Explaining the role of green psychological climate on sustainable innovation with internal and external green motivations

EXTENDED ABSTRACT
 
Introduction
Sustainable innovation can be seen as economic development, creating wealth at the individual and social levels together with eliminating the harmful environmental effects of business on human health (Knipp et al., 2016). Matia et al. (2015) consider sustainable innovation to be the best approach for automotive industry manufacturers, which provides the sustainability of the biosphere for mankind while protecting the environment. It is considered that in order to achieve sustainable innovation, hard and soft organizational and extra-organizational components affect this approach. According to the conducted research, one of the variables affecting sustainable innovation is the green psychological atmosphere governing the organization (Riupert et al., 2016). Green psychological climate pays attention to employees' understanding and interpretation of laws, policies and organizational strategies regarding the greening of organizations and is one of the concepts that are applied to organizations that achieve sustainable goals through a wide range of environmentally compatible policies (Naz et al., 2023). The governance of the green psychological atmosphere is not enough to achieve sustainable innovation alone; Therefore, motivation is an effective phenomenon for employee performance that is necessary to create an environmentally friendly workplace that leads to sustainable innovation. Motivation is manifested in both internal and external forms. Amabil et al. (1994) consider green intrinsic motivation to be love, passion and interest in the occurrence of green and environmentally concerned behavior, which is guided by intrinsic motivation or reward. According to Desi (2015), employees with internal motivation and a positive attitude derived from the green psychological atmosphere governing the organization and with love for nature protect the environment from possible dangers. In addition, Wenjing et al. (2020) consider green extrinsic motivation to be people's desire to behave environmentally friendly due to extrinsic rewards such as savings, admiration, or popularity. Desi and Ryan, 2015). Based on what was said, knowing the mentioned components and pondering on its complex combination and guiding it in the organization leads to the creation of an environmentally profitable organization with the level of effective relationships that support the environment and are concerned about human life. In this regard, the research questions are: Is there a relationship between green psychological climate and sustainability innovation? Is there a relationship between green psychological climate and green intrinsic and extrinsic motivations? Do green intrinsic and extrinsic motivations lead to sustainable innovation? Does green psychological climate affect sustainable innovation through green intrinsic and extrinsic motivations?
 
Methodology
In terms of purpose, this research is applied and has a quantitative (comparative) approach and follows a correlational survey strategy. The main tool for data collection was a standard questionnaire. Based on this, the standard questionnaire of green psychological climate (Norton et al., 2014), sustainable innovation (Boken et al., 2014), internal and external green motivations (Amabile et al., 1994) was used. The statistical population was the general employees working in different departments of Iran Khodro Automobile Company, and to determine the sample size in order to avoid the problems of rules of thumb, the sample size was determined by the test-based method and G*POWER software. Considering the error level of 5%, the effect size of 0.05, as well as the minimum test power of 80% and 4 predictor variables, the number of 244 people was calculated. With the consultation of the supervisor and consultant, the number of samples was increased by 10%, and a total of 268 questionnaires were distributed online using a stratified random sampling method, and a total of 212 questionnaires reached the researchers. The return rate of the online questionnaire must be at least 65% so that the survey process has the necessary validity; which is 79 percent in this research. For descriptive analysis, SPSS 23 software was used in the inferential statistics section in order to avoid the limitations caused by the minimum sample size and insensitivity to the normality or non-normality of the data, using the partial least squares approach with the help of Smart PLS version 3 software.
 
 Result and discussion
Based on the research findings, the intensity of the direct effect of green psychological climate on sustainable innovation is equal to 0.622, the effect of green psychological climate on green internal motivations is equal to 0.857 and on green external motivations is equal to 0.816. Also, the effect intensity of green internal motivations and green external motivations on sustainable innovation is equal to 0.514 and 0.341, respectively. Also, according to the values ​​obtained in Figure (3), the coefficient of significance between the green psychological climate on sustainable innovation is equal to 11.106 and since it is higher than the standard value of 1.96, it shows the confirmation of the first hypothesis of the research. The significance value between green psychological atmosphere and green inner motivation is equal to 35.899, which was confirmed according to the usual number of 1.96 in the meaningful model and the second hypothesis of the research. Also, the significant number between green psychological atmosphere and green external motivation, green external motivation and sustainable innovation, and green internal motivation and sustainable innovation is equal to 30.928, 2.054 and 5.958 respectively, which is more than the standard value of 1.96. which shows the confirmation of research hypotheses.
 
Conclusion
Managers' attention to soft structures such as the psychological climate and internal and external motivations of the promoters of green creation among the agents in different departments of the company provides the means to design and manufacture new products with sustainability requirements and makes them commit to this matter.