Employee ecological behavior among academicians at the workplace

Purpose Successfully fostering employee ecological behaviors can reduce the environmental impacts of an organization while boosting performance. This paper aims to investigate the factors and organizational strategies for employees to engage in ecological behaviors. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a qualitative method. Academicians from four top-ranked research universities from Malaysia participated in semi-structured interviews. Findings The in-depth analysis of the interviews identified several factors (environmental attitude, feedback, green self-efficacy, leadership role, organizational culture and employee empowerment) and strategies (incentives; top management support; creating environmental knowledge and awareness; rules and regulations; and sustainability advocates) for promoting ecological behavior in the workplace. Research limitations/implications This study was limited to Malaysian public research universities. Future research could investigate additional variables that might influence employee ecological behavior. Implications include policymaking, which emphasizes boosting environmental factors among academicians. Originality/value Research studies on employee ecological behavior are minimal. This research contributes to the literature by discussing how different stimuli and strategies are used in the top four-ranked green universities of Malaysia for ecological behavior in the workplace.