The Influence of Ethical Leadership, Green Transformational Leadership, and Green Servant Leadership on Corporate Sustainability: The Mediating Role of Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Lim, Joelle Zi Hang (2026) The Influence of Ethical Leadership, Green Transformational Leadership, and Green Servant Leadership on Corporate Sustainability: The Mediating Role of Pro-Environmental Behaviour. Masters thesis, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Corporate sustainability has become a key organisational priority as stakeholders increasingly expect businesses to balance economic performance with social responsibility and environmental protection. Although many organisations formally report their sustainability efforts, sustainability is not always fully embedded into their strategies, operations, and workplace practices. This highlights the need to examine how leadership can influence employee behaviours that support long-term sustainability outcomes. Accordingly, this study investigates the influence of ethical leadership, green transformational leadership, and green servant leadership on corporate sustainability, with pro-environmental behaviour examined as a mediating variable. The study is underpinned by Social Learning Theory, Transformational Leadership Theory, and the Resource-Based View Theory, which collectively provide a theoretical basis for understanding how leadership practices shape employee behaviour and contribute to organisational sustainability. A quantitative research design was adopted using a structured online questionnaire distributed to employees in Malaysian organisations. The study applied a positivist philosophy, deductive approach, survey strategy, and cross-sectional time horizon. Data were collected from 355 respondents and analysed using IBM SPSS Version 25.0. The analysis included preliminary tests, descriptive statistics, reliability and validity assessments, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and mediation analysis using Hayes’ PROCESS Macro Model 4. The findings show that ethical leadership, green transformational leadership, and green servant leadership have significant positive relationships with pro-environmental behaviour. Pro-environmental behaviour also has a significant positive relationship with corporate sustainability. In addition, all three leadership styles are found to directly influence corporate sustainability. However, the mediation results reveal mixed outcomes. Pro-environmental behaviour mediates the relationship between green transformational leadership and corporate sustainability, but it does not mediate the relationships between ethical leadership and corporate sustainability or between green servant leadership and corporate sustainability. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the leadership-sustainability relationship in Malaysia. Practically, the findings suggest that organisations should develop leadership practices that promote environmental responsibility, employee participation, and sustainability-oriented workplace behaviour to strengthen corporate sustainability in Malaysian organisational contexts and future research.