Sustainable Production and Consumption 19 (2019) 25–32

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Sustainable Production and Consumption

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc

Research article

Transmission of pro-environmental norms in large organizations

∗
Tony Craig a , , Gary Polhill b , Kathryn Colley a , Giuseppe Carrus c , Fridanna Maricchiolo c ,
Marino Bonaiuto d , Mirilia Bonnes d , Adina Dumitru e , Ricardo Garcia Mira e
a
Social Economic and Geographical Sciences, The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
b
Information and Computational Sciences, The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
c
Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Dipartimento di Scienze della Formazione, Italy
d
Sapienza Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Psicologia dei Processi di Sviluppo e Socializzazione & CIRPA — Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca
inPsicologia Ambientale, Italy
e
University of A Coruna, Department of Psychology, Spain

article info

Article history:
Received 2 October 2018
Received in revised form 21 February 2019
Accepted 21 February 2019
Available online 6 March 2019

1. Introduction to our understanding of the factors motivating pro-environmental

Large organizations have a very important role to play in
the collective effort to transition to a more sustainable future
Although at a technical and inter-firm corporate level large or-
ganizations have been the focus of much attention in the en-
vironmental and organizational literature (Aguilera-Caracuel and
Ortiz-de Mandojana, 2013), less attention to date has been given
to the intra-corporate organizational level. Much less research
has focused on the environmental performance of organizations
in terms of their attempts to directly encourage employee pro-
environmental behavior or promote a context in which employ-
ees are encouraged to come up with initiatives and ideas to
change organizational practices, processes or products (Dumitru,
2015; Dumitru et al., 2016). This has been in spite of evidence
that good levels of pro-environmental performance associated
with an organization may make it more attractive to competent
prospective employees (Greening and Turban, 2000; Grolleau
et al., 2012; Turban and Greening, 1997) and also that labor
productivity might be higher, as it has been suggested that in-
dividuals who choose to work for ‘‘greener firms’’ might work
harder (Delmas and Pekovic, 2013). This is particularly important
in view of understanding pro-environmental behavior of individ-
ual employees and how these relate to pro-environmental norms
and prescriptions in the organization (Lülfs and Hahn, 2014).
While there is a growing literature in the field of environmen-
tal psychology (e.g. Bamberg et al., 2007; Steg and Vlek, 2009;
Jugert et al., 2016; Varotto and Spagnolli, 2017) that contributes
∗ Correspondence to: Social Economic and Geographical Sciences, The James
Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, AB15 8QH, Scotland, UK.
E-mail address: tony.craig@hutton.ac.uk (T. Craig).
behavior, in the private sphere (Lülfs and Hahn, 2014; Ones and
Dilchert, 2012), to date less research is available on individ-
ual pro-environmental behavior in the context of the workplace
(Robertson and Barling, 2013). Individual employee behaviors,
however, are of central importance regarding an organization’s
ability to implement workplace sustainability policies. One line
of research that explicitly considers the link between individual
employee action and organizational functioning is of the study
of ‘organizational citizenship behavior’ (OCB) – a form of helping
behavior specifically related to the organizational setting (Paillé
and Boiral, 2013). Indeed, Paillé and Boiral (2013) expand the
idea of OCB to include environmental considerations — they
call this construct ‘organizational citizenship behavior for the
environment’ (OCBE), which they found to relate positively to
organizational commitment and indirectly to job satisfaction.
Although the volume of research into management engage-
ment with sustainability values is still quite limited (Williams
and Schaefer, 2013), there has been a considerable amount of
research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that
has examined the relationship between management and the
translation of corporate responsibility into organizational practice
(Battisti and Perry, 2011). The personal values and beliefs held
by senior managers about sustainability issues has been found
to be a key motivator for pro-environmental engagement at the
level of the organization (Williams and Schaefer, 2013). However,
Andersson et al. (2005) point out that it is insufficient for senior
management in an organization to simply espouse the value
of sustainability. Unless a particular value is already shared in
society, or beyond the bounds of the organization, there are likely
to be several informal or formal processes whereby any values of
top management are passed down the hierarchy to workers. Re-
garding this idea of the ‘‘passing down’’ of values, it is important

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2019.02.010
2352-5509/© 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
26 T. Craig, G. Polhill, K. Colley et al. / Sustainable Production and Consumption 19 (2019) 25–32
to note the important role that supervisors, middle managers and
peers play in this process. As Andersson et al. (2005) note: ‘‘If top
management espouses values of sustainability, it is imperative
that supervisors internalize these values and behave in ways
that encourage sustainability behaviors among their employees’’
(p.296). The process of internalizing such organizational values
and encouraging others to behave in a manner consistent with
these values involves people not only developing personal norms
for behavior, but also a number of social-organizational processes
including organizational identification and norm transmission.
1.1. Identification with the organization
Organizations serve as a useful guide in structuring the groups
with which a person is likely to come into regular contact with.
Indeed, organizations make salient not only which group a person
might identify as their group or team, but importantly also who
they are ‘not’. On this matter, Hornsey (2008) reminds us that
an important aspect of social identity theory is to suggest that
the ‘‘mere process of making salient ‘us and them’ distinctions
changes the way people see each other’’. Organizational struc-
tures play a large role in making salient such ‘us and them’
distinctions. However, in an organizational setting, groups are
often nested (e.g. a team, within a department within an organi-
zation), so it is important that any study comparing psychological
processes associated with a particular group ensures that the
level of specificity in terms of the group is as comparable as
possible. In other words, it would not be particularly useful to
compare one person’s identification with a particular work-role
to another person’s identification with a large organization.
The social identity perspective suggests that people use exist-
ing social groups as a means of situating oneself in a particular
category based on certain characteristics (Hornsey, 2008; Tajfel
and Turner, 1986). Being in one group often means logically
not being in an alternative group, but in many cases people
identify with various different social categories, which can often
be nested. For example, a person who works in a particular
organization as a team supervisor may identify with the whole
organization, or at the level of their role within the organization.
According to the social identity perspective, the extent to which a
particular social category is psychologically accessible is consid-
ered to be strongly related to self-compatibility, relative saliency
and frequency of activation (Hornsey, 2008; Loi et al., 2014).
Ashforth et al. (2008) point out an important distinction be-
tween situated and deep (organizational) identification. Situated
identification in the context of an organization would be sim-
ply to consider yourself to be a member of that organization.
Organizational identification however is thought to be a deeper
form of identification described as ‘‘the extent to which one
includes the organization in his/her self-concept’’ (Ashforth et al.,
2008, p. 332). Research has found that high levels of organiza-
tional identification are associated with job satisfaction (Loi et al.,
2014), organizational commitment (Edwards, 2005), existence of
a positive mentor (Mael and Ashforth, 1992) and engagement in
behavior that serves the interests of the organization as a whole
(Dutton et al., 1994).
In terms of social identity, the emotional investment in a
particular group relationship is of key importance here (Seger
et al., 2009). Not only are people who identify with a superordi-
nate group category (which is the case when people score highly
on organizational identification) likely to be more satisfied and
committed at the individual level, they are also likely to trust
other people in that group to a greater extent (e.g. Tyler, 2001;
Tyler and Blader, 2003). Trust is important for a variety of socially
relevant behaviors related to cooperation (Walker et al., 2010)
and constructive interactions (Kadefors, 2004).
Edwards (2005) conceptualizes organizational identification
as a component of organizational commitment, the latter of
which also includes not only the incorporation of the organization
into the self-concept but also the attitudinal outcomes (such
as loyalty, pride, and involvement) that arise as an expression
of this identification. However, a meta-analysis of published
findings indicated that work behaviors are more accurately pre-
dicted by measures of organizational identification than orga-
nizational commitment or affective organizational commitment
(Riketta, 2005). In addition to the ‘nestedness’ of identity, social
identification in the organizational context may also take the
form of ‘cross-cutting identities’ associated with cross-functional
teams, local union branches or friendship groups, as well as
identification with an occupation or profession, transcending the
boundaries of the organization itself (Ashforth et al., 2008).
1.2. Norms and norm transmission
While the process of identification is important, insofar as it
leads to a more coherent set of psychological structures for a
person, such an account does not necessarily lead to the per-
formance of particular behaviors. The likelihood of acting in a
particular way depends not only on categorical identification
at a given level, but also on the accessibility of certain norms,
which serve as useful guides to everyday behavior. Although self-
expectations or personal norms (Schwartz, 1992) are one source
of such information, Cialdini and Trost (1998) note that ‘‘one of
the most important characteristics of norms is that they do not
exist if they are not shared with others’’ (p.153).
Two key types of norms have a large influence on behavior,
as extensive research in social psychology has shown. Injunctive
norms are essentially the perception of what a person feel that
they ought to do, and can be thought of as a mental internal-
ization of what are considered to be moral standards within a
given domain. Descriptive norms on the other hand are distin-
guished from such internalized norms by being inferred from the
conduct of others (Cialdini et al., 1990; Schultz et al., 2007). By
observing what most people within a given milieu do, a standard
for appropriate conduct can be inferred by an individual. This
inferred standard is what is referred to here as a descriptive social
norm. An important aspect of normative influence that needs
to be taken into consideration is the socio-physical situation in
which behavior occurs (Cialdini and Trost, 1998). Norms that are
‘place-based’, that is connected to the immediate socio-physical
environment of a person’s daily life, can be conceptualized as ‘lo-
cal norms’ (Carrus et al., 2009; Fornara et al., 2011). This reminds
us that the idea of normative influence needs to be considered in
the specific situation under investigation. In the case of an orga-
nizational setting, the scale of investigation from this perspective
is therefore the immediate situation that a person encounters
within the organization. In order to observe the existence of a
norm, there needs to be a physical and social situation in which
it is viewed. In the case of workplaces, this ‘situation’ is likely
to be concentrated on the physical and social connections with
which a member of staff is routinely engaged.
Notwithstanding the contribution of injunctive and descriptive
norms to individual action and decision making, the intragroup
dynamics of any given norm are key to understanding this type
of phenomenon. In order for social norms to have any level of
influence on the behavior or action of others, there needs to be
some kind of intentional or implicit communication (i.e. transmis-
sion) from one person to another. This ‘norm transmission’ is an
essential component of theories about social normative influence.
However, in many cases the communicative aspects of norm
transmission in the social identity literature are left implied or
assumed. Indeed, Hogg and Reid (2006) note that social identity
 T. Craig, G. Polhill, K. Colley et al. / Sustainable Production and Consumption 19 (2019) 25–32
researchers have hardly considered the intentional communi-
cation aspect of norms in their work to date, and that more
research is needed to better understand the intra-group aspects of
norm dynamics. In general, norm transmission can be considered
as something relatively passive (where a norm is inferred from
what other people do or say indirectly (Hogg and Reid, 2006), or
alternatively it can be deliberate and intentional (where a person
actively attempts to persuade others to do something (Cialdini
and Trost, 1998).
In relation to organizational identification, we hypothesize
that the level of identification will be positively associated with
people actively transmitting norms compatible with the portfolio
of cognitions and beliefs understood to be within the organiza-
tional identity. People high in organizational identification are
assumed to see other people within the organization as a positive
manifestation of the ‘in-group’. Therefore, the greater likelihood
of active transmission for this group of people can be understood
as a mechanism for protecting the extra-individual aspects of a
person’s self-definition. Maintaining a positive social identity is
after all key to the social identity perspective. This active main-
tenance involves not only complying with perceived norms, but
relies on group actors taking part in the ongoing conversations
and negotiations of those very norms. At the general level of the
organization however, there are many general norms of conduct.
The introduction of new norms within the existing portfolio of
normative understanding requires group members to discuss,
contemplate, consider, refine, and possibly reject them. One such
‘new norm’, which is the focus of this paper, is the idea that pro-
environmental behavior should become routine within everyday
work practices.
1.3. The current research
Intentional communication of norms is associated with the
achievement of environmental outcomes in the household do-
main (Schultz et al., 2007). To our knowledge however, few
studies have investigated the antecedents of intra-group pro-
environmental norm transmission in the context of workplace
organizations (e.g. Paillé et al., 2016).
We present results from 3 case study organizations (in Spain,
Italy and Scotland), focusing specifically on the relationship be-
tween organizational identification, workplace local norms (in-
junctive and descriptive), and the likelihood of encouraging oth-
ers to behave pro-environmentally. Rather than trying to predict
the occurrence of any specific environmental behavior, our aim
here was to explore the phenomenon of pro-environmental norm
transmission directly, by using a measure of such intentional
norm communication.
Based on the idea that intentional norm transmission is a form
of identity protection, we hypothesize that there will be a signif-
icant positive relationship between organizational identification
and pro-environmental norm transmission.
In addition, we were interested in the contribution that less
distal antecedents related to the immediate content of norms had
on the likelihood of norm transmission. In this case, we focused
on local environmental (descriptive and injunctive) norms to
ensure that the level of specificity was the same as the outcome
measure. We also explore the issue of norm transmission to sub-
ordinates to examine differences between general (i.e. horizontal)
norm transmission and downward hierarchical (vertical) norm
transmission.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Participants were workers at three different large organiza-
tions studied within the LOCAW project (see Garcia Mira, 2014)
27
in three different European countries. In Italy, the case study
organization was a renewable energy production company, em-
ploying around 3600 staff. In Spain, the case study organization
was a public university employing over 1500 faculty staff, almost
800 administrative and service staff, and around 25,000 students
divided between its two campuses. In both the Spanish and Italian
cases, a questionnaire survey of staff in these organizations was
administered using the Qualtrics⃝ R
online platform. In the renew-
able energy company (the Italian case), a total of 300 employees
were contacted via email by representatives of the HR office of
the company, and asked to participate in a survey conducted
by a team of university researchers for the purposes of an EU
funded project, in collaboration with the company. Most of the
participants worked in the offices of the company headquarters,
located in the city center of Rome; additional participants were
employees working in smaller operation offices located in the
surrounding of Rome. A total of 124 complete responses were
received. The online questionnaire in the university (Spanish
case study) was distributed to the whole university staff through
an email asking for their collaboration in the research project.
Almost 400 individual entries were counted (almost 20% of the
University staff). The questionnaire was available in the two offi-
cial languages of the region, Castilian and Galician. Respondents
could choose the language they preferred. In the final analysis
and model, however, a sample of 255 complete questionnaires
was considered, with the remainder be excluded due to the data
being very incomplete (11% of the total University staff), using
the method of listwise case deletion.
In the local government organization (Scottish case study),
participants were recruited as part of an ongoing energy monitor-
ing project (Craig et al., 2014) based in North-East Scotland. The
sample were all employees of the city or regional local authority.
The questionnaire was sent to participants as part of the second
phase questionnaire within the larger study. The questionnaire
was therefore sent to all participants who had expressed a will-
ingness to be re-contacted during phase 1 of the research (Craig
et al., 2014), two years following the completion of the initial
questionnaire. Of the 371 questionnaires posted to this sample
of local authority employees, 196 were returned (a 52% retention
rate).
In all three datasets, we then removed those cases with very
high levels of missing data, or were found to have extremely low
levels of response variability (due to participants simply ticking
the same response for most questions). This procedure involved
plotting the raw data responses, and then asking two indepen-
dent reviewers to mark those cases believed to be problematic.
Only those cases where the reviewers agreed were removed from
the dataset. After this final data cleaning step, the remaining
sample consisted of 102 cases (68% male with a median age of
47) in the Italian case, 176 cases (43% male with a median age of
44) in Spanish case, and 162 cases (44% male with a median age
of 48) in the Scottish case.
2.2. Measures
Organizational identification was measured using three items
based on the organizational identification scale of Mael and Ash-
forth (1992): ‘When someone criticizes <organization>, it feels
like a personal insult’, ‘<organization’s> successes are my suc-
cesses’, ‘When someone praises <organization> it feels like a
personal compliment’. Responses were given using a 7-point scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). This scale
(or variants of it) has been successfully used in many studies
of organizational identification (e.g. Tangirala and Ramanujam,
2008; Bunderson and Thompson, 2009; Boivie et al., 2011) and
although there are alternative measures, some of which ask more
28 T. Craig, G. Polhill, K. Colley et al. / Sustainable Production and Consumption 19 (2019) 25–32
directly about identity (e.g. Oreg and Sverdlik, 2011), we believe
that the Mael and Ashforth (1992) scale benefits from the fact
that it does not directly mention ‘identity’, as such words may be
rather abstract from the perspective of a participant.
Local descriptive norms were measured using three items re-
flecting to what extent respondents believed that a local refer-
ence group acts pro-environmentally at work (see Ajzen, 2006):
‘Most of my co-workers act pro-environmentally at work’, ‘Most
of my supervisors act pro-environmentally at work’, and ‘most
members of my management team act pro-environmentally at
work’. Responses were given using a 7-point scale ranging from
1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Local injunctive norms were measured using three items re-
flecting the extent to which respondents felt that a local ref-
erence group (dis)approved of pro-environmental behavior (see
Ajzen, 2006): ‘Most of my co-workers think I should act pro-
environmentally at work’, ‘Most of my supervisors think I should
act pro-environmentally at work’, and ‘Most members of my
management team think I should act pro-environmentally at
work’. Responses were given using a 7-point scale ranging from
1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Norm transmission was measured by asking people to indicate
how often they encouraged four categories of people (subordi-
nates, co-workers, supervisors, and the management team) to
act pro-environmentally at work. Responses were given using a
7-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always). The three
questions on norm transmission to co-workers, supervisors, and
managers were used as a scale (by calculating the mean), and we
refer to this scale as ‘‘Norm transmission’’. The question about
norm transmission to subordinates was used as a single item in
all analyses referring to this aspect of norm transmission.
In the case of the local government organization (Scotland),
all the same measures were used, but because the wider ques-
tionnaire within which these questions were embedded used a
5-point response format throughout, responses in this case were
given using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to
5 (strongly agree). In the case of the norm transmission question,
the scale was also changed to a 5-point scale ranging from 1
(never) to 5 (always). In order to allow comparisons to be made
between the three different cases, we transformed the data from
the renewable energy company and university cases to a 5 point
scale by binning the datapoints between the extreme and the
midpoint (i.e. 2 and 3 in the 7 point scale become 2 in the 5 point
scale, and similarly, 5 and 6 become 4). All analyses reported here
are based on this transformed data, but separate case analysis
was carried out on the non-transformed data, and the conclusions
from the results were the same.
3. Results
All statistical analyses were run in the statistical package R
(R Core Team, 2015). We first ran checks on the internal con-
sistency for each of the scales. Cronbach’s α values, along with
descriptive statistics and zero order correlations for each of the
scales are presented in Table 1. Across all three case studies, all
measures were found to have a good level of internal consistency.
An examination of the correlations indicated that there was
a strong association between local descriptive norms and local
injunctive norms. However, when we entered these two variables
into the regression model, the tolerance statistics indicated that
there was no evidence of multicollinearity.
We then ran a 3-step hierarchical linear regression with Norm
Transmission as the outcome variable. In the first step, we entered
Identification with Organization as a single predictor. This showed
that there was a statistically significant relationship between
Identification with Organization and Norm Transmission (see Ta-
ble 2). Adding in the two norms scales (Local Descriptive and Local
Injunctive) to the regression model added a statistically significant
amount to the explained variance (see Table 2). In the third step,
we added a dummy variable for the organization type (with the
university as the reference). This study found that the likeli-
hood of transmitting pro-environmental norms was significantly
related to the amount people identified with the organization.
There were also significant (at a lower level of statistical signif-
icance) relationships with both descriptive and injunctive local
norms. The organization was statistically significantly related to
the outcome variable (compared to the university reference) in
the case of the local government organization (see Table 2).
We then re-ran the regression model with ‘‘Norm transmission
to subordinates’’ as the outcome variable (see Table 2, second
column). Although we find a similar pattern for the first step (a
significant positive relationship between identification and norm
transmission), when we add in the two norms scales (Local De-
scriptive and Local Injunctive) to the regression model, the pattern
was slightly different. We find that local injunctive norms added a
statistically significant amount to the explained variance, but local
descriptive norms did not. Multicollinearity tests were checked,
and the mean variance inflation factors for all analysis were
between 1 and 2, indicating a moderate, but acceptable degree
of correlation. When we add in the organization type in step 3,
we found that the renewable energy company was statistically
significantly related to the outcome variable (when compared to
the university reference).
Although the change in variance explained between steps 2
and 3 in the regression models was significant, the amount of
additional variance explained was not very high (1.5% – 1.7%).
To further explore the different patterns of relationships between
the predictors and the explanatory variable (Norm transmission),
we carried out case by case regression tree analysis using the
rpart package in R (Therneau et al., 2015). Results can be seen
in Fig. 1. Regression tree analysis is a useful exploratory method
for visually examining interactions, and because of the ‘divide
and conquer’ nature of the technique, is useful in suggesting
effects that might only occur at the subgroup level (Kuhn et al.,
2014). Results of this analysis found that local descriptive norms
were the most important criteria for splitting the tree in the case
of the renewable energy company and the university (indicated
by the position at the top of the tree). In the case of the local
government organization, the top criterion was organizational
identification. Looking at all three cases in relation to general
norm transmission, the three predictors appear in different places
in the regression trees, and the relative importance varies con-
siderably. In the case of the university, identification only appear
to be important predictors for those people with relatively high
scores on descriptive norms. This is not what we find in the case
of the renewable energy company however, where descriptive
norms replace identification in the right hand side of the re-
gression tree. We also ran the regression tree analysis looking at
norm transmission to subordinates, and found that in the case
of the local government organization local descriptive norms did
not appear in the tree. These findings might suggest that there
may be some characteristics of the case studies themselves that
make it more likely that certain normative factors are more or
less important in predicting norm transmission within different
organizations. This type of exploratory analysis can sometimes
be prone to over-fitting the model to the data (and the sample
sizes here are relatively small), so these findings should be in-
terpreted with some caution. However, visual methods like this
are useful in beginning to explore how different sub-groups may
exist within different organizations (i.e. groups higher or lower
in norm transmission behavior), and which explanatory variables
best predicted membership of such subgroups.
 T. Craig, G. Polhill, K. Colley et al. / Sustainable Production and Consumption 19 (2019) 25–32 29

Table 1
Descriptive statistics, scale reliability and zero order correlations.
α Mean SD 1 2 3 4
Local government
1 Identification with organization .792 3.20 0.83
2 Local descriptive norms .858 3.21 0.78 .152
3 Local injunctive norms .845 3.45 0.75 .118 .694**
4 Norm transmission .911 2.87 1.08 .413** .343** .337**
Norm transmission (subordinates) n/a 3.26 1.10 .360** .320** .418** .875**
University
1 Identification with organization .844 3.04 1.01
2 Local descriptive norms .849 2.75 0.88 .339**
3 Local injunctive norms .858 2.63 0.93 .214** .734**
4 Norm transmission .913 2.87 1.22 .261** .418** .364**
Norm transmission (subordinates) n/a 2.89 1.41 .160* .289** .286** .713**
Renewable energy company
1 Identification with organization .854 3.74 1.02
2 Local descriptive norms .833 3.57 0.83 .490**
3 Local injunctive norms .803 3.67 0.85 .302** .661**
4 Norm transmission .810 3.30 1.07 .379** .332** .394**
Norm transmission (subordinates) n/a 3.89 1.10 .352** .394** .515** .688**

*p < .05.
**p < .01.

Table 2
Hierarchical regression with norm transmission (to co-workers, supervisors or managers) as the response variable, and norm
transmission to subordinates as a separate model.
Norm transmission Norm transmission(to subordinates)
B SE B β B SE B β
Step 1
Identification with organization .421 .053 .362** .410 .063 .314**
Step 2
Identification with organization .290 .055 .248** .241 .064 .185**
Local descriptive norms .224 .086 .176** .116 .101 .080
Local injunctive norms .179 .077 .151* .432 .089 .326**
Step 3
Identification with organization .291 .055 .249** .231 .064 .163**
Local descriptive norms .204 .086 .160* .091 .101 .063
Local injunctive norms .261 .081 .220** .414 .095 .312**
Organization type (ref.: University)
Renewable energy company −.210 .142 −.078 .354 .161 .119*
Local government −.374 .123 −.155** −.058 .151 −.020

N = 428 N = 388
R2 = .131 for Step 1; R2 = .099 for Step 1;
R2 = .211 for Step 2; R2 = .228 for Step 2;
R2 = .228 for Step 3; R2 = .248 for Step 3;
∆R2 = .081** for Step 2 ∆R2 = .135** for Step 2
∆R2 = .017** for Step 3 ∆R2 = .015* for Step 3
*p < .05.
**p < .01.

4. Discussion and conclusion
The three case studies presented in this paper support the
idea that intentional norm transmission within organizations is
likely to be related to organizational identification in a positive
manner. However, the direct relationship with descriptive and
injunctive norms was less clear. Moreover, we found that local
descriptive and local injunctive norms added additional explana-
tory weight to the linear regression predicting norm transmission
to co-workers, supervisors and managers. In the case of norm
transmission to subordinates however, local descriptive norms
were not found to add to the level of explained variance.
As our findings reveal, identification at the level of the organi-
zation could be a key mechanism in the promotion of sustainable
behaviors within large organizations, even going beyond the sim-
ple logic of prescriptive social norms. Within the constraints of
the current questionnaire-based study, we began to investigate
some of the patterns of relationships between the different pre-
dictor variables using an exploratory regression tree approach.
Results of this analysis suggested that the hierarchical nature of
the different predictors was notably different between the case
study organizations. It seems plausible that one explanation for
this is that both the organizations and the populations therein
were different in a number of ways.
In the case of the local government organization for example,
the relationship between norms and identification appears to be
nested. This makes sense insofar as one might expect compliance
with descriptive norms to be less of an expression of internalized
norms (as with injunctive local norms), but more based on the
situational specifics a person finds within the organizational set-
ting. Many large organizations are spread across multiple sites,
and this in itself will undoubtedly explain a certain amount of
variability between sites within any given organization.
Understanding the dynamic relationship between organiza-
tions and people who work within them requires a theoretical
underpinning. In this paper, we have used the social identity
perspective (Hornsey, 2008) to examine the intentional com-
munication of norms (Hogg and Reid, 2006). Although orga-
nizational identification appears to have explanatory value in
30 T. Craig, G. Polhill, K. Colley et al. / Sustainable Production and Consumption 19 (2019) 25–32
Fig. 1. Regression trees for the three different case studies predicting norm transmission to co-workers, supervisors and managers, and norm transmission to
subordinates. Line width indicates the number of cases falling within a branch. The nodes are abbreviated as follows: IWO = ‘‘Identification with organization’’, NDL =
‘‘Descriptive local norms’’, NIL = ‘‘Injunctive local norms’’. The node color scheme divides the norm transmission scores as follows: Yellow = Low, Orange = Medium,
Red = High.
explaining variance in the intentional communication of envi-
ronmental norms, it would be naïve to think that this could be
easily translated into some kind of workplace policy designed
to ‘pass down’ such norms from management to workers. How-
ever, our analysis of norm transmission to subordinates suggests
that internalized injunctive norms related to pro-environmental
behavior are indeed likely to result in a greater likelihood of
norm transmission to people lower down the hierarchy. Fur-
thermore, in our regression tree analysis, it is clear that the
relative importance of organizational identification differs be-
tween organizations, and between subgroups of people within
each organization. For organizational identification to be usefully
linked to positive (e.g. pro-environmental) outcomes, it needs to
be embedded within a person’s self-definition (Hornsey, 2008),
thereby benefiting the individual through an accompanying re-
duction in cognitive effort (Ashforth and Mael, 1989). In addition,
our results (both the linear regression and the regression tree
analysis) suggest that providing descriptive norms in the form of
information may well only be relevant for subgroups of people
within a given organization, and its importance may vary con-
siderably depending on the type of organization. Interestingly, in
the Italian case study (a renewable energy company) the results
pointed to the importance of injunctive norms, particularly for
norm transmission to subordinates. This may well reflect a higher
likelihood of internalizing pro-environmental norms in organiza-
tions whose main goal is environmental in nature. The varying
pattern of results we find in the regression tree analysis begin
to pick up some of the nuances of each organization. Whilst we
attempt to compare across different organizations in different
cultures here, we are aware that doing so paints an overly simple
picture of organizations, and the behaviors that occur within.
Having said that, it seems reasonable to suggest that organiza-
tions do have the potential to foster workplace cultures defined
by positive intragroup cohesion and trust, and that such cultures
may be more likely to result in greater levels of organizational
identification.
Some limits of the present study should be acknowledged:
first, the cross-sectional and correlational nature of our dataset
does not allow for any inference about causal relations among
the constructs studied. Also, because of the voluntary character
of our online survey, the realized sample of respondents may not
adequately represent the staff within the organizations studied.
Future studies would benefit from incentivizing higher response
rates, and also using a larger number of items for the constructs
measured — particularly in relation to norm transmission to
subordinates, which relied on a single item measure for the
current study.
It is also important to remember that norm transmission is not
necessarily a positive thing — negative norms are just as easily
transmitted as positive norms. In this case, we were examining
the norm of everyday pro-environmental behavior in workplaces,
and although from our perspective this is a norm with a positive
connotation, future studies could explore what norms are already
in existence that might compete with any desired norm. Although
the presented data allow us to establish the connection between
organizational identification and the intentional transmission of
general pro-environmental norms, other studies would be needed
to establish whether such a connection exists for other, perhaps
less socially desirable norms.
In order for organizational identification and indeed pro-
environmental norm transmission to occur within an organiza-
tion, it is clearly important for staff members to be in regular
communication with other staff members. Increasing numbers
of organizations are implementing flexible working policies that
allow staff a great amount of autonomy in terms of both when
and where they work (Perlow and Kelly, 2014). In some cases,
this has been found to a blurring of boundaries between work and
home as being conceptually separate anchor points for everyday
life (Pedersen and Lewis, 2012). In terms of identification, only
 T. Craig, G. Polhill, K. Colley et al. / Sustainable Production and Consumption 19 (2019) 25–32
time will tell if levels of identification change as a result of such
policies being implemented, and more importantly whether the
organizational entity itself alters from a psychological point of
view. If working from home becomes part of a pro-environmental
norm (as it saves greenhouse gas emissions associated with
commuting), then notwithstanding the developments of virtual
connectivity, one paradoxical outcome is that the likelihood of
norm transmission might well end up being lower, for the simple
reason that routine informal contact with colleagues – an impor-
tant aspect of the tapestry of norm formation and communication
– may well be lower in the distributed organizations of the future.
Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the 7th Framework Programme
of Research and Innovation, (Area: Environment) of the Euro-
pean Commission — period 2011–2013, grant agreement num-
ber 265155, and by the Rural and Environment Science and
Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government, United
Kingdom. The authors would also like to thank Margaret Currie
for providing feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.
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