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Salinas Garcia, Diana Laura (2025) The Role of Green Management Style in Fostering Employee Green Behaviours: A Social Exchange Perspective in a Multinational Operating in Mexico. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.
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Abstract
Environmental sustainability has emerged as a relevant strategy for multinational corporations, yet the dynamics through which management strategies are developed to translate environmental policies into employee behaviours remain unclear, specifically in high Human Development Index emerging economies. This study aims to investigate the mechanisms between Green Management Style (GMS) and Employee Green Behaviours (EGB) in a multinational brewery manufacturing in Mexico. Psychological mechanisms such as Social Exchange Theory (SET) were used as a theoretical framework to explore the underexamined relationship between management practices and employee environmental commitment.
This study adopted an interpretivist philosophy and qualitative case study as a methodological framework. The research was conducted through five semi-structured interviews across the organisations, including Quality Management, Packaging Management, Malting Operations Management, and Utilities Management. A six-step thematic analysis was used as a framework for the data analysis to identify patterns from five managerial perspectives and experiences of environmental leadership and employee engagement in sustainability initiatives.
The findings reveal four primary themes: Empowering green leadership as a driver of environmental engagement, the evolution of EGB from compliance to authentic environmental citizenship, the interconnected nature of voluntary and compulsory EGB, and differentiated social exchange mechanisms underlying environmental motivation. Contrary to what the literature suggests, that mandatory and voluntary green behaviours are mutually exclusive, this study demonstrates the interconnectedness of both categories by identifying the transitioning dynamics in real corporate settings from mandate-driven compliance to authentic ecological stewardship through Green Management Style approaches.
The research contributes to the existing literature by extending the Social Exchange Theory implications to environmental contexts, revealing that compulsory EGB are performed within economic exchange dynamics, while voluntary EGB are interconnected with social exchange patterns. In addition, the study identifies the difference in environmental awareness across generations, demonstrating that younger generations are more naturally inclined towards engagement with sustainable initiatives, influenced by their personal values and therefore, require fewer motivational elements. The findings suggest that to integrate environmental initiatives to transform the corporate culture to achieve sustainable organisational practices, the management approach must simultaneously consider addressing corporate sustainable strategies and motivate authentic environmental citizenship through empowering green management leadership, genuine employee support, and rewarding systems that compensate both mandatory and voluntary EGB.
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