Employee environmental voice shapes environmental attitudes and green organizational climate (but not vice versa): A 1-year, 5-wave longitudinal study

To achieve environmental sustainability goals, organizations depend on employees speaking up with suggestions and concerns about environmental issues (i.e., environmental voice). However, the individual and organizational predictors and outcomes of environmental voice remain largely unclear. Building on theorizing on pro-environmental behavior and proactivity, we propose that environmental attitudes and green organizational climate are positively related to subsequent environmental voice. We further expect that environmental voice is positively related to subsequent environmental attitudes and green organizational climate. We tested our preregistered hypotheses using data collected at five measurement points with 3-month time lags across one year among n = 1550 employees in Germany. We analyzed the data with random intercept cross-lagged panel models to explore reciprocal within-person dynamics. Results at the within-person level showed that increased engagement in promotive environmental voice (i.e., voicing suggestions) predicted subsequently higher levels of environmental attitudes. In contrast to our expectations, increased prohibitive environmental voice (i.e., expressing concerns) predicted subsequently lower levels of environmental attitudes. Furthermore, increased promotive environmental voice, but not prohibitive environmental voice, predicted subsequently higher levels of green organizational climate. Environmental attitudes and green organizational climate were not significantly related to subsequent environmental voice. Overall, these findings suggest that environmental voice may play an important role in strengthening environmental attitudes and “greening” the organizational climate, but that these attitudes and climate perceptions may not predict environmental voice over the following three months.