Green Human Resource Management and Organizational Sustainability: The Mediating Role of Green Employee Behavior

Abstract

There is increasing emphasis on organisations to provide environmental, economic and social sustainability, but policies are not enough to change employee behaviour at work. This study aims to investigate the relationship of green human resource management (GHRM) practices to organizational sustainability via green employee behavior. A survey method was used, quantitative, and 280 questionnaires were filled out by employees who work in environmentally friendly organizations and industries. The measurement of GHRM was conducted in three ways: green recruitment, green training, green performance evaluation and green rewards. Direct and indirect relationships were analysed using descriptive statistics, reliability test, correlation analysis and structural equation modeling along with bootstrapping. The results indicated that GHRM significantly affected the organizational sustainability and green employee behaviours; in addition, green employee behaviours significantly affected sustainability. The relationship between GHRM and organizational sustainability was partially mediated by the green employee behavior. The study indicates that the GHRM contributes to sustainability gains primarily through the modification of daily actions of employees, and that the recruitment, training, assessment and reward systems should be aligned with environmental objectives.