Linking environment specific servant leadership with organizational environmental citizenship behavior: the roles of CSR and attachment anxiety

This paper aims to examine the mechanisms and boundary conditions that underlie the relationship between perceived environment specific servant leadership (ESSL) and perceived organizational environmental citizenship behavior (OECB). By drawing on the social exchange and social identity theories, we explore corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a mediator and attachment anxiety as a moderator of the ESSL–OECB relationship. The proposed relationships were examined by collecting data in two-waves through a survey of 359 employees and their supervisors working in various manufacturing-sector organizations. The data were analyzed through a bootstrapping test in structural equation modeling and the empirical results confirmed that CSR mediates the relationship between ESSL and OECB. However, attachment anxiety was found to moderate the indirect effects of ESSL on OECB via CSR such that the relationships were stronger for employees with high attachment anxiety in comparison to those with low attachment anxiety. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this study’s results for management theory and practice.