How Manager-Employee Narcissism Congruence Undermines Environment Management System (EMS) Adoption and Overall Innovation Performance in China?

Abstract

Despite surging debates among academics and practitioners to unwrap micro-antecedents to employee disengagement in green initiatives, current research offers limited empirical frameworks that explain factors influencing employee engagement or disengagement in environmental management systems (EMS) for sustainable development and innovation. Intellectuals believe that certain institutional pressures impact adoption of EMS and overall performance. Although theoretically unexplored, researchers argue that narcissism, as one of normative influence, disrupts employee socio-ecological preferences. The purpose of this paper was to test whether manager-employee narcissism congruence elicit indirect effects on overall performance through negative perception of employee EMS adoption. Using structure equation modelling (SEM), data were analysed from 882 participants (442 unique manager-employee pairs) from diverse sectors in China. Results suggest that manager-employee narcissism had negative impact on EMS adoption preferences, which in turn, reduced perceived overall innovation performance. The findings offer critical insight on how narcissist managers could be detrimental for China's sustainable future. Practical implications are discussed for experts and academics.