Does environmental concern fail to predict energy-saving behavior? A study on the office energy-saving behavior of employees of Chinese Internet companies

While environmental concern is generally viewed as a straightforward precursor to pro-environmental behavior (PEB), empirical research supporting this association has been mixed at best. The energy-saving behavior of employees in the workplace contributes to the reduction of air pollution and carbon emissions, and there is basically no need to consider individual utilitarian factors in PEB-related research. Therefore, this study investigates the direct and indirect effects of environmental concerns on employees’ behavioral intentions to save energy in the offices of Chinese Internet companies to better understand the inconsistent results found for environmental concern and PEB. A study of a sample of 364 employees in three Chinese developed cities shows that perceived behavioral control has the greatest direct impact on employees’ energy-saving behavior in offices, followed by energy-saving attitudes, personal moral norm and subjective descriptive norms. The direct effects of environmental concern and subjective injunctive norms on behavioral intentions to save energy were found to be small. However, environmental concern, as an antecedent variable to the above elements, can have a significant impact on employees’ office energy-saving behaviors through the mediating role of these elements, thus rendering employees’ environmental concern deserving of more attention. This study enhances understanding of employees’ energy-saving behaviors in the workplace and provides several insights for researchers and practitioners.