The Nexus between Environmentally Sustainable Practices, Green Satisfaction, and Customer Citizenship Behavior in Eco-Friendly Hotels: Social Exchange Theory Perspective

Abstract

Recently, with increasing customer awareness about environmental issues, guests staying in hotels and potential consumers are more and more concerned about environmentally sustainable practices and their associated consequences. From the hotel industry perspective, empirical studies conducted on the association between customer citizenship behavior (CCB) and environmentally sustainable practices (ESPs) with the existence of green satisfaction (GS) are scarce. Consequently, the primary aim of the current study is to investigate the impact of ESPs on GS and CCB in a sample of five-star eco-friendly hotels in Egypt, as well as exploring the potential mediative role of GS in the relationship between CCB and ESPs. Additionally, we attempt to empirically determine to what extent GS directly impacts CCB. The study suggests a conceptual model for testing four hypothesized relationships between ESPs, GS, and CCB. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with bootstrapping was employed for testing our hypotheses. The findings of the study confirmed the significant positive impacts of ESPs on GS and CCB. Further, GS significantly and positively affects CCB. Moreover, GS partially mediates the relationship between CCB and ESPs. Given the study findings, some practical implications for improving GS and boosting CCBs in the green/eco-friendly hotel industry context are suggested.