Perceived ESG Practices and Pro‐Environmental Behavior in Hotels: Employee Satisfaction and Well‐Being as Sequential Mediating Mechanisms for Environmental Engagement

ABSTRACT Improving environmental performance is a strategic priority for resource‐intensive service industries such as hospitality. This study examines how employees' perceptions of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices are associated with employee‐driven pro‐environmental behavior. Drawing on an integrated framework of social identity theory and signaling theory, we explain how organizational‐level ESG signals become psychologically salient to employees and are linked to organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE). Job satisfaction and employee well‐being are conceptualized as cognitive‐attitudinal and affective mechanisms through which ESG perceptions are associated with pro‐environmental engagement. Survey data from 269 hotel employees in Taiwan were analyzed using PLS‐SEM and multigroup analysis. The results indicate that perceived ESG practices are positively associated with job satisfaction, employee well‐being, and OCBE. Employee well‐being emerges as the more conceptually distinct and empirically stable mediator linked to OCBE, whereas the role of job satisfaction should be interpreted cautiously because the original job satisfaction items were conditioned on ESG implementation. The sequential pathway from ESG practices to job satisfaction, employee well‐being, and OCBE is statistically consistent with the proposed model but should not be interpreted as definitive causal evidence. Multigroup analysis reveals no statistically significant path differences across tenure groups, suggesting that the proposed relationships are broadly stable across employees with different tenure levels. Overall, the findings position ESG as a credible institutional signal associated with environmental citizenship through employee psychological pathways.