Sustainability Within the HRD Field: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Promoting sustainability creates environments for thriving while conserving resources for generations to come. Implementing sustainability practices has been increasingly emphasized, as businesses are required to go beyond their organizational boundaries and improve performance. Despite the intense interest in sustainability, its research has rarely been investigated and synthesized within the current knowledge base in the HRD field. Therefore, we aim to systematically analyze recent articles on sustainability and its relevance to HRD. We conducted a systematic review of the literature in this by following the PRISMA guidelines, and this resulted in a set of 59 articles. Our review identified several impending issues of sustainability, such as a lack of definitions, constructs, and empirical investigation of sustainability. Based on the findings, we discussed them from the recent conversations on sustainability and emphasized the role of HRD in how organizations should be based on sustainability and how to promote sustainability through integrated learning. In addition, this review delved into key strategies to foster sustainability initiatives and discussed implications for HRD practice and research.