Environmentally-specific servant leadership and green creativity among tourism employees: dual mediation paths

Abstract

Eco-initiatives from tourism employees can contribute to the green sustainability of tour companies as well as destinations. Nonetheless, mechanisms underlying employee green creativity in the tourism industry have been less explored. Our study aims to examine if environmentally-specific servant leadership can foster green creativity among tourism employees via dual mediation paths of green crafting and green role identity. A two-wave survey process was implemented to garner data from employees and their managers from tour operators based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Results revealed the effect of environmentally-specific servant leadership on employee green creativity through green role identity, green-related resource and challenge seeking behaviors, but not through green task demand reducing behavior. The direct effect of green role identity and its interaction effect with environmentally-specific servant leadership were found significant for green-related resource and challenge seeking behaviors, but not for green task demand reducing behavior. This study advances our understanding of mechanisms underlying employee green creativity especially in the tourism context as well as extends research on the leadership-creativity nexus.

Keywords:

• Green creativity
• environmentally-specific servant leadership
• green crafting
• green role identity
• Vietnam

Disclosure statement

Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luu Trong Tuan

Luu Trong Tuan is currently a senior lecturer at Swinburne Business School, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia. He received his master’s degree from Victoria University, Australia and PhD degree in management from Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand. His research interests include organizational behavior, human resource management, and healthcare management in both private and public sector. Widely published his research has appeared in refereed academic journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Public Management Review, Personnel Review, Group & Organization Management, Journal of Business Research, Knowledge Management Research & Practice, Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, among others.