The school leaders environmental responsive behaviour in Malaysia and the mediating effect of environmental intention

The Malaysian school leaders’ environmental responsive behaviour is still not impressive in its fullest potential to mitigate their behaviour to overcome the negative consequences caused by the environmental degradation and overconsumption of natural resources. Hence, there is a need to determine the factors that contribute to environmental responsive behaviour among school leaders in Malaysia. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate the possible variables that could better explain the school leaders’ environmental responsive behaviour by investigating the relationship between emotional affinity toward nature, environmental attitude, environmental subjective norm, environmental perceived behavioural control, and institutional support on environmental responsive behaviour. Additionally, environmental intention was examined as a mediator. The triangulation theory approach, which integrates the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), the Attention Restoration Theory, and the Social Capital Theory were used to explain the relationships between the variables. A total of 503 school leaders, representing 70.23 percent, participated in this study. The data was collected via an online survey, and PLS-SEM was used to analyze it and test the hypotheses. The statistical results indicated that emotional affinity toward nature, environmental attitude, and environmental perceived behavioural control are positively related to environmental intention. Conversely, environmental subjective norm and institutional support are not related to environmental intention. Environmental intention was found to be positively related to environmental responsive behaviour. Moreover, the results revealed that no empirical support was found for the mediating effect of environmental subjective norm, institutional support and environmental responsive behaviour. Finally, theoretical contributions, practical implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.