Determinants and implications of employee electricity saving habit: An empirical study in China

Employees constitute a large target group for energy conservation. Companies that want to reduce their energy consumption should promote their employees’ participation. For successful energy saving in companies, employees should save energy on a continued basis, and develop the habit of energy saving. Unfortunately, success in having employees continue to save energy in organization is difficult. Motivated by such concern, taking office workers as example, this study develops a model to explain employee electricity saving habit in organization. Determining factors are identified based on social exchange theory, norm activation model and literature on threat and harm. Data were collected through a survey of 211 office workers from 10 organizations in Northern China. Partial Least Square (PLS) path modeling was used to analyze the collected data. The results show that enjoyment, personal norm, image and perceived harm significantly influence employee energy saving habit in organization. While anticipated extrinsic benefit and perceived threat do not have significant impact. This paper contributes to the energy saving literature by studying employee energy saving habit in organization.