Is value statement an effective informal control for stimulating pro-environmental behaviors?

Abstract

This study aimed to examine when and how a pro-environmental value statement is effective at stimulating pro-environmental behavior. Specifically, it examines whether the effect of pro-environmental value statements on pro-environmental behavior depends on participation in goal setting and whether that effect is explained by goal commitment. Few recent empirical studies examine the behavioral effects of value statements, despite the potential of this informal control to stimulate appropriate behaviors. Also scarce are studies on management control examining the effects of different types of control on pro-environmental behavior. Pro-environmental behaviors are important in the business environment as they promote a reduction in pollutants and contribute to the effective design of environmental management systems and to environmental performance. Thus, it is important to identify how management control mechanisms can promote or inhibit this type of behavior. The contribution to the management control literature is to show in which context and through which process value statements can be an effective informal control. In addition, the practical implication is that decentralized organizations can benefit from the use of value statements as a control mechanism, providing they enable participation in goal setting. Participants were recruited via the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform and they had to decide about compliance with an environmental agreement in an experimental study. I manipulate the presence of a pro-environmental value statement and the participation in setting the profit goal. Research findings indicate that a pro-environmental value statement reduces commitment to the profit goal and thus increases environmental compliance, but only when the goal-setting is participative. When the goal-setting is imposed, a pro-environmental value statement does not affect commitment and environmental compliance. The main contribution is to indicate that decentralized organizations can stimulate appropriate behaviors by communicating prioritized values through a value statement when participation in goal setting is allowed.