The Relationship between Ethical Leadership, Environmental Transformational Leadership, Environmental Concern, and Pro-Environmental Behavior in Chinese Manufacturing Textile SME

This research aims at investigating the effects of ethical leadership (EL), environmental transformational

leadership (ETL), and environmental concern on pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) of SMEs in the textile

manufacturing sector in China. With SMEs accounting for more than 60% of China’s GDP, it is imperative to

encourage them to adopt sustainable practices, particularly textile industries that have major challenges

affecting the environment. The study highlights a significant gap between environmental concern and actual

pro-environmental behaviour, suggesting that awareness alone is insufficient to drive substantive change. It

focuses on how managers can influence green organizational culture through which managers themselves

promote environmental responsibility in their organizations and in addition encourage other organisational

members to embrace environmentally friendly behaviors in their workplaces. However, several problems like

prices volatility of raw material, increasing energy costs and low profit margin lead them unable to ignore

sustainable environmental issues. The proposed conceptual framework provides understanding on how

leadership can close the attitude–behaviour gap, towards encouraging pro-environment development

strategies throughout the sector. Such relationships should be further validated in future empirical research

done to understand the additional implications that come with them.