Abstract
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in the green economy due to their significant environmental footprint. Because more than 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religion, most SME top-executives are likely to identify with a religion that would influence their decision-making. Despite these recent advances, prior studies have focused on SMEs’ external drivers and did not consider the role of internal drivers, such as the characteristics of SMEs’ top-executives, in influencing green marketing strategy. We aim to address this gap by focusing on religious identification as a key driver of green marketing by SMEs. Specifically, we examine the effects of top-executives’ religious identification on strategic green marketing orientation (SGMO), and how such effects are moderated by political ideology. Using respondents comprised of CEO and/or owner-managers of SMEs in the US, the results show empirical evidence supporting the importance of religious identification in influencing green marketing decisions. Moreover, we found that the effects of religious identification on SGMO are more pronounced among top-executives with Conservative ideology.
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Introduction
Over the past decade, firms have been increasingly pressured to adopt green business practices due to climate change, resource scarcity, and changing consumer demands. A recent study by First Insight (2022) reported a 42% increase in consumers’ willingness-to-pay for green alternatives since 2020. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in particular, play a critical role in the green economy due to their significant environmental footprint, with studies suggesting that SMEs are responsible for around 50% of the global greenhouse gas emissions of the business sector (OECD, 2022). Against this backdrop, many SMEs have adopted green marketing in recent years to reduce their environmental footprint. For example, in the UK, EcoWolfe invests in low-carbon technologies to produce their fashion items locally using eco-friendly materials such as recycled polyester, organic cotton, or hemp (https://ecowolfe.com/about-us/). In Australia, Hero Packaging invests in continuous R&D to offer eco-friendly (i.e., fully compostable) packaging for small businesses to help reduce environmental waste (https://heropackaging.com.au/). On the other hand, studies have also found that many SMEs engaged in greenwashing by labeling themselves as “green” despite not making significant investments in reducing their environmental footprint (Sun & Zhang, 2019).
Scholars have attempted to examine drivers of green marketing by SMEs to encourage better adoption of green business practices in this sector (e.g., Carfora et al., 2022; Hoogendoorn et al., 2015). In a large-scale study involving over 8000 SMEs, Hoogendoorn et al. (2015) identified firm size, product types, market characteristics, and financial support as antecedents of green marketing. More recently, Carfora et al. (2022) identified the aspiration to improve economic performance, networking capability, and endogenous competencies as drivers of SMEs’ ecological innovations. Despite these recent advances, prior studies have focused on SMEs’ external drivers and did not consider the role of internal drivers such as the characteristics of SMEs’ top-executives in influencing green marketing strategy. We aim to address this gap by focusing on religious identification as a key driver of green marketing by SMEs. Specifically, we examine the effects that SME top-executives’ religious identification have on strategic green marketing orientation (hereafter SGMO).
Because more than 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religion (World Population Review, 2023), most SME top-executives are likely to identify with a religion that would influence their decision-making. Past studies have shown a significant association between religious identification and green consumption (Davari et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2020). However, individuals’ religious identification is often intertwined with their political ideology, and these, in combination, may influence green attitudes and behavior. For example, Lockwood (2018) found that Evangelical Protestants who identify as Republicans are more likely to be climate skeptics than those who identify as Democrats. These findings led us to two important research questions: will SME top-executives’ religious identification influence the extent to which their firms adopt SGMO? and how does religious identification interact with political identity in influencing adoption of SGMO? The present study seeks to address these questions.
In this study, we adopt an “upper-echelon paradigm” (Hambrick & Mason, 1984) by investigating the impact of SME top-executives’ religious identification on the extent to which their firms adopt SGMO. Drawing upon the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and social identity theory, we posit that religious identification influences SGMO via subjective norms, personal norms, and attitude toward pro-environmental practices. In doing so, we address an important research gap, as past studies have mainly observed the macro- and/or external drivers of green marketing rather than its micro-foundations. For example, Iguchi et al., (2021, p.498) asserted that “CEOs’ moral values and beliefs could be potential drivers [of CSR], but previous studies have rarely investigated this topic.” On a more practical note, this study generates useful insights to encourage SGMO adoption among SMEs. Specifically, our findings suggest that religious identification influences SGMO via subjective norms, personal norms, and attitude among top-executives of SMEs with Conservative political ideology. Therefore, the appeals to foster greater SGMO adoption among Conservative top-executives can be optimized by portraying SGMO adoption as an effective means to comply with top-executives’ perceived norms.
Literature Review
Strategic Green Marketing Orientation (SGMO)
With rising concerns over resource depletion amid global climate change, green marketing has become an essential aspect of firms’ business strategies over the past decade (Sharma, 2020). Studies have found that integrating green marketing into strategic management leads to a stronger reputation and image (e.g., Lash & Wellington, 2007; Vesal et al., 2021), which in turns improve firm financial performance (e.g., Eccles et al., 2014; Fraj et al., 2011; Papadas et al., 2019; Sharma et al., 2010).
Ćorić et al. (2020) utilized the term “sustainable marketing orientation” (SMO) to describe a firm’s strategic integration, social engagement, and ethical capabilities to achieve environmental and societal goals beyond profitability. Ćorić et al. (2020) found that SMO is influenced by subjective norms as well as behavioral control and has positive effects on performance. Similarly, Papadas et al. (2017) developed a construct of green marketing orientation to reflect three green marketing dimensions in firm decision-making, namely: strategic, tactical, and internal. In particular, strategic green marketing orientation (SGMO) is referred to as “long-term, top management actions and policies specifically focusing on corporate environmental strategy (Banerjee, 2002), proactive environmental strategies (Aragón-Correa, 1998) and external environmental stakeholders (Polonsky, 1995)” (Papadas et al., 2017, p. 238). We focus on SGMO in the present study because of its emphasis on top management’s long-term commitment to, and investment in, environmental strategies (Papadas et al., 2017). Although SGMO is a relatively new concept, it has been found to play a significant role in influencing firms’ performance. For example, Chung (2020) found that SGMO enhances corporate image in green hotels which in turns positively influences firm performance (Afum et al., 2023). Importantly, SGMO can strengthen a firm’s financial performance by reducing the negative effects of stakeholder risks on new product success (Borah et al., 2022). Overall, the literature suggests that SGMO is a promising, yet under-researched topic in the literature, and more empirical evidence is needed to deepen our understanding of what drives SGMO (Dang & Wang, 2022).
Religious Beliefs and Green Behavior
The role of religion in influencing various aspects of consumer behavior has been well-documented (e.g., Alsaad et al., 2021; Arli, 2017; Casidy & Arli, 2018; Gutsche, 2019; Kilburn, 2014; Obregon et al., 2022). However, scholars have found mixed results with regard to the influence of religion on green behavior. Some studies found positive relationships between religiosity and pro-environmental attitudes (Arbuckle & Konisky, 2015; Arli et al., 2023; Mathras et al., 2016). For example, Arli et al. (2021) found that religiosity is associated with a stronger love of the nature, and the commitment to protect it, and Ghazali et al. (2018) found positive associations between religiosity and green consumption. On the other hand, studies found that the effects of religiosity on pro-environmental behavior is not always consistent (Kilburn, 2014). For example, Martin and Bateman (2014) found no differences between religious and non-religious consumers in terms of environmentally friendly behavior. This inconsistency suggests that there may be other constructs that moderate the effects of religion on green behavior. One such factor is political ideology (Peifer et al., 2016).
Prior studies have found evidence of the negative associations between Conservatism and green behavior in various contexts. For example, Clements et al. (2017), including consumers’ intention to purchase pro-environmental products (Kim & Seock, 2019).
In organizational settings, decision-makers may be guided by their own moral obligations (i.e., personal norms) when making decisions relating to sustainability, but may also feel pressured to adhere to society’s expectations (i.e., subjective norms). Recent studies have adopted the TRA in organizational context to explain the role of subjective norms in influencing green business decisions (Ćorić et al., 2020; Yao et al., 2021). For example, in a study of SMEs in China, Yao et al. (2021) found perceived social responsibility to be one of the key drivers of SME adoption of green technology. In a study involving European start-ups, Ćorić et al. (2020) found that subjective norms have positive effects on sustainable marketing orientation. Overall, prior studies suggest that subjective norms and personal norms have significant influence on engagement in green initiatives.
Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses Development
We draw upon social identity theory and the TRA to develop our conceptual framework. Consistent with social identity theory, we posit that firms with highly religious top-executives would demonstrate a higher level of SGMO than do firms with non-religious top-executives. Specifically, anchored on TRA, we argue that religious identification would strengthen subjective norms and personal norms which, in turn, influence attitude toward pro-environmental practices, and ultimately enhance SGMO. Further, drawing upon prior research, we argue that the effects of religious identification on SGMO via subjective norms and personal norms are stronger among SMEs with conservative top-executives. We present our conceptual framework in Fig. 1 and the definition of each construct in Table 1.
Conceptual framework
Religious Identification and SGMO
The current literature has recognized the importance of religion in influencing organizational decision-making (Handrito et al., 2021). This perspective is based on the upper-echelon paradigm (Hambrick & Mason, 1984) which suggests that the personal beliefs and characteristics of top-executives would influence strategic decision-making of a firm (e.g., Chang et al., 2018; Vesal et al., 2022; You et al., 2020). In accordance with upper-echelon paradigm, religiosity has been found to influence firm decision-making processes and behaviors, particularly among SMEs, where top-executives play a more significant role in the firms’ decision-making (Astrachan et al., 2020; Fathallah et al., 2020).
Most religious traditions instruct their adherents to show care and concern for the natural environment (Richter, 2020). Hence, we theorize that top-executives who identify with a religion may be guided by their religious beliefs in their decision-making, including those decisions relating to green marketing. Prior studies have provided support for our contention. Kutcher et al. (2010) suggest that staff religiosity is positively related to prosocial behaviors in the workplace. Weaver and Stansbury (2014, p.68) asserted that “an individual with more, and richer, religious schemas and scripts is likely to identify more opportunities to think, feel, and act in religiously informed ways.” In a study involving 156 Italian listed companies, Harjoto and Rossi (2019) found that a CEO’s personal religiosity is positively associated with the firm’s CSR performance. More recently, a study by Iguchi et al. (2021) involving 1184 SME manufacturers in Japan found that highly religious CEOs demonstrate stronger support for firm-level green initiatives.
Drawing upon the upper-echelons paradigm (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), and in light of prior findings mentioned above, we propose that SMEs whose top-executives identify with a particular religion would engage in higher-level green business practices in their organizations, because their religious values with regard to taking care of the environment would influence their strategic decision at the firm level, reflected in higher SGMO. Formally:
H1: SMEs whose top-executives identify with a religion engage in a higher level of SGMO than those whose top-executives are non-religious.
The Mediating Role of Norms and Attitude
According to the TRA, subjective norms imply that individuals seek the approval of important others in their lives when engaging in a particular behavior (Kopfman & Smith, 1996), including green consumption (Minton et al., 2018). In accordance with social identity theory, religious adherents are likely to be influenced by religious leaders and/or communities when forming their opinion about a particular issue (Basha et al., 2015). Moreover, because most religious traditions teach that an individual will be held accountable for his or her actions (Elhoushy & Jang, 2021), religious individuals tend to constantly evaluate whether or not their behavior adheres to their religious teaching, as they anticipate negative consequences for violating religious norms (Krettenauer & Lefebvre, 2021). Therefore, religious individuals can be motivated to engage in green behavior from “a compliance perspective, through meeting religious expectations and/or imitating the behaviors of religious people” (Elhoushy & Jang, 2021, p. 291).
The role of subjective norms in influencing firm-level green marketing initiatives has been examined in the literature. For example, Ćorić et al. (2020) identified subjective norms as the strongest predictor of the implementation of sustainable marketing orientation within European start-ups. Papadis et al. (2019) and Chung (2020) also found that external pressure from stakeholder positively affect SGMO. Iguchi et al., (2021, p.497) found that religious CEOs demonstrate higher level of corporate green initiatives due to “higher perceptions about being monitored to fulfill religious role expectations.”
In light of the findings mentioned above, and drawing upon the TRA and social identity theory, we posit that top-executives who identify with a religion are likely to perceive greater social pressure to engage in green behavior so as to meet a religious expectation. Such social pressure would then lead to a stronger positive attitude toward pro-environmental practices, which in turn enhances SGMO. Formally:
H2: The effects of religious identification on SGMO are mediated by a greater subjective norm, which leads to a stronger attitude towards pro-environmental practices.
Whereas subjective norms relate to social pressure and expectations, personal norms refer to the extent to which an individual feels a moral obligation to engage in a certain behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Prior studies have established the link between personal norms and various green behaviors including responsible waste management (Janmaimool, 2017; Kallgren et al., 2000; Valle et al., 2005), adoption of a green information system (Asadi et al., 2019; Dalvi-Esfahani et al., 2017), and the purchase of green products (Khare, 2015).
Because major religious traditions teach their adherents to care for the environment, religious individuals are likely to have a stronger personal norm relating to the environment, which in turn would drive them to engage in green behavior. Recent studies by Elhoushy and Jang (2021) and Filimonau et al. (2022), respectively, found that religiosity activates consumers’ personal norms which in turn reduce food waste intention. Drawing upon the TRA and considering prior findings, we posit that religious top-executives would have a stronger moral obligation for their firms to engage in green initiatives. This sense of personal norm, in turn, would lead to a more positive attitude toward pro-environmental practices, which will enhance SGMO. Formally:
H3: The effects of religious identification on SGMO are mediated by a greater personal norm, which leads to a stronger attitude towards pro-environmental practices.
The Moderating Role of Political Ideology
The relationship between political ideology and green behavior has attracted increasing interests in the literature over the past two decades (Arbuckle, 2016). Most studies have found that Conservatism is generally associated with a weaker pro-environmental attitude, whereas Liberalism is associated with a more positive attitude toward the environment (Kidwell et al., 2013; Tranter & Booth, 2015; Wood & Vedlitz, 2007; Zia & Todd, 2010). Conservatives tend to defend the status quo and resist any attempt to change it (Jost et al., 2008). Environmental risks are seen as challenging the existing social, political, and economic hierarchy (Kahan et al., 2007; McCright & Dunlap, 2010). Carrus et al. (2018) found a moderating effect of political ideology on climate change denials. In general, studies conclude that Conservatism is positively related with climate change skepticism (Tranter & Booth, 2015).
Given the positive association between Liberal ideology and pro-environmental attitude found in prior studies (Kidwell et al., 2013; Tranter & Booth, 2015; Wood & Vedlitz, 2007; Zia & Todd, 2010), Liberal top-executives would be more likely to engage in green behavior, regardless of their religiosity. Therefore, we expect that religious identification would have little to no effect on the subjective norms and personal norms of Liberal top-executives, as they are naturally predisposed to engage in green behavior regardless of their religious beliefs. On the other hand, given the negative association between Conservative ideology and pro-environmental attitude (Kidwell et al., 2013; Tranter & Booth, 2015; Wood & Vedlitz, 2007; Zia & Todd, 2010), conservative top-executives would be naturally less inclined to engage in SGMO. As such, we expect that the influence of religious identification on SGMO would be more pronounced among conservatives.
Our theorization of the moderating effect of Conservatism on the relationship between religious identification and SGMO is supported by prior studies. For example, Peifer et al. (2016) found that the negative effects of political conservatism on environmental consumption are only significant among less-religious respondents. In other words, “religiosity mutes the otherwise strong conservatism effect on environmental consumption…[because] religious identification encourages people (even political conservatives) to seek out visible behaviors (such as environmental consumption) that confirm their religious identity” (Peifer et al., 2016, p.683). Building on Peifer et al.’s (2016) work and in line with social identity theory, this study posits that Conservative top-executives who identify with a religion might be more inclined to engage in SGMO to confirm their religious identity and to conform to social norms prescribed by their religious groups (Cavazza & Mucchi-Faina, 2008; Fernandes & Mandel, 2014). Indeed, conformity is a personal characteristic that fosters group identification (Jugert & Duckitt, 2009; Kaikati et al., 2017). Additionally, Peifer et al (2016) inspired a further argument that religious individuals’ belief in the higher power might alleviate conservatives’ resistance to change. Adopting SGMO could be seen as a change needed in business practices to amend the environmental impact SMEs have. According to System Justification Theory (Jost et al., 2004), conservatives would be apprehensive to such a change. However, the belief in higher power might relieve conservatives’ fear of change, which thus reduces the barrier to adopt SGMO.
Taken together, because top-executives play a more significant role in influencing the green decision-making in SME context, we posit that Conservative top-executives who identify with a religious group would feel obliged to conform to social pressures (i.e., comply with subjective norms) and personal responsibilities (i.e., personal norms) relating to SME sustainability. That is, they are more likely to make strategic decisions relating to green investments (i.e., SGMO) according to the perceived norms. Therefore, we hypothesize that the relationship between religious identification, subjective norms, and personal norms would be stronger among SME with Conservative top-executives. Formally:
H4: Conservatism positively moderates the effects of religious identification on subjective norms.
H5: Conservatism positively moderates the effects of religious identification on personal norms.
Because we proposed that the relationship between religious identification and SGMO is mediated by subjective norms and personals norms, we postulate that the effects of religious identification on SGMO through subjective norms and personal norms would be stronger among SMEs with Conservative top-executives. Formally:
H6: Conservatism positively moderates the mediating role of subjective norm, such that the indirect effect of religious identification on SGMO via subjective norm is stronger among Conservative respondents.
H7: Conservatism positively moderates the mediating role of personal norm, such that the indirect effect of religious identification on SGMO via personal norm is stronger among Conservative respondents.
Methods
Data Collection
We used a cross-sectional study design in which a market research consultancy firm was appointed to recruit our respondents. We specified our sampling frame to include CEO and/or owner-managers of SMEs in the US The invitation to participate in our survey was distributed by the market research consultancy firm via e-mail to their national database of US-based SME owners-managers and/or CEO. For the purpose of this study, SMEs are defined as firms with less than 200 employees (Casidy & Nyadzayo, 2019). The data collection was conducted in October 2022 over a 10-day period. The survey was sent to 2000 potential participants of SME owners-managers and/or CEO across the US, from which 426 respondents returned usable responses, resulting in a response rate of 21%. Table 2 provides a summary of the demographic characteristics of the respondents.
Measurement Items
All of the scale items used in the present study are adopted from prior literature. We measured Strategic Green Marketing Orientation (SGMO) using the scale developed by Papadas et al. (2017). Subjective Norms (SN) and Personal Norms (PN) were measured using items adapted from Ajzen (1991) and Han et al. (2017b), respectively. Consistent with prior studies (e.g., Farmer et al., 2020; Martini et al., 2024; Ozcaglar‐Toulouse et al. 2006), we used a single-item construct to measure attitude toward pro-environmental practices (ATT) (Arli et al., 2018) and political ideology (Caprara & Vecchione, 2018). For religious identification, we followed prior studies (Casidy et al., 2021; Grewal et al., 2022) by re-coding participants based on their responses to religious affiliation question in the survey: those who identify with a particular religion is coded as “1” whereas those who are not affiliated with a particular religion (i.e., Atheists/Agnostics/No Religion) is coded as “0” in our data (see Table 3 for full list of scale items).
Assessment of Common Method Variance
Because our survey involves a single respondent from each SME, we implemented a number of procedures to reduce the potential issue of common method variance (CMV). First, we randomize the order of questions among respondents and ensure that the survey can be completed within an average completion time of 10 min. Second, we adopted the marker variable technique (Simmering et al., 2015) by correlating an unrelated variable (number of employees) with key constructs in our model. Our analysis finds that the partialled correlations (r = -0.095) are close to zero, indicating minimum issue of CMV. Finally, we re-estimated our structural model by adding a common method factor in our model (MacKenzie & Podsakoff, 2012). Our analysis suggests that the relationship between key constructs in our model remains significant, with no substantial differences after incorporating common method factor in the model. Thus, we can conclude from our analyses that no major CMV issues are found in the data.
Model Fit and Construct Validity
We employed a confirmatory factor analysis with the aid of MPlus 7.4. Our analysis indicates that the model fits the data well on the basis of the model fit indicators (χ2 = 190.800, df = 123; CMin/df = 1.55; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.051; Comparative Fit Index = 0.975; and the Tucker-Lewis index = 0.969). Importantly, there is evidence for discriminant validity as the correlations between key constructs are below the square root of the average variance extracted of each construct (Table 4).
Results and Analysis
Test of Group Differences
To evaluate our main effect hypothesis (H1), we conducted an independent t-tests analysis with SGMO as the test variable and religious identification (0 = Non-religious; 1 = Religious) as the grou** variable. We also included subjective norms, personal norms, and attitude toward pro-environmental practices in our analysis to evaluate the differences between religious and non-religious respondents in their responses to these constructs.
Our analysis finds that religious top-executives (M = 4.535, SD = 1.387) demonstrate significantly higher level of SGMO than non-religious top-executives (M = 4.241 SD = 1.201; t(424) = −2.289, p = 0.023, Cohen’s d = 1.311), thereby confirming H1. We also found that religious respondents have higher scores for subjective norms and personal norms than non-religious respondents. However, there are no significant differences between religious and non-religious respondents in their attitude toward pro-environmental practices (see Table 5 for full results).
Mediation Effects
We conducted a serial mediation analysis using SPSS PROCESS Macro-Syntax of Hayes (2015) to test our mediation hypotheses (H2 & H3) with religious identification as the predictor variable, subjective norms, and personal norms as the first mediators, attitude toward pro-environmental practices as the second mediator, and SGMO as the dependent variable.Footnote 1 Our results reveal that the path of religious identification → subjective norms → attitude → SGMO is significant (Bindirect = 0.015, 95% CI [0.0003, 0.0415]), thus supporting H2. Specifically, we found that religious identification has positive effects on subjective norms (B = 0.279, t(424) = 2.078, p = 0.038), and subjective norms, in turn, have positive effects on attitude (B = 0.125, t(423) = 3.181, p = 0.002), which in turn positively influences SGMO (B = 0.440, t(423) = 9.574, p < 0.001; see Table 6).
The results also reveal that the path of religious identification → personal norms → attitude → SGMO (Bindirect = 0.067, 95% CI [0.0038, 0.1373]) is significant, thus supporting H3. Specifically, we found that religious identification is positively related with personal norms (B = 0.252, t(424) = 2.051, p = 0.041), and personal norms, in turn, have positive effects on attitude (B = 0.603, t(423) = 14.023, p < 0.001), which in turn positively influences SGMO (B = 0.440, t(423) = 9.574, p < 0.001; see Table 6). It is worth noting that the indirect effects of religious identification on SGMO via personal norms is stronger than the indirect effects via subjective norms (ΔBindirect = −0.052, 90% CI [−0.1051, −0.0022], suggesting that personal norms have a stronger mediating influence on the link between religious identification and SGMO.
Moderated Mediation Analysis
We utilized SPSS PROCESS Macro-Syntax of Hayes (2015) to test H4–H7. Our key-dependent variable was SGMO. We entered religious identification as the independent variable, subjective norms, and personal norms as the first parallel mediators, attitude as the second mediator, and political ideology as a moderator in the model.
Our analysis indicates that the relationship between religious identification and subjective norms is moderated by political ideology (Binteraction = 0.217, t(422) = 2.769, p = 0.006). A spotlight analysis reveals that the effects of religious identification on subjective norms are significant only among Conservative respondents (B = 0.760, t(422) = 3.867, p < 0.001), but not significant among Liberal respondents (B = −0.110, t(422) = −0.507, p = 0.612), thereby confirming H4 (see Fig. 2). Importantly, we found that the serial mediation path of religious identification → subjective norms → attitude → SGMO is only significant among conservatives (Bindirect = 0.097, 95% CI [0.0295, 0.1922]), but not significant among liberals (Bindirect = 0.0001, 95% CI [−0.0116, 0.0089]; see Table 7), thus confirming H6. The pairwise contrasts between conditional indirect effects of conservatives and liberals are also significant, thereby lending further support for H6 (ΔBindirect = 0.0965, 95% CI [0.0292, 0.1928]).
Subjective norms as a function of religious identification and political ideology
Our analysis found that religious identification significantly interacts with Conservatism in influencing personal norms (Binteraction = 0.145, t(422) = 2.015, p = 0.045), thereby confirming H5. A spotlight analysis revealed that the relationship between religious identification and personal norms are significant among conservatives (B = 0.611, t(422) = 3.403, p < 0.001), but not significant among liberals (B = 0.033, t(422) = 0.165, p = 0.869; see Fig. 3). Accordingly, our analysis reveals that the serial mediation path of religious identification → personal norms → attitude → SGMO is only significant among conservatives (Bindirect = 0.218, 95% CI [0.0848, 0.3746]), but not significant among liberals (Bindirect = 0.004, 95% CI [-0.0519, 0.0559]; see Table 7), thereby confirming H7. The pairwise contrasts between conditional indirect effects of conservatives and liberals are also significant, thereby lending further support for H7 (ΔBindirect = 0.214, 95% CI [0.0665, 0.3813]).
Personal norms as a function of religious identification and political ideology
Alternative Model
To better understand the dynamic interactions between religious identification and political ideology in influencing SGMO, we employed an alternative serial moderated mediation model using SPSS PROCESS Macro-Syntax of Hayes (2015) with political ideology as the independent variable, SGMO as the dependent variable, subjective norms and personal norms as the first parallel mediators, attitude as the second mediator, and religious identification as a moderator in the model.
Our analysis finds that Conservatism has negative effects on subjective norms (B = -0.242, t(422) = -4.295, p < 0.001) and personal norms (B = -0.223, t(422) = -4.315, p < 0.001) among non-religious respondents, but the effects are not significant among religious respondents. Further, we found that the serial mediation path of Conservatism → subjective norms → attitude → SGMO is only significant among non-religious respondents (Bindirect = -0.014, 95% CI [0.0317, 0.0020]), but not significant among religious respondents (Bindirect = .-0.001, 95% CI [–0.0137, 0.0069]). Likewise, the serial mediation path of Conservatism → personal norms → attitude → SGMO is only significant among non-religious respondents (Bindirect = -0.052, 95% CI [-0.0874, -0.0235]), but not significant among religious respondents (Bindirect = .-0.023, 95% CI [-0.0530, 0.0028]). Our findings are consistent with the literature in that Conservatism has negative association with engagement in green behaviors. Importantly, consistent with Peifer et al. (2016), our findings suggest that this association is only significant among non-religious Conservative respondents, but not significant among religious Conservative respondents. In other words, as predicted, religiosity acts as a buffer that attenuates the effects of conservatism on SGMO.
Discussion
Our study provides empirical evidence supporting the importance of religious identification in influencing green marketing decisions among SMEs. First, we found that SMEs whose top-executives identify with a religion engage in a higher level of SGMO than those with non-religious top-executives. Further, we demonstrate the mediating roles of subjective norms, personal norms, and attitude toward pro-environmental practice in bridging the link between religious identification and SGMO. Importantly, we identify political ideology as a key moderator on the relationship between religious identification, norms, and SGMO, as the mediating effects of personal norms, subjective norms, and attitude were found to be significant only among Conservative respondents. Our study has provided insightful contributions to knowledge as well as managerial practice.
Contributions to Literature
We derive a number of theoretical contributions based on our findings. First, we contribute to green marketing research within organizational context, which remains an under-research topic in the literature (Casidy & Yan, 2022). With religious identification as our focal predictor construct, we responded to the call for research by Casidy and Lie (2023) to examine the factors that influence firms’ adoption of green strategy, as well as the call for research by Sharma (2020, p.324) to contribute to “the extremely limited research on the antecedents of sustainability strategy.”
Second, we contribute to theory by integrating the upper-echelon paradigm (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), TRA (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1980), and social identity theory (Turner et al., 1979) to explain the role of religious identification in influencing the green marketing decisions of SMEs. While prior studies have found the link between norms, religiosity, and various outcomes (e.g., Al-hajla et al., 2019; Muhamad et al., 2018), no studies have examined how political ideology might influence these relationships. Therefore, our study provides a novel contribution to theory by identifying political ideology (i.e., Conservatism) as a key boundary condition on the link between religious identification, norms, attitude, and SGMO. Further, we extend the TRA by incorporating personal norms in the framework and comparing the mediating effects of subjective norms and personal norms in influencing green marketing decisions. In particular, we highlight a moderated mediation mechanism whereby personal norms play a stronger mediating role than subjective norms in bridging the link between religious identification and SGMO among Conservative respondents. Our results provide further empirical evidence for the important role that personal norms play in influencing green marketing decision (Khare, 2015; Tanner and Kast 2003), which, to date, has received limited attention in the literature (Principato et al., 2021).
Third, we contribute to ethics literature, specifically focusing on the intersection of religious ethics and the environment. Research suggests a growing influence of religious institutions in the environmental movement and public policy (Chan & Islam, 2015). Pedersen (2015) further argues that religious involvement is crucial for the environmental movement and that understanding the role of religion is vital for effective environmental studies. However, the complex relationship between religious belief and environmental ethics remains subject to debate. While some studies find a correlation between stronger religiosity and environmental concern (Arli et al., 2023), others demonstrate no clear association between religiosity and environmental attitudes (Pasaribu et al., 2022). Our study confirms a positive association between the religious identification of top-executives in SMEs and their level of engagement in SGMO. This finding supports Iguchi et al. (2021) study, suggesting that a CEO's religious beliefs, centered on values of compassion and stewardship, could act as a motivator for implementing green initiatives. Specifically, SMEs top-executives may believe that good or ethical deeds will be rewarded, and bad or unethical deeds will be punished, motivating them to exercise their power to improve green orientations (Iguchi et al., 2021).
Finally, the present study contributes to the upper-echelon paradigm in organizational decision-making research. Most studies have examined the drivers of green marketing decisions from a macro-perspective, whereas few, if any, studies have examined the way that top-executives’ characteristics influence firm-level green decision-making (Iguchi et al., 2021). Our study addresses this gap by examining the influence of top-executives’ religious identification on SGMO. We also contribute to the recent call for research to examine the role of political ideology in marketing (Fernandes et al., 2022; Kim et al., 2018), which has become increasingly important as political opinions are becoming more polarized globally (Birch, 2020). With regard to political ideology, prior studies have generally found a negative association between Conservatism and attitude toward pro-environmental practices (Kidwell et al., 2013; Tranter & Booth, 2015; Wood & Vedlitz, 2007; Zia & Todd, 2010). However, we added more nuances to these prior findings by observing the role of religious identification in mitigating the negative effects of Conservatism on green attitude. Indeed, our alternative analysis shows that religious identification mitigates the negative effect of Conservatism on subjective norms and personal norms relating to green behavior. These findings not only generate useful theoretical insights, but also carry important implications for ethics and policy, as detailed below.
Implications for Ethics and Policy
Due to increasing demand for green products over the past decade, many firms attempt to market themselves as “green organizations” to cater to the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers. Given the significant environmental footprint made by SMEs, it is imperative for policy makers to encourage genuine green practices within this sector by appealing directly to top-executives. Our findings suggest that religious identification influences SGMO via subjective norms, personal norms, and attitude, particularly among conservatives.
Therefore, we recommend the use of geo-political segmentation and targeting strategies using political ideology and religiosity as segmentation bases (see Septianto et al., 2019). In particular, our findings suggest that policy makers and green activists are likely to face less resistance to adopting SGMO among conservative religious SME top-executives (Peifer et al., 2016). Further, as personal norms were found to play the strongest mediating role in linking religious identification and SGMO, policy makers could appeal to conservative religious top-executives by reminding them of their personal moral (and religious) obligation to conduct their business in pro-environmental ways (Goldberg et al., 2019). This can be done by incorporating reminders such as the responsibility of religious adherents to maintain and utilize the gifts that God has bestowed (in this context: natural resources) using pro-environmental appeals. Subjective norms also play a key role in influencing SGMO adoption by this segment. Hence, policy makers could target organizations that have publicly professed pro-environmentalism (e.g., on their websites) when promoting new green initiatives in religious and conservative areas (e.g., Arli & Tjiptono, 2017). Such appeals could portray adoption of green initiatives as a means to comply with religious norms.
We also identified important practical implications for green suppliers / organizations wishing to partner with SMEs. Greenwashing is a critical ethical issue in today’s increasingly competitive markets as many firms attempt to label themselves as “sustainable” to appeal to more consumers. As such, Conservative firms may be less inclined to engage with sustainable suppliers due to the perception of greenwashing (Zhang et al., 2018). One important finding that emerged from our alternative analysis is that religious identification is effective in mitigating the negative effects of Conservatism on SGMO. Prior experimental studies have found that “nudging” people about the environment via priming method can cause people to engage in more pro-environmental behavior (Bimonte et al., 2020). Therefore, green suppliers could integrate environmental priming method with religious priming (see Newton et al., 2018) to promote their products/services. This can be done, for example, by sponsoring certain environmental events that are related to religious organizations and/or holidays (e.g., Christmas/Easter). This approach may remind top-executives of their religious values while simultaneously promoting green products/services, which may activate their personal norms, and in turn may enhance SGMO.
Conclusion and Limitations
We encourage future research to address the methodological and conceptual limitations of the present study. First, because we used a single-informant method, the issue of common method variance may influence our results, despite our best effort to control it. Future studies could utilize a multi-informant method by involving top management teams and/or employees. It would be interesting to examine whether and how top management teams’ religious identification and political ideology would influence SGMO, particularly in organizations whose personnel have diverse religious and political ideology backgrounds. It is also worth noting that our data were collected in the US, where liberals are generally more environmentally conscious than conservatives. Therefore, we encourage future researcher to interpret our findings with care, and to examine the interplay between religious identification and political ideology in influencing SGMO in diverse cultural contexts to extend the generalizability of our study’s findings.
Second, while we focused on SGMO as a key-dependent construct in the present study, we were not able to incorporate other dimensions of green marketing orientation (i.e., internal and tactical; Papadas et al., 2017) due to survey-length constraints. We recommend that future studies incorporate a more diverse dimension of green marketing orientation as it would be interesting to determine whether religious identification and political ideology influence these distinct dimensions of green marketing orientation. We also call for future research to extend the upper-echelon paradigm in organizational research by examining the role of personal values in influencing green marketing decisions. Such studies would shed further light on the way that the personal characteristics of top-executives influence their firm’s adoption of green marketing strategies.
Third, we recognize that there may be other alternative mechanisms that can explain why religious identification influences SGMO beyond the lens of social identity and TRA presented in our study. For example, according to the self-enhancement paradigm (Gebauer et al., 2017), religious individuals may want to engage in a certain behavior to enhance their reputation and impress others. Hence, top-executives who identify with a religion may engage in SGMO to enhance their reputation. Apart from religious identification, firms may also adopt SGMO because of economic benefits (i.e., competitive advantage). Therefore, we call for future research to examine the role of perceived competitive advantage in influencing SGMO, and other boundary conditions that may moderate this relationship.
Finally, while this study has provided empirical evidence of the positive effects of religious identification on firms’ adoption of SGMO, our data are cross-sectional in nature and, as such, we were not able to examine how we can change people’s perception of the importance of SGMO. Hence, we encourage future studies to adopt experimental design approaches by develo** specific green marketing appeals based on target segments’ religious identification and political ideology in order to change their perception. In particular, because our findings suggest that the effects of religious identification on SGMO are more pronounced among conservatives, future studies can examine specific strategies to enhance SGMO adoption among Liberal top-executives.
Notes
Because religion is associated with socio-demographic variables, we replicated our analysis using age, gender, race, and education as covariates. The results of our analyses remain consistent with/without the inclusion of covariates. To maintain model parsimony, we excluded the reporting of analysis with covariates in this paper.
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Casidy, R., Arli, D. & Tan, L.P. The Influence of Religious Identification on Strategic Green Marketing Orientation. J Bus Ethics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05658-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05658-3