Leading by example: how National Sports Federations implement environmentally sustainable change through human resource management

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ABSTRACT Leisure organisations have ecological footprints and are subject to external pressures of diverse nature to address their change processes towards environmental sustainability. In these paths, knowledge concerning the role of human resource in leisure organisations remains unresearched. Adopting institutional theory and change management literature, this study aims at understanding whether and how organisations address environmental change through human resource management, while uncovering the drivers and challenges of these attempts. Data generated through interviews with executives of national sport federations reveal that top-management ecological conscience, the recognition of leading groups or roles, training and socio-environmental pressures are recognised as drivers of environmental change implementation. On the contrary, a substantial lack of logistic autonomy, finances and scope-oriented recruitment appear to obstruct positive change. Importantly, this study highlights that in the presence of normative and coercive vacuity within the broader system of the organisations national federations adopt a proactive bottom-up approach with respect to environmental changes. Indeed, although embryonal, limited, self-managed and uncoordinated by a supervisor authority, environmental processes of national sport federations via human resource management are in motion, pointing towards a rather optimistic future for the progress of leisure organisations.