The effects of construal level and small wins framing on an individual's commitment to an environmental initiative

•Individuals with a higher level of environmental concern exhibited greater commitment to the environmental initiative.•Construal level strengthened the relationship between environmental concern and commitment to the environmental initiative.•Small wins framing strengthened the relationship between environmental concern and commitment to the environmental initiative.•A higher level of perceived organizational efficacy led to increased commitment to the environmental initiative.•Females were found to provide greater commitment than males.

Organizations are increasingly focused on improving the environmental sustainability of their operations, products, and services. To implement sustainability initiatives, organizations often seek commitment from their members to volunteer discretionary time and effort toward reaching the initiative's goals. This research sought to understand whether construal level and small wins strategy might affect goal commitment toward a sustainability initiative. Using a scenario-based 2 × 2 factorial design experiment with 133 university students, we manipulated construal level and small wins strategy while measuring participants' environmental concern, perceptions of organizational efficacy, and goal commitment. Goal difficulty, gender, and age were included as control variables. Individuals with higher environmental concern had higher commitment to the organization's initiative, but this relationship was moderated, with both a high level of construal and the use of small wins strategy strengthening that relationship. Perceived organizational efficacy was also found to increase goal commitment, and women exhibited greater goal commitment than men.