The Interaction between Personal and Company Environmental Values and Their Influence on Pro-Environmental Behaviours in Hospitality Sector Workplace: A Case Study of An International Hotel Company

Most international hotel companies have adopted initiatives to reduce their impacts on the environment. When seeking to deliver against these, most depend on a combination of resource reduction technologies and initiatives designed to change employee behaviours. For many, the latter is particularly challenging and thus there is a growing interest in pro-environmental behaviours. Thus, this has become an increasingly important topic for academics and practitioners in the hospitality sector. Over recent years, theoretical pro-environmental behaviour models have been tested in domestic, public and workplace settings, although in practice few of these have focused on hospitality workplaces. The limited focus on pro-environmental behaviour in hospitality workplace settings means that many areas of application of pro-environmental behaviour remain under-researched; in particular, the role of values (for example, personal environmental values in the personal sphere, and company environmental values in the corporate sphere) and their influence on pro-environmental behaviours. Furthermore, none of the current models that have been tested in hospitality sector workplaces incorporated real-life working environments where the actual behaviours of employees are accounted for. Thus, there is a need for existing pro-environmental behaviour models to be adapted for application in real hospitality workplaces. This study evaluated the interaction between personal and company environmental values, and their influence on the pro-environmental behaviours of employees in the environment of an international hotel company. It also explored a framework that supports the adaptation of the current pro-environmental behaviour framework that is applicable for real-world hospitality workplaces and makes practical recommendations on how to engage employees in positive pro-environmental behaviours. In particular, the study investigated levels of employee engagement in energy efficiency via investigating the communication of environmental initiatives in the real working environment of an international hospitality business. Sources of evidence used in this case study research were forty-five semi-structured interviews with hotel managers and operational employees, a mix of non-participant and participant observations, documentation, and a short survey questionnaire, all conducted at two five-star hotels (one in the UK and one in Vietnam). The primary data revealed that the interplay between personal and company environmental values influenced pro-environmental behaviours of the employees to some extent. It highlighted the significance of work-related influencers such as different types of actors, non-linear environmental communication, informal work practices, workload pressures, and environmental visibility that explained the contexts of the engagement of these employees in positive pro-environmental behaviours in a hospitality workplace. The study also stressed the impact of the less visible signals of energy consumption behaviours - in comparison to other sustainable behaviours such as food waste and recycling - on the positive pro-environmental behaviour of the individual employees. The study creates new knowledge in the area of employees’ engagement in pro-environmental behaviour in hospitality workplace settings by providing in-depth knowledge of the interplay between personal and company environmental values of the individual employees. They are integral parts of the positive pro-environmental behaviour framework in the hospitality sector workplace. The findings of this investigation also produce new insights in the existing value-action gaps and new emerging works factors such as types of actors, informal work practices and pressure of workload (or productivity). Finally, the study provides managerial implications and practical recommendations for the hotel managers and green practitioners to improve the employee engagement in positive pro-environmental behaviour. Key words: pro-environmental behaviours, employee engagement, personal environmental values, company environmental values, international hospitality workplace, pressure of workload, informal work practices, environmental communication, energy efficiency behaviour