the assessment of variables against the data (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1982). In our analysis, we adopted Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) two-step strategy to test the hypothesized model. We first examined the measurement model using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and then performed SEM, based on the measurement model, to estimate the fit of the hypothesized model to the data. Additionally, we reported the chi-squared (χ²) values as an index of absolute fit to gauge how well our model fit the data, along with several fit indices (comparative fit index [CFI], Tucker–Lewis index [TLI], root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA]) that allowed us to compare our proposed model with several alternative models. CFI and TLI values of greater than or equal to 0.90 indicate a good fit (L. T. Hu & Bentler, 1999). The RMSEA is a measure of the average standardized residual per degree of freedom and a value of 0.08 or lower indicates that the model fits the data appropriately (L. T. Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Results

Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations of all the variables. As expected, employees’ environmental knowledge was positively related to their environmental awareness (r = .44, p < .01), environmental concern (r = .37, p < .01), and ecological behavior (r = .26, p < .01). Both environmental awareness (r = .29, p < .01) and concern (r = .46, p < .01) were positively related to ecological behavior, and environmental awareness was positively related to environmental concern (r = .50, p < .01).

Table 1

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Age	27.34	10.63	—
2. Gender	0.56	0.87	.25**	—
3. Education	0.21	0.46	−.07	−.09	—
4. Environmental knowledge	4.22	0.65	.05	.07	.03	(.81)
5. Environmental awareness	3.98	0.72	.10	.03	.09	.44**	(.79)
6. Environmental concern	4.05	0.60	.18*	.02	.07	.37**	.50**	(.82)
7. Ecological behavior	4.37	0.59	−.02	−.03	.05	.26**	.29**	.46**	(.80)

Note: n = 385. Reliabilities are in parentheses.

p < .01.

Measurement Model

To assess the discriminant validity of the constructs in our proposed model, we conducted a CFA on the items covering the four key variables: environmental knowledge, awareness, and concern, and ecological behavior. The results showed the four-factor model to be a good fit, with all of the items loading on their intended constructs (χ² = 488.23, df = 131, p < .01; CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.06). All the factor loadings were significant at the .05 level. Next, we computed a three-factor model that combined the items for the two mediators—environmental awareness and concern—as their correlations are the highest (r = .50, p < .01), with the other variables separate. This three-factor model yielded a poorer fit (χ² = 817.94, df = 136, p < .01; CFI = 0.65, TLI = 0.63, RMSEA = 0.10). Finally, a one-factor model in which all of the items were constrained to load on a single factor yielded a poor fit (χ² = 1065.43, df = 149, p < .01; CFI = 0.41, TLI = 0.29, RMSEA = 0.13). The hypothesized four-factor model was a better fit than the three-factor model (Δχ² = 329.71, Δdf = 5, p < 0.01) or the one-factor model (Δχ² = 577.20, Δdf = 18, p < .01), supporting the distinctiveness of each construct in our model.

Structural Model

The structural modeling results indicated that the hypothesized model (Figure 1) was a good fit to the data (χ² = 488.23, df = 131, p < .01; CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.06). Figure 2 presents the overall structural model with the path coefficients. We then tested the mediating effects of environmental awareness and concern on the relationship between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior. We followed Baron and Kenny’s (1986) suggestion and used a three-step strategy to examine the first condition of mediation with regard to Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. Hypothesis 1 predicted that environmental knowledge is positively related to environmental awareness. The coefficient for this path was positive and significant (β = 0.49, p < .01), consistent with Hypothesis 1. Hypothesis 2 predicted that environmental awareness is positively related to environmental concern. The coefficient for this path was also positive and significant (β = 0.61, p < .01), consistent with Hypothesis 2. Our data were also consistent with Hypothesis 3, which predicted that environmental concern is positively related to ecological behavior (β = 0.40, p < .01).

Figure 2

Hypothesized Model of Hotel Employees’ Ecological Behavior

Mediating Effects

As Table 1 reveals, the correlation coefficients indicated that environmental knowledge was positively and significantly related to ecological behavior (r = .26, p < .01) and environmental concern (r = .37, p < .01), while the latter was positively and significantly related to ecological behavior (r = .46, p < .01). In addition, based on the SEM results in Table 2, the direct effects of environmental knowledge on ecological behavior (standardized direct effect = .21, p < .05) and environmental concern (standardized direct effect = .23, p < .05) were both statistically significant. Finally, the direct effect of environmental concern on ecological behavior (standardized direct effect = .40, p < .01) was also significant. Thus, Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 were supported.

Table 2

Standardized Direct, Indirect, and Total Effects of the Hypothesized Model

			Bootstrapping
	Product of Coefficients		Percentile 99% CI		Bias-Corrected Percentile 99% CI
	SE	Z	Lower	Upper	Lower	Upper	Two-Tailed Significant
Standardized direct effects
Environmental knowledge → ecological behavior	0.08	1.64	−0.19	0.37	−0.19	0.37	.21*
Environmental knowledge → environmental concern	0.07	1.73	−0.10	0.20	−0.10	0.20	.23*
Environmental knowledge → environmental awareness	0.04	7.25	0.33	0.59	0.33	0.59	.49**
Environmental awareness → environmental concern	0.06	8.97	0.53	0.82	0.53	0.82	.61**
Environmental concern → ecological behavior	0.06	3.41	0.36	0.48	0.36	0.48	.40**
Standardized indirect effects
Environmental knowledge → ecological behavior	0.07	5.07	0.17	0.35	0.17	0.35	.28**
Environmental knowledge → environmental concern	0.06	4.32	0.28	0.58	0.28	0.58	.47**
Standardized total effects
Environmental knowledge → ecological behavior	0.07	4.15	0.12	0.24	0.12	0.24	.19*
Environmental knowledge → environmental concern	0.06	7.66	0.37	0.63	0.36	0.62	.39**
Environmental knowledge → environmental awareness	0.05	6.84	0.34	0.47	0.34	0.47	.36**
Environmental awareness → environmental concern	0.05	9.39	0.28	0.45	0.28	0.45	.32**
Environmental concern → ecological behavior	0.06	5.68	0.26	0.41	0.26	0.40	.31**

Note: N = 385. CI = confidence interval.

p < .05. **p < .01.

To test Hypotheses 4 and 5, we measured the second condition of mediation. As Table 1 shows, the correlation coefficients indicated that environmental knowledge was positively and significantly related to environmental awareness (r = .44, p < .01), which was positively related to environmental concern (r = .50, p < .01), and that environmental concern was positively related to ecological behavior (r = .46, p < .01). In addition, the results on the direct effects of environmental knowledge on environmental awareness (standardized direct effect = .49, p < .01), environmental awareness on environmental concern (standardized direct effect = .61, p < .01), and environmental concern on ecological behavior (standardized direct effect = .40, p < .01) were all statistically significant. Therefore, the second condition of mediation in our proposed model was supported.

To investigate the indirect effects of the dependent variable through the mediators, we performed percentile bootstrapping and bias-corrected percentile bootstrapping at a 99% confidence interval (Taylor, MacKinnon, & Tein, 2008). We followed the confidence intervals of the lower and upper bounds to test whether the indirect effects were significant. As Table 2 shows, the results of the bootstrap test confirmed that environmental awareness had a positive and significant mediating effect on the relationship between environmental knowledge and concern (standardized indirect effect = .47, p < .01), and that environmental awareness and concern had a positive and significant mediating effect on the relationship between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior (standardized indirect effect = .28, p < .01). Hypotheses 4 and 5 were thus supported.

Theoretical Implications

This study makes several contributions to the body of knowledge. First, this study has developed and examined a model that integrated the ideas generated by environmental programs with hospitality employees’ environmental knowledge, awareness, concern, and their ecological behavior. In general, previous studies about the relationship between environmental program and employees have mentioned only that the implementation of the program improves the morale and satisfaction of employees (Kirk, 1998; Poksinska et al., 2003; Rondinelli & Vastag, 2000) and provided better understanding of how hotel employees perceive environmental management in hotels (E. S. W. Chan & Hawkins, 2010). Furthermore, although some studies have reviewed the relationships among environmental knowledge, awareness, and concern and ecological behavior (E. S. W. Chan, 2008; E. S. W. Chan & Hawkins, 2010), this is the first study to investigate the direct and indirect effects of environmental knowledge on ecological behavior in a hospitality context. It further extends our understanding of how one’s environmental knowledge influences environmental awareness, environmental concern, and ecological behaviors in hotels. Given that hotels require environmental programs to build and maintain a good reputation in the industry, thereby maintaining profitability, the main contribution of this work is our hypothesized model (Figure 1), which has a strong theoretical foundation and can be used to assess the influences of environmental practices on a number of fundamental ecological behavior outcomes, based on data for the hotel industry in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the results of this empirical study support the conclusions of previous research on environmental programs that green practices are important to hotel managers and can foster the ecological actions of individual employees.

Second, study results show that increases in employee environmental awareness and concern are both related to increases in their ecological behavior in implementing green practices. As predicted, our study findings reveal that strengthening employees’ environmental awareness of ecological behavior can enhance their environmental concern with regard to implementing green practices. Our findings further suggest that if employees have more knowledge on environmental programs, then both their environmental awareness of and concern about the programs with regard to ecological behavior can be enhanced due to this mechanism, especially in the field of hospitality (Mostafa, 2009; Perron et al., 2006). The findings are different from some previous studies on consumer views on hotel and restaurant green practices, such as H. H. Hu et al. (2010) investigating consumers’ knowledge of a restaurant’s green practices, environmental concern, and ecological behavior and their intention to patronize a “green” restaurant from which the scholars concluded that consumers’ knowledge of green restaurant practices and environmental concern were the important determinants of consumers’ intentions to patronize green restaurants, and the study by Lee, Hsu, Han, and Kim (2010), stating that a green hotel’s overall image could contribute to more favorable behavioral intentions of hotel consumers. Our study further presented the relationships among environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, environmental concern, and ecological behavior. Notwithstanding this, the relationship between ecological behavior and intentions to implement green practices will require further in-depth investigation.

Third, this study provides a comprehensive overview of how hotel employees’ environmental knowledge leads to their ecological behavior. This is one of the first studies to examine the mediating roles of both environmental awareness and concern in the relationship between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior in the hotel industry. Our results are partly consistent with previous studies (e.g., E. S. W. Chan, 2008; Mostafa, 2009) that suggest that individuals’ beliefs in their environments are associated with ecological outcomes and the strength of their environmental concern as eco-friendly professionals—that is, both influence the causal chain mechanism between environmental knowledge and employees’ ecological behavior. In the hotel sector, the two variables are shown through testing to mediate the relationship between hotel employees’ environmental knowledge and their ecological behavior, despite the mixed results generated by other studies (Kotchen & Reiling, 2000; Mostafa, 2009; Perron et al., 2006). We provide important evidence of the role that environmental awareness and concern play in fostering hotel employees’ ecological behavior in implementing green practices in hotels in the sample (385 respondents) used in this study.

More important, the study findings contribute to the literature by treating employees’ environmental awareness and concern as mediators that connect environmental knowledge, ecological behavior, and green practices in the hotel industry.

Practical Implications

In addition to theoretical implications, the study findings also offer several practical implications. The successful implementation of environmental programs begins with environmental knowledge, understanding, and information released from top management to lower-level employees. It is therefore important for managers to learn more about any relationships that may exist between environmental knowledge and employee ecological actions. Understanding which environmental determinants affect hotel employees’ behavior in implementing green practices is critical to the successful implementation of hotel environmental programs. We suggest that hotel organizations should make more effort to train their managers and encourage them to improve their communication skills and interpersonal relationships with their employees. Regular communication via departmental daily briefings and annual staff meetings for exchange of latest environmental information and environmental performance of the company can be arranged. Managers should be better able to detect the direct and indirect influences of employees’ environmental knowledge in the attitudinal processes that relate to employees’ ecological behavior. Because the hotel industry is labor intensive, greater employee awareness and concern about organizations’ environmental programs can not only improve employees’ involvement but also promote organizations’ environmental friendly images and reputations, which lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty.

In addition, the hotel industry faces increased competition, and environmentally friendly employees who exhibit awareness and concern are valuable assets worth nurturing and retaining. Employees’ environmental knowledge can be boosted through education and employee training, which have been identified as priority concerns and critical success factors in the hotel industry (Jauhari, 2006). Hotel managers who want to improve their hotel’s environmental performance could consider arranging more environmental training for employees. Providing hotel employees with environmental training from which better environmental knowledge and awareness can be cultivated is of utmost importance in making a hotel environmental program or EMS a success.

In terms of the content of environmental training, rather than just teaching hotel employees the required skills to improve the company’s desired environmental performance, hotel management should focus on topics that raise employees’ environmental awareness. For instance, information about the causes and outcomes of the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer, the effects of air pollution on human health, the effects of water pollution on marine life, and the effects of travel-generated emissions could be shared in a series of training sessions. Hotel employees should also be made aware of the environmental problems caused by the industry, such as food waste in hotels and the carbon footprint of travelers. Employees can be made aware of the ways in which they can contribute to environmental protection and the programs developed by their employer. Previous studies have indicated that requiring employees to be aware of natural systems, their functioning and their effect on business performance is an effective strategy for improved environmental performance (Cohen-Rosenthal, 2000). Hotel managers are suggested to provide environmental training continually and regularly, as E. S. W. Chan and Hawkins (2010) found that the opportunities to learn environmental knowledge are considered a job benefit. In addition, some environmental activities such as tree planting day and supporting 60+ Earth Hour organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) can be organized to enhance employees’ environmental awareness and concern.

We suggest that environmental knowledge and awareness training should be provided to all levels of hotel employees, motivating (a) senior hotel executives to employ different environmental strategies such as introducing formal EMSs or implementing green marketing campaigns to help protect our planet, (b) supervisory staff to closely monitor daily environmental activities with the goal of ensuring better environmental performance, and (c) rank-and-file staff to eagerly implement the required environmental practices despite the additional workload involved. As soon as employees’ environmental awareness is “developed,” hotel management can take things a step further and encourage employees to consider what they can do to help reduce the effects of environmental problems by organizing different discussion sessions during training. A suggestion box only for possible green practices in hotels can be placed outside human resources office to encourage hotel employees to put forward their green ideas. This approach will increase hotel employees’ environmental concern, eventually affecting their ecological behavior.

Finally, hotel companies may further consider offering monetary and nonmonetary incentives to those employees or teams in departments who implement green practices that result in noticeable cost savings. Monetary incentives can be sharing a percentage of the cost saved or small gift coupons and nonmonetary incentives can be acknowledging each individual’s efforts or teams’ related to environmental management practices. Such acknowledgments can be practiced during meetings and company publications. Certificates and trophies may also be given to individuals and teams who complete environmental training programs and have good environmental performance.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

This study has several limitations that suggest directions for future research. One limitation is that the cross-sectional nature of the study renders any comments concerning causality speculative. It is possible that the relationships flowing from environmental knowledge to awareness or from environmental awareness to concern are more valid than those flowing in the opposite direction. We suggest a longitudinal study or experimental design incorporating environmental knowledge, awareness, concern, and ecological behavior to disentangle the relationships concerned. Although we used SEM to simultaneously examine our hypothesized model, the results still need to be interpreted cautiously. We suggest that similar research using a longitudinal or multiwave design is needed to evaluate our claims of the hypothesized relationships. Future research can also do more analysis with various types of hotel employees to investigate if demographic factors, such as gender, age, and education level will influence hotel employee’s ecological behavior to implement green practices, as research found that female customers and people with higher education were more conscious regarding green practices (DiPietro et al., 2013).

A second limitation is that most of our data were collected from employees’ self-reports, raising the possibility of self-serving bias (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). However, because the variables examined in this study (i.e., environmental awareness and concern) revealed individuals’ perceptual and psychological states, it is proposed that there is a sound theoretical basis for collecting these data from the employees themselves (Bandura & Cervone, 1983). Most important, the results of the four-factor measurement model reveal better fit indices than the three- and one-factor models, whereas the differences in the χ² between the models were significant (all p < .01), providing evidence that this may have lowered the potential effects of self-serving bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003).

Finally, our proposed model was derived from ideas developed in a Western context, yet this study was conducted in hotels located exclusively in Hong Kong. This leaves a question as to whether the findings from this study can be applied in other cultural settings, such as across China and in other Asian cities. Although previous studies have shown support for the relationships between environmental systems and the intention to implement green practices across cultures (E. S. W. Chan, 2008; E. S. W. Chan & Hawkins, 2010; E. S. W. Chan & Wong, 2006), there have been no previous studies using environmental awareness and concern as mediators in an Asian city, such as Hong Kong. Therefore, our results should be applied to other cultural settings, but with caution, and future work should replicate our findings in other countries to prove their validity.

Conclusions

This study aimed to investigate the relationships among environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, environmental concern, and employee ecological behavior in implementing green practices across the hotel industry. Based on the study findings and discussions provided above, several conclusions can be proposed. First, this study extends previous research by investigating the role of hotel employees’ environmental knowledge on their ecological behavior in implementing green practices, identifying in the process several interesting areas for future research. Second, this study results provide critical insights into the process by which hotel employees’ environmental knowledge influences their ecological behavior through increases in environmental awareness and concern. Specifically, hotel employees’ environmental awareness and concern, often led by environmental knowledge, are significant factors in predicting hotel employees’ ecological behavior in implementing green practices. The results indicate that the environmental performance of hotel employees is closely related to green management factors, which are rarely discussed in the literature, suggesting that selecting people with good environmental knowledge and providing continuous environmental training to hotel staff might improve a hotel’s environmental performance and image. This also helps reconfirm that providing environmental training in hotels to equip employees with up-to-date environmental knowledge and raise their environmental awareness and concern is a worthwhile effort, despite the inevitable additional resources needed.

Finally, this study extends our understanding of how environmental knowledge influences ecological behavior. Much of the existing research has produced mixed or inconsistent results on the relationship between environmental knowledge and behavior (K. Chan, 1999; Dispoto, 1977; Geller, 1981; Ibrahim, Aliagha, & Khoo, 1999; Schahn & Holzer, 1990). Our study findings show that hotel employees are likely to implement green practices in hotels if their environmental knowledge (which is positively associated with their environmental awareness and concern) is enriched, thereby improving their ecological behavior. By offering clear theoretical and practical implications, it is hoped that this study stimulates further research into this important research area in the hospitality field.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note:

This research project (A-PK66) was funded by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Eric S. W. Chan, PhD (e-mail: eric.sw.chan@polyu.edu.hk) is an assistant professor in the School of Hotel & Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR. Alice H. Y. Hon, PhD (e-mail: alice.hon@polyu.edu.hk), is an assistant professor in the School of Hotel & Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR. Fevzi Okumus, PhD (e-mail: fokumus@ucf.edu), is a professor in the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Wilco Chan, PhD (wilco.chan@polyu.edu.hk), is an associate professor in the School of Hotel & Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR.

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