How Green is my Firm? Workers' Attitudes towards Job, Job Involvement and Effort in Environmentally-Related Firms

The implementation of environmental standards can be facilitated by motivating workers with pro-social preferences. Therefore, we study if employees working for firms achieving registration for environmental-related standards are more likely to display positive attitudes toward their job, to be actively involved in their jobs and to donate effort. Using a French matched employer-employee database, we find that these "green employees" report a significantly higher feeling of usefulness and equitable recognition at work. Besides, they are more likely to work uncompensated overtime hours. Finally, if the adoption of environmental standards is shown to have no direct influence on job involvement, we expose how it indirectly impacts job involvement through the mediation of employees' feeling of usefulness and equitable recognition at work.