Exploring the future research directions in green human resource management: an analytical retrospection from the eye of latent Dirichlet allocation

Purpose Green or environmental human resource management (HRM) has in recent years attracted much attention from academia and practitioners all over the world. However, a thorough analysis of green or environmental HRM has not been made so far. To address this gap, the present study provides a systematic and comprehensive literature review. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to review Green HRM literature of various scopes, approaches and contexts; to identify different focus areas in the Green HRM literature; and to propose areas for future research. Design/methodology/approach The paper follows a systematic literature review approach. The selected journal articles are categorized on the basis of five focus areas in the Green HRM derived from the extant literature. Findings Research has grown significantly over the past 12 years that has focused on Green HRM. A total of 70 articles were reviewed and most of these articles employed quantitative method and were carried out in developing countries. Based on the five focus areas identified in this literature review, the performance outcome of Green HRM at both the organizational level and individual level received the greatest attention from the researchers. Research limitations/implications This paper is limited to a review of academic articles obtainable from online databases, containing the words “Green human resource management”, “Green HRM”, “Green human resource”, “Environmental HRM”, “Green training” and “Environmental training” in the title. Additionally, only papers from high quality, peer-reviewed journals were evaluated. Other academic sources such as books and conference papers were not included in this study. Originality/value The paper presents a structural overview of 70 peer-reviewed articles published in leading academic journals from 2007 until early 2019. This review provides an increased understanding of the existing state of current research, trends and future research directions in the Green HRM discipline.

Purpose: This study examines how companies’ environmental performance is affected by Green Human Resource Management (GHRM), with a focus on the moderating influence of corporate environmental ethics and the mediating effect of green organizational culture. Methodology/approach: A quantitative research approach was employed, with data acquired through surveys aimed at organizations implementing GHRM policies. The links between GHRM, green organizational culture, corporate environmental ethics, and environmental performance were examined using path analysis. Results/findings: Green organizational culture serves as a mediator between GHRM and environmental performance, and GHRM activities greatly improve corporate environmental performance. The positive correlation between GHRM and environmental performance is reinforced by corporate environmental ethics, underscoring the significance of ethical commitment in maximizing GHRM's advantages of GHRM. Conclusions: Green organizational culture and environmental ethics are key to improving sustainability, while GHRM supports but does not directly drive performance. Companies should focus on building strong green values and ethical practices. GHRM, green culture, ethics, and performance are interconnected, with ethics moderating GHRM’s impact of GHRM. To enhance GHRM’s effectiveness of GHRM, firms should offer training, promote eco-values, and align policies with sustainability goals. Limitations: As the data are restricted to companies that have implemented GHRM policies, the conclusions might not qualify as relevant to other companies. Deeper qualitative insights are not offered by quantitative methods. Contribution: This study adds to the body of knowledge in GHRM by highlighting the vital roles that environmental ethics and green organizational culture play in improving corporate environmental performance.

Growing concern for the global environment and the adoption of international environmental protection principles have created a need for businesses to implement environmental policies and programs. GHRM means environmental friendly Human Resource Management (HRM) activities such as video recruiting, protection of electronic archives, online interview and application filling environmental training and green initiative-based incentive etc. The main motive of the study is to find out the potential contribution of Human Resource Management field for increasing environmental sustainability by using Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) concept at organization in Sri Lankan context. This study also helps to examine the available GHRM practices in the organization, perception regarding green human resource practices and related constraints as identified by HR professionals of the organization. A survey was conducted to collect data from the respondents of 35 employees by pre-structured questionnaire and informal interviews. The simple random sampling method was used. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics methods. The major findings of the study are significant positive willingness towards all the proposed GHRM initiatives, more than 50% of HR professionals are moderately implemented at least one GHRM initiative, existing rules and regulations is the highest constraints as identified by the HR professionals. In order to achieve sustainability, incorporation of GHRM practices for Brandix group of companies is a prerequisite and company to focus this in their action plan and Flexible rules and regulations have to be followed to motivate HR professionals to practice GHRM practices within the organization.
 Keywords: Apparel sector, Environmental sustainability, Green human resource management, GHRM practices, HR professionals.

To behave in a socially responsible manner and to support the concepts of sustainable development, organizations apply various processes and activities for greening their business. In addition to green marketing, supply and distribution chain, production, packaging and recycling, green human resources management (GHRM) also plays a big role. For this purpose, organizations incorporate a green component into all human resources management (HRM) phases, thereby building a green employer brand. This paper examines the extent to which organizations in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina apply GHRM activities and practices, and whether there are differences in the application of these practices depending on the size and business sector. Empirical research carried out in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina has found that green activities and HRM practices are applied to a small extent, with slightly higher results achieved by small and manufacturing organizations. The findings indicate the need for greater engagement of organizations to strengthen the awareness of the importance of GHRM, support their sustainable development and strengthen the brand in domestic and foreign markets.

Sustainable Human Resource Management (HRM) has emerged as a crucial enabler of organizational sustainability in response to evolving workplace dynamics and global ESG demands. This study explores the integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles into Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) practices and investigates how employee happiness moderates the relationship between GHRM and organizational performance, including environmental and economic outcomes. Using data from the World Values Survey (WVS), this study analyzes responses from 66 countries over a five-year period, comprising 94,278 data points. A quantitative approach employing Smart PLS 4 examines the direct and moderated effects of GHRM on environmental and economic performance (EP and ENP). Variables include ESG dimensions (Environmental, Social, and Governance), happiness as a moderating factor, and key performance indicators. Statistical methods such as hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to validate the hypotheses. The results confirm that integrating ESG principles into GHRM is feasible and significantly enhances both environmental and economic performance. While happiness positively moderates GHRM’s impact on organizational outcomes, its effect is relatively limited. This suggests that although happiness can improve employee engagement and environmental participation, its overall strengthening effect on GHRM is less pronounced under varying levels of happiness. This study contributes to the Sustainable HRM literature by incorporating ESG principles into GHRM practices and exploring the novel role of happiness as a moderating variable. It provides empirical evidence supporting the integration of sustainability frameworks into HRM strategies to enhance organizational performance. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of aligning GHRM with employee well-being to ensure sustainable workplace innovation. JEL classification numbers: F66, M14, M21, O50. Keywords: Green Human Resource Management (GHRM), ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), Employee Happiness, Environmental Performance, Economic Performance.

This study aimed to evaluate whether green human resource management practice encourages prospective candidates to join environmentally responsible enterprises through organizational reputation and corporate social responsibility. The sample was gathered from 402 students from various universities in Bangladesh using a pre-structured questionnaire. The link between the latent components has been explained by analyzing the obtained data using the Partial Least Squares Method (PLSM) of Structural equation Modeling (SEM). The findings indicated that green human resources management has a positive relationship with job pursuit intention and organizational reputation and that corporate social responsibility plays a significant mediating role in this relationship. Students studying in universities in Bangladesh reported having higher job pursuit intentions towards organizations that practice environmental responsibility. The results also show that green human resource management is a source for luring graduated students to pursue careers in green firms and will enable practitioners to combine green human resource management with their conventional human resource practices to employ qualified applicants. The results provide valuable insights into the nature of green human resource management and how the top management is committed to green initiatives in an emerging economy like Bangladesh. Also, the results will help the top management understand how to use green human resource management projects to create corporate social responsibility initiatives and an excellent corporate reputation and attract highly qualified, socially responsible employees to improve environmental performance in organizations. The national policymakers may also get input in designing a green human resource management policy for the economy. Bangladesh is a climate-vulnerable country with a minimal practice of green human resource management in the economy, so the empirical findings of this study will attract researchers, academicians, and practitioners of human resource management to carry out further research in the economy of this area. Finally, this study contributes to the body of knowledge in the still-emerging subject of green human resource management by empirically showing worthy outcomes.

The objective of this paper was to reveal the psychological mechanism that exist between green human resource management (GHRM) and employer branding (EB) among employees from ISO 14001 EMS certified firms. In specific terms, we proposed a moderated mediated model linking GHRM and EB using arguments borrowed from the social identity and signaling theories. In so doing, we propose an empirically tested solution to address the perennial problem of employee turnover and retention challenges. A random sample of ISO 14001 EMS certified firms was used to test our hypothesis. We developed a structural model to examine the hypothesized paths among GHRM, GEE, EB, and GPC. The results obtained indicate that there is a significant relationship between GHRM and EB and green employee empowerment (GEE) mediates this relationship. The study results further reveal that green psychological climate (GPC) moderates the relationship between GHRM and EB. In overall, the study illuminates the complex processes by which GHRM aspects influence EB. In so doing, the study promotes the understanding of the human aspect of green management and provides a framework for crafting ecologically oriented employer branding. The study therefore bears significant implications to policy makers and managers as it persuades them to adopt a new way of developing employer brand and depart from the conventional ways of building employer brand through organizational culture, remuneration and other benefits. The study suggests that engaging in GHRM is likely to offer a competitive edge in the labor market. This understanding on how GHRM influence EB through the existing employees give HR managers an important element of consideration in developing good GHRM policies and framework for attaining long term labor related goals. Moreover, the study unmasks the hidden potential in GHRM as a strategy for talent retention and hence, bears significant implications on the employee retention strategies of the firm. The study re affirms that GHRM is a reflection of the firm's environmental values, strategies and orientation. This attachment to the natural environment has a high likelihood of differentiating the organization in the labor market. The study further points out that firms can leverage on their green management while drafting talent management policies and programs.

The function of human resource (HR) department has been importantly considered as the important catalyst of organizations’ green culture by place or arrange its practices and policies with the goal of organizational sustainability and has intricate that so as to modify green management, employees must be arising from some external creative impulse, given the authority or power to try to something. Green human resource management (GHRM) incorporate practices that are environment friendly and also commencing practices for sustainable use of resources that result in more efficiencies, less wastage, improved work attitude, improved QWL, low cost, better employee performance and retention of talented manpower, which help the organization to scale back employee carbon footprints by the means of GHRM initiatives, that is, flexi work schedule, electronic filing of information, car-sharing while going to the office, jobsharing at workplace for better productivity, teleconferencing and social media platforms, virtual interviews on various digital platforms, recycling, telecommuting, online training, energy-efficient office space and so on. The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of GHRM practices in context of sustainability of business. From the perspective of GHRM, this study argues that GHRM can play an important and useful role in business in promoting environment- related issues by adopting and following the processes. The application of GHRM enables organizations to scale back their costs and invest their resources for the betterment of the environment. Organizations that recruit employees with the target to reinforce environmental outcomes have gained customer satisfaction and eventually increased their performance. Companies are now able to associate green practices and human resource dimensions with their organizational objectives of better environmental management (EM) can be successful in the organization journey towards environmental sustainability. The research paper aims to highlight the role of GHRM for better business sustainability. The research paper will help managers to improve sustainability of business and achieve the targeted goals using GHRM practices.

PurposeDuring the past decade, the green workplace has attracted the attention of academics and industry alike. As a result, new research areas like green human resource management (GHRM) started emerging. Green workplace means greening of traditional business functions, namely, human resource management, marketing, operations and supply chain. GHRM can play a strategic role in enabling organizations to implement and formulate sustainable strategies and help them achieve corporate sustainability. This paper helps understand the GHRM scholarship and provides an up-to-date account of GHRM practices.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors have adopted the bibliometric analysis method to analyse and draw inferences from 247 articles retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database for the time horizon of almost two decades: 2005 to June 2021. The methodology's schematic view comprises four steps: data collection, data analysis, data visualization and interpretation. The present study intends to understand GHRM scholarship using Bibliometric R-package and VOSviewer software.FindingsThe study offers some interesting insights that may help scholars, line managers and top management to conceptualize the GHRM practices in their organization, which is currently limited to a few HR practices (hiring, training and reward), geographies, developed countries and industries. These can be extended to other HR practices (e.g. industrial relations). In addition, this paper contributes to the GHRM literature in identifying the keywords, authors, journals, intellectual, conceptual and social structure.Research limitations/implicationsThe study underpins the research in the area of GHRM in order to understand the trends on this topic over the past 17 years in terms of prolific authors, most impactful journals, key themes and the field's intellectual and social structure. The study indicates that this field is still in its development stage. Hence, there is a need for more arduous research on the topic to help develop a better understanding of this new field.Originality/valueThe paper helps understand green practices in human resource functions, focusing on corporate sustainability goals. It helps the line managers and top management make GHRM a central function for achieving sustainability goals. In addition, these findings can be a road map for the researchers to investigate the field of GHRM further.

PurposeSustainable development concern, coupled with changes in the talent landscape, has led to a heightened focus on green human resource management (GHRM). Drawing on attribution theory and conservation of resources theory, this study examined GHRM, leader–member exchange (LMX) and core self-evaluations (CSE) in relation to work engagement together with human resource management (HRM) performance attributions as a mediator.Design/methodology/approachPartial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data collected from 110 respondents working in ISO 14001 certified organisations in Malaysia.FindingsResults revealed that GHRM and LMX were positively related to HRM performance attributions that were intended to improve employee performance. However, CSE was not found to be related to HRM performance attributions. Consequently, HRM performance attributions were positively related to work engagement. Furthermore, GHRM and LMX had positive indirect effects on work engagement through HRM performance attributions as a mediator.Research limitations/implicationsSince the data collected were from Malaysia only, it limits the generalisability of the results to other regions.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that organisations should adopt GHRM and train its leaders to forge stronger social bonds with their subordinates to elicit higher work engagement by positively influencing employee attributions on the motives of HRM practices.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the acknowledged gap on GHRM and HRM attributions by examining the non-green employee outcomes of GHRM and the antecedents of HRM performance attributions. This study also contributes by integrating attribution theory with conservation of resources theory to provide the mediation mechanism in linking GHRM and LMX towards higher work engagement through HRM performance attributions as a mediator; thus empirically illustrating the resource gain spirals.

Although it is an increasingly popular assumption that green human resource management (GHRM) can improve employee green behaviors, little empirical evidence has studied the link between different types (in-role and extra-role) of green behavior and how GHRM may have an impact beyond its original environmental domain. To bridge the research gap, this study develops and tests two serial mediation models of GHRM based on warm glow theory. Specifically, we propose that GHRM -as an organization management measure-will first increase employee in-role green behavior (IRGB). Then, due to employees’ perception and cognitive appraisal of organization’s GHRM policy and prosocial ‘Halo effect’ of green behavior, employees feel that they are doing the ‘right thing’, thus feel warm glow (WG) psychologically. The positive emotional experience accumulated by warm glow allows employees to obtain intrinsic rewards, resulting in green behaviors that are beyond their core task responsibilities and that can increase employee value and psychological consistency with organization. Drawing upon 301 data collected from Prolific, results support two significant serial mediation models. First, GHRM increased extra-role green behavior (ERGB) through in-role green behavior and warm glow. Second, GHRM increased person-organization fit through in-role green behavior and warm glow. Therefore, warm glow creates a spillover effect at the employee behavioral level and at the personal value level. This study contributes to existing literature by explaining how GHRM affects extra-role green behavior from a new perspective. By establishing a link between GHRM and non-green outcomes, we also expands the scope of GHRM research.

This study examines the ways in which green human resource management (GHRM) inspires Generation Z graduates to embark on sustainable careers. GHRM fosters environmental values in young professionals. Integrating GHRM in graduate programs equips students with sustainable leadership capabilities. The study employs a structural equation model (SEM) to compare graduate and current workers’ views. This comparative approach offers deep insights into how GHRM impacts different groups. Findings reveal GHRM’s effectiveness in promoting social responsibility within organizations. GHRM also enhances career development by aligning personal growth with sustainable goals. It supports a holistic approach to sustainability in both corporate and academic settings. The study identifies strategic pathways for implementing GHRM practices. It leverages existing gaps in GHRM literature to propose innovative solutions. GHRM is shown to prepare students to address complex environmental challenges. Firms are advantaged by potential employees who possess a sense of sustainability. SEM analysis identifies connections between GHRM, sustainability, and career growth. This study urges institutions to embrace GHRM practices. It helps in creating a workforce for the future that is sustainable.

PurposeThis study aims to contribute to the current Green human resource management (HRM) field by providing an empirical examination of a comprehensive model that tests the effect of green strategic intent on Green HRM implementation, the possible effect of Green HRM and green empowerment on circular economy, and the effect of circular economy on sustainable performance. It examines the mediating effect of circular economy on the link between Green HRM and sustainable performance.Design/methodology/approachThe study is empirical in nature. It focuses on the service sector in Qatar. Managers that work in the service sector represent the study participants. 149 questionnaires were collected and 131 completed questionnaires were used in the analysis. An advanced Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (SEM-PLS) analysis was conducted to reveal the study results.FindingsThe study findings confirmed the positive effect of green strategic intent on Green HRM, the positive link between Green HRM and green empowerment on circular economy, and the positive relationship between circular economy and sustainable performance. It also confirms the indirect effect of circular economy on the link between green HRM and sustainable performance.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the chosen research approach and the focus on the service sector in Qatar only, research results may lack generalizability.Practical implicationsThis study provides important implications for practice on how to improve Green HRM practices; particularly for its unique context, the Qatari service sector.Originality/valueThis study is considered original since it is one of the few to examine a conceptual framework that links Green HRM, circular economy and sustainable performance.

Purpose: The broad over-arching goals of this work were to study the existing constituents of green human resource management (HRM), to understand the green HRM practices being followed by different companies in India (belonging to certain sectors) and to compare the different sectors in terms of adoption of green HRM. Methodology: A questionnaire was meticulously prepared by the authors to collect the data for this study and was sent to various Indian companies belonging to four sectors: IT/IT services, banking/finance, consultancy and engineering/technology. The questionnaire included a carefully selected collection of questions to gain rich insights into different aspects of green HRM implementation. Findings: most of the companies included in this study are following green HRM (though to varying extents). Green recruitment, green training and development & green safety and health management are the most prominent green HRM functions while green performance appraisal is the least popular green HRM function among these organizations. The IT/IT services sector is most actively using green HRM practices while the banking/finance sector is the most reluctant to adopt green HRM. Practical Implications: a rigorous structure for companies to implement green HRM is provided.

The growing awareness of and regulations related to environmental sustainability have invoked the concept of green human resource management (GHRM) in the search for effective environmental management (EM) within organizations. GHRM research raises new, increasingly salient questions not yet studied in the broader human resource management (HRM) literature. Despite an expansion in the research linking GHRM with various aspects of EM and overall environmental performance, GHRM’s theoretical foundations, measurement, and the factors that give rise to GHRM (including when and how it influences outcomes) are still under-specified. This paper, seeking to better understand research opportunities and advance theoretical and empirical development, evaluates the emergent academic field of GHRM with a narrative review. This review highlights an urgent need for refined conceptualization and measurement of GHRM and develops an integrated model of the antecedents, consequences and contingencies related to GHRM. Going beyond a function-based perspective that focuses on specific HRM practices and building on advances in the strategic HRM literature, we discuss possible multi-level applications, the importance of employee perceptions and experiences related to GHRM, contextual and cultural implications, and alternative theoretical approaches. The detailed and focused review provides a roadmap to stimulate the development of the GHRM field for scholars and practicing managers.