United for and by the environment: toward a reassessment of the role of co-workers as part of an integrated multisource model of perceived support for environmental initiatives

Previous research has shown the influence of perceived organizational and supervisor support for environmental initiatives (environmental support) on employees' organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (environmental citizenship behavior). Extending this construct to co-workers, the present research aims to understand how these three sources of perceived support for environmental initiatives combine into united action. Drawing on a target similarity framework and research on corporate social responsibility programs, we examine the mediating role of employees' affective commitment to organization, supervisor and co-workers in the above relationships. The results indicate that organizational environmental support, supervisor environmental support and co-worker environmental support each have a distinct and complementary effect on environmental citizenship behavior; that employee commitment to the source of environmental support mediates this effect; and that organizational commitment mediates the effect of commitment to supervisor and co-workers on environmental citizenship behavior. We discuss the implications of these findings for the development of uniting and united action for the environment involving all actors and groups within the organization.