10326: Moral Conflict to Sustainability Action: Interventions for Employees in Resistant Organizations (session 26438)

Research on organizational sustainability has predominantly emphasized the strategic tensions faced by top-level leaders, often neglecting the challenges experienced by lower-level employees. These employees, constrained by limited agency, frequently encounter morally and emotionally charged tensions, particularly in organizations with a strong bottom-line mentality over sustainability goals. Drawing on social cognitive theory and deontic theory, this study investigates how and when these tensions influence deviant work behavior and involvement in organizational sustainability. Across three studies—a three-wave survey (Study 1), an immersive laboratory experiment (Study 2), and a five-wave field experiment (Study 3)— we found that lower-level employees high in responsibility towards the environment experienced greater sustainability-related moral conflict when they perceived high levels of organization's bottom-line mentality. This experienced moral conflict in turn led to moral anger, which, in the absence of intervention (Study 1), increases deviant behavior but does not enhance sustainability involvement. However, Studies 2 and 3 reveal that a planning-based emotion regulation intervention successfully channels moral conflict and anger into increased involvement in organizational sustainability while reducing deviant behaviors. These findings highlight the pivotal role of lower-level employees in advancing organizational sustainability and propose actionable strategies to empower them in addressing the climate crisis.

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