Green human resource management and environmental performance of hotels in South Africa

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how green human resource management (GHRM) influences environmental performance (EP) in hotels in South Africa: the mediating and moderating role of environmental concern (EC) and green human capital (GHC). The study followed the quantitative research design and a self-administer questionnaire was employed during the data collection process. Data was collected from two hundred fifteen hotels in a cross-sectional survey. The participants of this study were three-star, four-star, and five-star hotels in Gauteng province. The data was analysed using SmartPLS 4.0. The empirical findings of this study show that there is a significant positive relationship between GHRM and the EP of hotels. The study further shows that the relationship between GHRM and EP is partially mediated by EC and the relationship is also moderated by GHC at an average weight. The study has the following limitations and suggests some new study areas. First, the cross-sectional nature of the survey limits the ability to separate cause-and-effect relationships, and a longitudinal study will help to improve the results. Second, the survey was done on firms in one industry and one country. To improve the generalisability of the findings, further studies can include other industries in other countries. This paper fills a gap in the literature by exploring external business variables mediating and moderating the relationship between EC and GHC and contributes to the discussion on the contradictory results regarding the relationship between GHRM and EP.