ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Psychological Green Climate as a Mediator between Green Transformational Leadership, Innovation, and Environmental Awareness
Provisionally accepted
Onur Oktaysoy1
Ethem TOPCUOGLU2*
Murat Selim Selvi3
Selen Uygungil Erdoğan4Yaşar Şahin5Volkan Tatar6Mahmut Özdemirkol1
ENGİN KARAFAKIOĞLU7- 1Kafkas Universitesi, Kars, Türkiye
- 2Giresun University, Giresun, Türkiye
- 3Tekirdag Namik Kemal Universitesi, Tekirdağ, Türkiye
- 4Osmaniye Korkut Ata Universitesi, Osmaniye, Türkiye
- 5Trabzon Universitesi, Trabzon, Türkiye
- 6Istanbul Arel Universitesi, Istanbul, Türkiye
- 7Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Icisleri Bakanligi Jandarma Genel Komutanligi, Çankaya, Türkiye
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Introduction: The negative impacts of human activities on nature have brought about environmental problems such as global warming, water pollution, and deforestation. Mitigating these problems is closely related not only to environmental policies but also to internal leadership approaches within organizations. In this context, green transformational leadership (GTL) stands out as a contemporary leadership style that guides employees toward environmentally conscious behaviors and encourages sustainable practices. This study examines the effects of green transformational leadership on corporate green innovation and individual environmental awareness, aiming to reveal the mediating role of psychological green climate in this relationship from a Turkiye perspective. Methods: The study was structured as structural equation modeling (SEM). Research data were obtained from 435 Turkish SMEs employees selected using convenience sampling, and analyzed using the SmartPLS-SEM method. Results: The findings indicate that green transformational leadership encourages environmentally focused behaviors at both the organizational and individual levels, and that the psychological green climate plays a partial mediating role in these relationships. The findings show that green transformational leadership is a strategic tool in creating sustainable organizational cultures. Discussion: The study is innovative because it is one of the few in the literature that integrates organizational (green innovation) and individual (environmental awareness) outcomes within the same model, treating psychological green climate as an intermediary mechanism. In this context, the research offers practical recommendations to managers for strengthening the perception of green climate, encouraging environmentally friendly behaviors, and restructuring innovation processes from a sustainability perspective.
Keywords: Green transformational leadership, organizational green innovation, individualenvironmental awareness, Psychological green climate, environmental psychology
Received: 09 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Oktaysoy, TOPCUOGLU, Selvi, Uygungil Erdoğan, Şahin, Tatar, Özdemirkol and KARAFAKIOĞLU. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ethem TOPCUOGLU, ethem.topcuoglu@giresun.edu.tr
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.