Tourism and hospitality are at a crossroads. The growth and developmental potential of these industries indicate the economic benefits for an associated nation at one end. However, the environmental issues related to tourism and hospitality create challenges for the administration at another end. In most cases, a sheer amount of carbon emission in hospitality lies with energy consumption, especially electrical energy. However, past studies on environmental management have mainly focused on the supply side of energy (production) and left the terrain of the demand side (consumption by individuals) unattended. Recently, behavioral scientists have indicated that corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions of a firm can promote sustainable behavior among individuals, including employees. We tend to spark this discussion from an energy consumption perspective by investigating the relationship between CSR and energy-related pro-environmental behavior of employees (EPB) in the hospitality sector of a developing country (Pakistan). To understand the underlying mechanism of this relationship, this study proposes the mediating role of green intrinsic motivation (GIM) and the moderating role of human emotions, e.g., employee admiration (ADM). We developed a theoretical model for which the data were gathered from different hotel employees with the help of a questionnaire. We used structural equation modeling for hypotheses testing. The empirical evidence indicated that CSR significantly predicts EPB, and there is a mediating role of GIM. The study also confirmed that ADM moderates this relationship. The findings of this study will be helpful for hotel administration to understand the profound importance of CSR-based actions to promote energy-related sustainable behavior among employees, e.g., EPB. Other implications for theory and practice have been highlighted in the main text of this draft.
Keywords: admiration; corporate social responsibility; green intrinsic motivation; human emotions; tourism and hospitality.