IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v233y2023ics0165176523004287.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental sustainability and employee satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Jing, Chenxing
  • Keasey, Kevin
  • Xu, Bin

Abstract

Given the increasing emphasis on environmental sustainability, we investigate whether firm pollution drives employee satisfaction and find that satisfaction is substantially lower in more polluting firms. We also show that more educated employees, employees aged between 30 and 40, and management employees are less satisfied when their firms pollute. Additionally, employees in heavy-polluting firms are less satisfied with their senior leadership, and are less likely to recommend their firms to their friends. Overall, employees care about environmental sustainability and reducing pollution seems essential to increasing employee satisfaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Jing, Chenxing & Keasey, Kevin & Xu, Bin, 2023. "Environmental sustainability and employee satisfaction," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:233:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523004287
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176523004287
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111402?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sudheer Chava, 2014. "Environmental Externalities and Cost of Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(9), pages 2223-2247, September.
    2. Janet Currie & Lucas Davis & Michael Greenstone & Reed Walker, 2015. "Environmental Health Risks and Housing Values: Evidence from 1,600 Toxic Plant Openings and Closings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 678-709, February.
    3. Jing, Chenxing & Keasey, Kevin & Lim, Ivan & Xu, Bin, 2019. "Financial constraints and employee satisfaction," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Meyer, Andrew, 2015. "Does education increase pro-environmental behavior? Evidence from Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 108-121.
    5. Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Zigan Wang, 2018. "Pollution and Human Capital Migration: Evidence from Corporate Executives," NBER Working Papers 24389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Singhapakdi, Anusorn & Lee, Dong-Jin & Sirgy, M. Joseph & Senasu, Kalayanee, 2015. "The impact of incongruity between an organization's CSR orientation and its employees' CSR orientation on employees' quality of work life," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 60-66.
    7. Jiang, Liangliang & Lin, Chen & Lin, Ping, 2014. "The determinants of pollution levels: Firm-level evidence from Chinese manufacturing," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 118-142.
    8. Jha, Anand & Cox, James, 2015. "Corporate social responsibility and social capital," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 252-270.
    9. Kim, Jonghwan (Simon) & Ra, Kyeongheum, 2022. "Employee satisfaction and asymmetric cost behavior: Evidence from Glassdoor," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    10. Qiping Xu & Taehyun Kim, 2022. "Financial Constraints and Corporate Environmental Policies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 576-635.
    11. Huang, Minjie & Li, Pingshu & Meschke, Felix & Guthrie, James P., 2015. "Family firms, employee satisfaction, and corporate performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 108-127.
    12. Di Giuli, Alberta & Kostovetsky, Leonard, 2014. "Are red or blue companies more likely to go green? Politics and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 158-180.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Po‐Hsuan Hsu & Kai Li & Chi‐Yang Tsou, 2023. "The Pollution Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1343-1392, June.
    2. Li, Lidan & Han, Jie & Mo, Shenwei & Yang, Yupeng, 2024. "Tackling competition by reducing emissions: Private firms’ polluting behavior under peer IPOs," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 232-249.
    3. Gillan, Stuart L. & Koch, Andrew & Starks, Laura T., 2021. "Firms and social responsibility: A review of ESG and CSR research in corporate finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Ma, Yechi & Ding, Yibing & Wang, Zilong & Zhang, Wenjing, 2023. "Building trust after pollution emergency: A strategic perspective on corporate social responsibility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    5. Qian, Shuitu & Yu, Wenzhe, 2024. "Green finance and environmental, social, and governance performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 1185-1202.
    6. Faria, João Ricardo & Tindall, Greg & Terjesen, Siri, 2022. "The Green Tobin's q: theory and evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    7. Erhemjamts, Otgontsetseg & Huang, Kershen & Tehranian, Hassan, 2024. "Climate risk, ESG performance, and ESG sentiment in US commercial banks," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    8. Xiangjun Hong & Xian Lin & Laitan Fang & Yuchen Gao & Ruipeng Li, 2022. "Application of Machine Learning Models for Predictions on Cross-Border Merger and Acquisition Decisions with ESG Characteristics from an Ecosystem and Sustainable Development Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-27, February.
    9. Mauro, Luciano & Pigliaru, Francesco & Carmeci, Gaetano, 2018. "Decentralization and growth: Do informal institutions and rule of law matter?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 873-902.
    10. Krüger, Philipp, 2015. "Corporate goodness and shareholder wealth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 304-329.
    11. Chahine, Salim & Fang, Yiwei & Hasan, Iftekhar & Mazboudi, Mohamad, 2019. "Entrenchment through corporate social responsibility: Evidence from CEO network centrality," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    12. Mona Yaghoubi & Reza Yaghoubi, 2024. "The Ups and Downs of Oil Prices: Asymmetric Impacts of Oil Price Volatility on Corporate Environmental Responsibility," Working Papers in Economics 24/11, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    13. Hans B. Christensen & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2021. "Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 1176-1248, September.
    14. Ucar, Erdem & Staer, Arsenio, 2020. "Local corruption and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 266-282.
    15. Goetz, Martin, 2019. "Financing conditions and toxic emissions," SAFE Working Paper Series 254, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    16. Liu, Xianda & Hou, Wenxuan & Main, Brian G.M., 2022. "Anti-market sentiment and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from anti-Jewish pogroms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    17. Leyuan You, 2024. "The Impact of Social Norms of Responsibility on Corporate Social Responsibility Short Title: The Impact of Social Norms of Responsibility on Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(2), pages 309-326, March.
    18. Jha, Anand & Boudreaux, Christopher J. & Banerjee, Vasabjit, 2018. "Political leanings and social capital," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 95-105.
    19. Shima Amini & Sofia Johan & Eilnaz Kashefi Pour & Abdulkadir Mohamed, 2023. "Employee Welfare, Social Capital, and IPO Firm Survival," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(6), pages 2174-2204, November.
    20. Kim, Jonghwan (Simon) & Ra, Kyeongheum, 2022. "Employee satisfaction and asymmetric cost behavior: Evidence from Glassdoor," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainability; Pollution; Employee satisfaction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:233:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523004287. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.