The effect of organizational commitment on green organizational behavior: The Case of administrative staff in Selçuk University

Today, the adoption of sustainability goals at the institutional level is of great importance for all organizations. In this context, all organizations operating in areas such as the public sector, private sector and voluntary organizations have highlighted the strategy and policies of producing goods and services within the framework of a sustainable environmental policy. Universities, in particular, are pioneer institutions in the dissemination of environmental behaviors in terms of both education and institutional responsibility. The examination of the green organizational behavior levels of administrative staff working in universities and the factors affecting these behaviors is of great importance in terms of spreading sustainability policies to the base. Based on this necessity, this thesis aims to evaluate the relationship between organizational commitment and green organizational behavior. The basic assumption of the research is based on the effect of organizational commitment on green organizational behavior. Because employees with high organizational commitment are expected to support the strategies and policies adopted by the organization and even show their efforts and desires to do more. The universe of the study consists of administrative staff working at Selçuk University (N=4,354). The sample of the study consists of 416 administrative staff selected from the universe by convenience sampling method. The data obtained through an online survey form were analyzed by SPSS 25 and AMOS 23 programs. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the validity of the scales, and Cronbach Alpha coefficients were examined to evaluate their reliability. According to the findings obtained from the descriptive statistics of the variables, it was determined that the participants had a medium level of organizational commitment (x̄=3.14) and a high level of green organizational behavior (x̄=4.34). According to the Pearson correlation analysis findings, a statistically significant and positive relationship was found between organizational commitment and green organizational behavior (r=0.227, p<0.05). In addition, it was observed that there were positively significant relationships between organizational commitment and all sub-dimensions of green organizational behavior. In order to test the hypotheses created within the scope of the research, path analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied. According to the findings of the SEM analysis, it was determined that organizational commitment had a 37% positive effect on green organizational behavior (β=0.370, p<0.05). In addition, it was determined that organizational commitment had a statistically significant and positive effect on the sub-factors of green organizational behavior, which are environmental sensitivity (β=0.248, p<0.05), environmental participation (β=0.394, p<0.05), economic sensitivity (β=0.332, p<0.05), green purchasing (β=0.331, p<0.05) and technological sensitivity (β=0.219, p<0.05). Accordingly, it was observed that organizational commitment had the highest effect on the environmental participation factor among the sub-factors of green organizational behavior. These results show that strengthening the organizational commitment of employees is an important element in increasing sustainability-oriented employee behaviors in universities. At the end of the research, various suggestions for managers and subsequent research are included.