The fusion of green work climate, environmental awareness and personal values for promoting sustainable employee green behavior

Despite growing scholarship on green behavior, little is known about how organizational climate, environmental awareness, and personal values interact to shape employees’ environmental actions, especially within manufacturing small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies such as Pakistan. Data from professionals with managerial experience in the SMEs located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan have been collected through survey with valid 213 responses. Following rigorous data validity and reliability tests, the data has been analyzed through Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) combined with mediation and moderation analyses. The findings reveal that Green Work Climate (GWC) (β = 0.209, t = 2.575, p = 0.010) and Environmental Awareness (EA) (β = 0.505, t = 6.748, p = 0.000) positively and significantly shape Employees’ Green Behavior (EGB). Moreover, GWC also promotes EA among employees (β = 0.437, t = 5.736, p = 0.000). In addition, EA positively and significantly mediates the relationships between GWC and EGB. However, Personal Values (PV) do not significantly moderate the relationship between EA and EGB. The study advances theory by revealing boundary conditions of value-based models and offers practical guidance for organizations to align workplace climate and awareness initiatives to strengthen green behavior.