Top Management Support: Underlying Mechanism between Green Human Resource Management Practices and Environmental Performance

Abstract

Worldwide, the environmental policymakers and researchers have argued that the causes of environmental deterioration such as loss of biodiversity, increased pollution and resource deficit are entrenched into the human behaviors. In this regard, most of the firms tend towards guaranteeing that their day-to-day operations are not harmful to environment by the application of green initiatives. Thus, there exists an emerging need for shaping and understanding the employee behavior to decrease these harmful environmental effects. Present study, therefore, contributes to the debate by empirically investigating the impact of four dimensions of green HRM practices. The study further incorporates top management support as a mediating mechanism in the relationship between green HRM practices and environmental performance. The study uses green HRM practices (green training and development, green performance management, green employee involvement and green recruitment and selection) as explanatory variables, top management support as mediating variable and environmental performance as outcome variable. The data are collected from 314 respondents working in the manufacturing firms of Pakistan. The study finds positive effect of green HRM practices on environmental performance. The study shows that top management support significantly mediates between green HRM practice and environmental performance. The study suggests promoting top management support to improve environmental performance as it helps firms to achieve sustainable comparative advantage and let the firms produce environmentally friendly products. The study concludes that the appreciation by the top management motivates the employees to engage in environmentally friendly initiatives which leads towards sustainable environmental performance.