When and why job-insecure flight attendants are reluctant to behave pro-environmentally

Abstract

As firms consider environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in establishing a corporate strategy and allocating capital investment, environmental sustainability is deemed increasingly important in the travel and tourism sector. In line with this trend, we aim to identify the work stressors that affect employees' pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that employees' perception of job insecurity serves as a major job stressor hindering task-related and proactive PEB. We further predict that interpersonal stressors exacerbate the negative effect of job insecurity on PEB through decreased work engagement. To test these propositions, we administer two-wave surveys three months apart to 222 South Korean flight attendants. While we observed no direct relationship between job insecurity and task-related and proactive PEB, job insecurity had a significant indirect effect on these two forms of PEB through work engagement. The deleterious effects of job insecurity on work engagement and the two forms of PEB were aggravated when flight attendants reported high levels of supervisor incivility.