How Proactive Environmental Strategy Facilitates Environmental Reputation: Roles of Green Human Resource Management and Discretionary Slack

Abstract

Based on natural resource-based theory, we examined how firms’ environmental strategies and environmental reputation depended on their green human resource management and discretionary slack. From the perspective of human resource management, we hypothesized that proactive environmental strategy predicted firms’ environmental reputation through the mediation of green human resource management. We further proposed that slack resources, which can be used discretely by managers for environmental management, enhanced the hypothesized relationships. Using data from firms in environmentally sensitive industries in eastern China, we provided empirical support for our hypotheses. The findings highlight the vital roles played by managers and green human resource management in implementing firms’ environmental strategies and promoting firms’ environmental reputation.