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Influences on Student Intention and Behavior Toward Environmental Sustainability

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Abstract

As organizations place greater emphasis on environmental objectives, business educators must produce the next set of leaders who can champion corporate environmental sustainability initiatives. However, environmental sustainability represents a polarizing topic with some students dismissing its importance and legitimacy. Limited research exists to understand student behavioral influences on sustainability education, especially as it translates to environmental sustainability behavior in the workplace. This gap challenges our ability as educators to understand how to best teach environmental sustainability in order to reach diverse student mindsets. We apply the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to address this gap, investigating the influence of student attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on environmental sustainability intention and behavior. A structural model tested with student survey data finds that student attitude represents the strongest influence on environmental sustainability intention. The model also validates that subjective norm affects sustainability intention with students considering professors along with business leaders and politicians as valid references for sustainability knowledge. To tie the results to effective educational interventions, we use the TPB to organize an extensive review of the sustainability pedagogy literature and identify specific teaching recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of environmental sustainability education.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 5.

Table 5 Survey scales, Vignette

Appendix 2: Vignette

This survey involves a brief case study with follow-up questions and should only take about 5 minutes or less of your time. Your responses will be confidential, and your professor will NOT be able to link your responses directly to you.

You are currently an intern for Timeglo Inc., working from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, 5 days a week.

Over the past few months, Timeglo’s CEO has emphasized the importance of implementing environmental sustainability objectives throughout the company. Your manager has also briefly expressed support for environmental projects. However, you have noticed that recent environmental projects have been ignored with minimal consequences.

A Timeglo technician recently sent out an e-mail requesting all employees to recycle waste containing X356 materials to help achieve a reduction in Timeglo’s environmental impact.

You manage X356 for your department and currently dispose of X356 waste in the dumpster near your office. To comply with the recycling request, you would need to maintain a log of all disposed X356 and also package it for pick-up twice a week. You estimate that this will likely add between 30 and 60 min to each work day, requiring you to stay until 6:30 pm or 7:00 pm. Since you are on salary, you would not be paid for this extra work.

Your manager has empowered you to make these types of decisions. What will you do?

Scale

Survey item

Mean

Behaviora

B1

Comply with the e-mail and recycle X356 for my department.

5.70***

B2

Ignore the e-mail request because it did not come from someone with authority.

5.57***

B3

Recycle X356 even if I have to work more than my current 8:00 am to 6:00 pm work day.

5.24***

B4

Ignore the request until I am forced to recycle X356.

5.72***

  1. *** Significant difference from the scale media (4), *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05 (one-tailed test)
  2. aScale is 1 = strongly disagree, 4 = neither agree not disagree (median), 7 = strongly agree

Appendix 3

See Table 6.

Table 6 Pedagogical environmental sustainability literature

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Swaim, J.A., Maloni, M.J., Napshin, S.A. et al. Influences on Student Intention and Behavior Toward Environmental Sustainability. J Bus Ethics 124, 465–484 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1883-z

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