Perceived Green Human Resource Management

Practices and Corporate Sustainability: Multigroup

Analysis and Major Industries Perspectives
by

Tauseef Jamal
1
,

Muhammad Zahid

1,2,*
,

José Moleiro Martins

3,4
,

Mário Nuno Mata

3,5
,

Haseeb Ur Rahman

6
and

Pedro Neves Mata

7
1

Department of Management Sciences, City University of Science and IT, Peshawar 25000, Pakistan
2

City University Center for Sustainability Studies (CUCSS), Peshawar 25000, Pakistan
3

ISCAL-Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa,

Avenida Miguel Bombarda, 20, 1069-035 Lisboa, Portugal
4

Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), 1069-035 Lisboa,
Portugal
5

Polytechnic Institute of Santarém, School of Management and Technology (ESGTS-IPS), 2001-904

Santarém, Portugal
6

Institute of Management Sciences, University of Science and Technology, Bannu 28100, Pakistan
7
ESCS-Escola Superior de Comunicação Social, Lisbon Polytechnic Institute, 1549-014 Lisbon, Portugal
*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Sustainability 2021, 13(6), 3045; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063045
Submission received: 27 January 2021 / Revised: 2 March 2021 / Accepted: 2 March
2021 / Published: 10 March 2021
(This article belongs to the Collection Project Risk Assessment and Corporate Behavior: Creating
Knowledge for Sustainable Business)

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Abstract
The substantial focus on achieving corporate sustainability has necessitated the implementation of green
human resource management (GHRM) practices. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the industries’
perspective of the impact of GHRM practices (i.e., green recruitment and selection, green pay and
rewards, and green employee involvement and green training) on corporate sustainability practices. Data
were collected from 200 human resource professionals in major industrial sectors of a developing country.
Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the study hypotheses and multigroup
analysis (MGA) between industrial sectors. The findings show a positive impact of three GHRM practices,
i.e., green recruitment and selection, green pay and rewards, and green employee involvement on
corporate sustainability. However, green training has no significant association with corporate
sustainability, which is interesting. Furthermore, the multigroup analysis (MGA) revealed partial and
significant differences among different sectors. The results provide more contextualized social,
environmental, and economic implications to academics and practitioners interested in green initiatives.
To date, limited research has been conducted to investigate whether GHRM practices can be an effective
strategy in increasing corporate sustainability in a developing country context. Particularly, the industry’s
perspective on the subject matter was rather absent in the existing literature. The present study fills this
gap and contributes to the existing literature by providing the industry’s perspective on GHRM and
corporate sustainability.
Keywords:
green human resource management practices; corporate sustainability; developing
country; industry perspective

1. Introduction
The notion of businesses being driven by profit-oriented activities is rapidly changing. Today,
businesses and the corporate world have realized that people make the center of all activities [1]. This
has changed the corporate world and gave birth to corporate sustainability that creates long-term value
for consumers and employees, among others, by developing a “green” strategy [2]. This strategy focuses
on the natural environment by considering every dimension of business operations and their social,
cultural, economic, and environmental impacts [3]. Corporate sustainability is a transformation of more
traditional phrases that define ethical and equitable corporate practices. Though traditional expressions
such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate citizenship are still common, these have
already started to be replaced by corporate sustainability which is a broader and comprehensive term.
Past research linked corporate sustainability to increased revenue, reduced wastes, materials, water,
energy, and overall expenses. These studies also associated corporate sustainability with increased
employees’ productivity, reduced hiring and attrition expenses, and reduced strategic as well as
operational risks [4,5,6]. Therefore, both practitioners and academics need to have a clear understanding
of the factors affecting corporate sustainability.
Largely, firms’ operations and corporate sustainability or efforts for adopting it are greatly influenced
by humans [7]. Green-oriented management practices are executed entirely by humans expressing a
positive attitude towards the environment and having a sense of responsibility for their actions that may
have any environmental implications. Green human resource management practices (GHRM) consist of
key practices such as green recruitment and selection, green training, pay and rewards, and employees’
involvement. Needless to say, the role of GHRM is very significant when it comes to the development of
environment-friendly norms and practices within organizations [8]. The authors argue GHRM practices
play a vital role in providing the necessary ingredients for achieving corporate sustainability [9]. As such,
recent literature emphasizes the significance and the potential of GHRM in achieving corporate
sustainability [8].
The objective of this paper is to explore the industry’s perspective on the impact of GHRM practices
(i.e., green recruitment and selection, green pay and reward, and green employee involvement) on
corporate sustainability practices. As there is a lack of research on the causal relationship between
GHRM practices and corporate sustainability, this study is timely in filling a clear research gap.
Particularly, the industry’s perspective on this important subject is absent in the existing literature. The
present study fills this gap and contributes to the existing literature by providing the industry’s perspective
on GHRM and corporate sustainability. Practically, the findings of the present study will provide
practitioners to ascertain the significance of GHRM practices in achieving corporate sustainability.
Nevertheless, there is little evidence in the academic literature to confirm the relationship between
GHRM practices and corporate sustainability, particularly in this emerging field of research [8,10].
Additionally, the literature also reports some recent calls to investigate the aforementioned relationship in
emerging and developing countries to merge the importance of GHRM practices and corporate
sustainability [8,11]. However, research further reported that the investigation of the above relationship is
rare in different industries [8]. Hence, to fill this gap the current study uses the crux of the stakeholder
theory in different industries such as industrial/manufacturing, information technology (IT), banking, and
education. The aforesaid are the main sectors that contribute tremendously to the gross domestic product
(GDP) of the sample country. Similarly, in the above sectors, the country focuses on the overall
sustainability and human development as a whole.
After achieving the above research objective, the study brings several contributions to theory,
method, and practices. Firstly, the study has theoretical significance to underpin the crux of stakeholder
theory in the relationship between GHRM and corporate sustainability practices to satisfy the demands of
multiple stakeholders. Secondly, the study contributes to the limited literature of the subject relationship
particularly in developing economies context. Thirdly, the study has a methodological contribution by
validating the newly developed scale of GHRM by the authors [4] in a developing country context. Finally,
the study offers practical implications for the different industries of the country as the Security Exchange
Commission (SEC) issued a code of corporate governance 2019 mentioning the implementation of green
and sustainable workplace practices in these industries.
A brief review of the literature on GHRM and corporate sustainability is presented in the next
section, which is followed by the development of research hypotheses. Next, we describe the methods
employed in the present study. We then describe both the analysis and results, followed by a detailed
explanation of the findings, including their implications for research and practice. The last section
highlights the limitations of this research and provides several recommendations for future studies.

2. Literature Review
2.1. Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses Development
The stakeholder theory posits that the managers’ core responsibility is not only to take care of the
shareholders only, but they are also responsible to be impactful for general “stakeholders” [12]. The
stakeholder of an organization is someone who has any direct or indirect stake in its business. In other
words, anyone who affects or is affected by the operations of an organization is its stakeholder. The
stakeholder thus can be either close to the business environment and has more direct stakes, e.g.,
employees and shareholders, or remote and having indirect stakes, e.g., communities and people/entities
outside the business. Hence, the theory is selected in the study to comprehensively explain its all
prepositions. Previous studies on the concept also adopted the crux of the stakeholder theory [13,14]. To
achieve corporate sustainability, a company needs to look internally and externally to understand its
environmental and social impacts [15]. This needs the engagement of stakeholders to know and realize
impacts and concerns. A business can focus on corporate sustainability internally by training its
employees and devise strategies or policies that ensure sustainability. As a company looks externally,
stakeholders include customers, suppliers, community, and non-government organizations, etc. In this
case, the organization is expected to deal with the diverse expectations of a long-range of stakeholders.
In other words, stakeholders’ involvement and engagement (both internal to organization and external to
the organization) is critical for corporate sustainability. By applying the concept of sustainability and
GHRM, the organization meets the demands of multiple stakeholders. Similarly, the crux of the
stakeholder theory also applies in the different industries such as industrial/manufacturing, banking, and
education and information technology (IT) [16,17,18]. Moreover, these stakeholders’ demands may vary
in these different industries; however, the importance would still be vital [19]. Corporate Sustainability and
GHRM are two interrelated subjects, as both strive to serve the interest of internal and external
stakeholders, thereby focusing on the impact of the social, environmental, and economic performance of
the organization.
2.2. Corporate Sustainability
In 1980, the Worlds Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) came up with the
terminology of “sustainable development” and it linked sustainability to environmental integrity and social
justice [20]. This report devised the definition of sustainable development as “sustainable development is
the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs” [20]. The definition also links sustainability with the corporate world
and economic prosperity. The definition was acknowledged by international leaders who attended the
Earth Summit in 1992 held in Rio de Janeiro [21]. Along with the environmental and economic challenges,
organizations are demanded to improve human and social welfare and simultaneously to decrease the
organizations’ ecological effects, while also safeguarding the efficacious and efficient attainment of
organizational goals [22,23]. Building on the literature around management and strategy formulation,
numerous definitions of sustainability have evolved in the context of organizations. These definitions
diverge on three different levels: (1) the degree to which corporate sustainability could be classified either
largely as an ecological concern [24] or (2) as an organization’s social responsibility [7], or perhaps (3)
expand and contribute to the theory to integrate organizational interest around the natural and the social
environment with corporate economic activities [25].
The terminology of “corporate sustainability” is also used by various scholars to define the
integration of organizational concerns of social, environmental, and/or economic nature embedded in the
culture of the organizations, their decision-making process, the strategy formulation, and implementation
as well as operations [25]. External factors, such as environmental regulations, government standards,
and laws, or demands/expectations from pressure groups, e.g., customers and community, etc., are
considered the primary driving forces behind the adoption process. While the factors within the
organization are mostly considered as a ‘‘black-box’’ [26], this attitude leaves a huge vacuum that is not
taken into consideration. For Example, many recent research studies have pointed out the “pressures
from within the organization” for the adoption of practices that promote and ensure sustainability [27].
Furthermore, these studies also identify factors internal to organizations, for example, support of the top
management, management of the human resources, training(s) on pro-environment issues,
empowerment of employees, teamwork and reward systems, etc., as important facets for attaining
corporate sustainability [28]. Yet, some researchers believe that more wide-ranging changes in
employees’ values and relevant norms are essential ingredients for accomplishing corporate sustainability
in its true sense [7]. Together, these two stances propose that corporate sustainability is a multi-layered
concept, and the organization may consider its operationalization which would require change and
adaptation from the organizations on several levels.
For an organization to be sustainable, GHRM certainly matters for various reasons; however,
primarily it matters because stakeholders expect organizations to use resources wisely and responsibly.
In other words, organizations are expected to protect the environment, minimize the usage, or more
specifically the wastage of air, water, energy, minerals, and other materials in manufacturing the goods
we consume. Moreover, organizations are expected to recycle and use these goods again to the possible
extent instead to rely on nature to restore or renew these for us. Organizations are expected to preserve
nature’s beauty and tranquility and mitigate any or all toxicity that could potentially harm people in the
workplace as well as communities [29]. Following the sustainable development principles, the social,
economic as well as environmental objectives are mutually dependent and reinforcing [30]. Hence, the
companies’ developmental strategies should take into account a balance among the economic,
environmental, and social dimensions of their economic tasks or undertakings. This implies that the
agreed economic solutions be considerate of social responsibility, environmental friendliness, and
economic value [31].
2.3. GHRM and Corporate Sustainability
GHRM is a derived term evolved from green management philosophy, policies, and practices
followed by firms for environmental management (EM) [27]. It is defined as the portion of human resource
management which is focused on efforts to transform organizational employees into green employees
with a vision to attain organizational sustainability goals (for example, increasing business opportunities,
employees’ motivation, the public image of the brand and/or business and compliance with environment-
friendly policies and laws and reducing labor turnover and utility costs, and creating competitive
advantage) and also make a significant contribution to the environment [32]. GHRM is also defined as a
system that uses HRM policies to promote the use of resources within business organizations to promote
environmental sustainability [33,34]. Reading through the theory related to the definition of GHRM and the
movement behind it, three key principles guide the philosophy of GHRM, such as the principles of
environmentalism, sustainability, and social justice.
GHRM promotes the sustainable use of all types of resources, which supports the cause of
environmental sustainability in general, and enhances employees’ awareness and commitments towards
the challenges of environmental management in particular [5,35]. Additionally, the development of GHRM
includes improving the social (balance between work and life) and economic (i.e., sustainable profits)
related matters. GHRM supports the classic understanding of the concept of the “triple bottom line”; that is
to say, GHRM involves practices alongside the three key dimensions of sustainability, i.e., environment,
social, and economic balance [32,36,37] to bring benefits to the organization in the long run [30,38]. To
expand the understanding of the subject matter, developing GHRM measures is a work that is in
progress. For example, some of the presented measures lay down ecologically relevant HRM policies and
practices that are differentiated as the functional (job description and analysis, recruitment, selection,
training, performance appraisal, and reward system) and competitive dimensions (team, culture, and
organizational learning) of GHRM [36].
GHRM has been measured with four constructs, i.e., employee life cycle, rewards, education and
training, and employee empowerment [37]. Later, it was measured using four other practices including
green recruitment, green training, green pay and compensation, and green employees’ involvement [39].
Recently, GHRM is also measured with the five-factor model including environmental training, investment
in people, creation of work-life balance and family-friendly employment, improved employee health and
safety, and employee participation in decision-making processes [40]. Building on the data collected from
China, Malaysia, and Pakistan, three fairly new and broad GHRM measures are proposed [2,4,29].
However, all these efforts were mainly focused on environmental concerns from the perspective of the
organization. Nonetheless, little work has been carried out in this regard so far to conceptualize GHRM as
a possible roadmap for achieving corporate sustainability. Similarly, few previous studies that investigated
the impact of GHRM on corporate sustainability have documented a positive relationship in the context of
Palestinian healthcare organizations [41] and Malaysian manufacturing firms [8]. Likewise, past research
hints at the key role of GHRM in achieving corporate sustainability in the context of developing countries
[18,42,43].
To help us understand in what way organizations can convert HRM practices into “green” initiatives
that are more likely going to support corporate sustainability, the different dimensions or practices of
GHRM are discussed below.
2.3.1. Green Involvement (GI)
Green involvement refers to the involvement of organizational employees in green-activities. This
involvement of employees in green activities stimulates and inspires them to support the prevention of
pollution and excessive waste [41,42]. A review of numerous studies establishes a point in favor of green
involvement (GI) of employees, according to which GI is a crucial factor in improving the performance of
organizations (For example, reducing waste, pollution, and making full use of resources in a workplace)
[36,44,45]. As part of adopting green practices, organizations have to encourage and inspire their
workforce to become involved by initiating green and eco-friendly ideas. This could be achieved by
empowering workers [33,36]. For this drive, the human resource department can work on highlighting the
importance and requirement of creating a participative work environment for strategic level managers: an
environment where employees feel confident and keep no fear in disagreeing with top managements’
decisions or negotiating with them. In other words, an environment where employees can propose or offer
diverse ideas to deal with important organizational issues [40]. However, the importance of empowering
employees and their participation originates from the fact that employees like to be autonomous when
making decisions regarding environmental problems and other issues associated with sustainability that
may emerge in the implementation of corporate sustainability and its various initiatives [46,47]. To
achieve this, employees must be involved in the formulation of environmental strategies, which should
then enable them to develop and expand on the required knowledge for green products and services. The
insight developed from the literature regarding employees’ involvement could be concluded as enabling
employees to give suggestions and to be involved in the problem-solving responsibilities which are the
main pillars for ensuring and encouraging their participation in green initiatives. Based on this, the
following hypothesis has been formulated:
H1:
Green Involvement is perceived to have a positive impact on corporate sustainability practices.
2.3.2. Green Pay and Reward (GPR)
The strategic approach of rewards management (RM) suggests green pay and reward (GPR) is “a
system of financial and non-financial rewards” that is aimed to achieve the goal of attracting, retaining,
and finally motivating employees who are best suited for contributing towards green goals of the
organization [36]. Accomplishing the objectives of greening the organization can be improved by
rewarding employees for their commitment to exhibit and promote green behaviors as well as sustainable
practices [36]. In this context, corporate sustainability could benefit from reward and compensation
systems if it concentrates on limiting or eliminating undesirable behaviors and encourage green behavior
[5]. To reach this goal, reward systems should be designed to reflect the commitment of strategic-level
managers towards greening [46,47]. This strategic level commitment will inspire workers too using
becoming more environmentally responsible and more involved in green initiatives [36,48,49]. A study
links the success of rewards programs aimed at motivating employees to exhibiting and promoting green
behaviors by joining rewards with greening [44]. This leads to the formulation of the following hypothesis:
H2:
GPR is perceived to have a positive impact on corporate sustainability practices.
2.3.3. Green Recruitment and Selection (GRS)
GRS is the process of attracting candidates who are committed or have a high potential to contribute
to environmental issues linked with the organization [4]. GHRM practices consider green recruitment and
selection an important component that helps identify green employees who exhibit green inclinations and
helps develop a green culture [42]. Based on the studies carried out previously, e.g., [4,42], briefly, there
could be three aspects of GRS, i.e., “green awareness of candidates, green employer branding, and
green criteria to attract candidates”. Green awareness of candidates is the first and most important aspect
of GRS [4,42]. Firstly, it is the green awareness of employees (candidates) that enables an organization
to achieve its environmental goals and goals linked to cost effectiveness, etc. Therefore, to ensure that
candidates are positive towards organizational strategic green goals, the firms should run a series of tests
that enable them to choose the best. Secondly, the green employer branding generally refers to the
development of a green reputation of the company through better environmental management that is
formed via GHRM practices [42]. Thirdly, there have to be green criteria for an employee to be selected
and evaluated [45]. GRS make sure that new employees must not only understand the established green
culture of the organization but also share its environmental values [50] through continuous enhancement
of environmental knowledge of recruits and ingraining of values and beliefs [42,45]. Some studies suggest
that recruitment communications should contain environmental criteria [32]. However, the author
recommends several preventive and institutive actions that organizations can embrace to enrich GHRM
through GRS processes [48]. Firstly, job descriptions should consist of features that emphasize the role of
environmental reporting. Secondly, an induction program for recruits must ensure the availability of
information around environmental sustainability policies of the organization, values, and green goals.
 Finally, interviews have to be designed in a way to assess the potential agreeableness and fitness of
the candidates with the greening programs of organizations. The emphasis laid on the GRS process
indicates that during the interview process candidates must be asked more environment-related
questions. Additionally, the authors described that organizations can expand their determinations to
safeguard the environment using combining environmental tasks and responsibilities of every employees’
job description [49,51]. It can also be carried out by designing new jobs or positions to focus exclusively
on corporate sustainability aspects of the organizations [49]. Based on this, the following hypothesis has
been articulated.
H3:
GRS is perceived to have a positive impact on corporate sustainability practices.
2.3.4. Green Training (GT)
Green training is a combination of coordinated activities that encourage and inspire employees to
acquire skills around the protection of the environment and give consideration to environmental issues
that play a key role in achieving environmental objectives [49,52]. Training helps improve employees’
awareness, knowledge, and skills relevant to environmental activities [52]. Researchers suggest that the
provision of green training must be ensured along with educational programs to all employees of the firm,
and these training(s) and educational programs must not be restricted to the organizational departments
of the environment [49]. The authors advocate and recommend various green training and development
practices, such as employees’ training for ensuring green analysis of workspace, energy efficiency, waste
and recycling management, as well as the development of personal capacities on green concepts and
strategies [6,49,50,52]. Therefore, it is important in organizational training and development plans to
include programs, seminars, and sessions that may enable workforces to develop and acquire knowledge
in green skills [53]. Additionally, the authors describe that firms should make those opportunities available
which allows employees’ engagement in environmental problem-solving missions [54]. To accomplish
these goals, job rotation philosophies must be used as a crucial component of training and career
development strategies [53]. Considering the green aspects embedded in the training process, the
following hypothesis has been framed. Figure 1 represents the hypotheses development of the study.

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework.

H4:
GT is perceived to have a positive impact on corporate sustainability practices.
The above hypotheses are explained in Figure 1 as follows.

3. Research Design
3.1. Instrument
 GHRM Practices: The GHRM practices were measured using a 15-item scale from Tang et al.
(2018). The scale covers green involvement (GI), green recruitment and selection (GRS), green pay and
reward (GPR), and green training (GT). The minimum and maximum reliability of the GHRM scale was
recorded from 0.83 to 0.87. For the corporate sustainability construct, we adapted a scale from Tom
(2015). The items include questions covering knowledge of sustainability of the respondents, followed by
the focus of integrated dimensions such as social, economic, and ecological dimensions. The sample
item includes “we know enough about corporate sustainability”. The reliability score of the corporate
sustainability construct was 0.862 [55].
3.2. Sample Size and Data Collection
G*Power software was employed to calculate the minimum sample size with a significant level of
0.05 and the power of 0.95. A priori power analysis using a medium effect size suggested a sample size
of 138. Thus, the present sample size (N = 200) for this research was deemed appropriate. However, due
to the potential of missing values, non-response rate, and outliers, we distributed 250 questionnaires
(Appendix A) among the HR professional working in different industrial sectors of Pakistan such as
manufacturing, banking, education, and information technology (IT). These industries are the main
contributors to the economy. Before the data collection, the respondents were informed regarding the
ethical considerations, the study objectives and ensured the confidentiality of the information. After the
due consent for the questionnaires filing, the questionnaires were distributed using a self-administered
approach. The self-administered data collection approach carries the advantage of a high response rate
of up to 90% [56]. Hence, of the distributed questionnaires, respondents returned the filled questionnaire
with a response rate of 80% and hence was acceptable [56]. However, seven incomplete questionnaires
were excluded. A total of 200 samples were submitted for final data analysis. Data were collected
between September 2019 and January 2020.
3.3. Demographic Profile of Respondents
The respondents were from various professional levels, experiences, educational backgrounds, and
diverse sectors.
Since the purpose of the study was to understand the impact of GHRM on corporate sustainability,
the respondents must be individuals who are currently holding a position in the company’s HR department
or equivalent to represent his/her organization. An invitation letter including a questionnaire along with a
consent form that clearly stated the purpose of the study, and its possible logical conclusion was provided
to the participants as exhibited in Table 1. The Table reports the details of the participants of the survey.
Among 200 participants, 78.57% represented males, while 21.43% accounted for females. The ratio of
males is higher than females as females of the sample country are less job-oriented as well as less
participative in the survey [57,58]. Regarding age, it is found that we have a mix of ages. The majority of
the participants (55%) were holding a Master’s degree, followed by Bachelor’s degree holders (37%). The
average experience and the total were collected from almost every managerial level. Twenty-seven
percent of participants belonged to the industrial sector, the remaining (73%) having an association with
banking (23%), education (24%), and information technology sectors (24%).
Table 1. Demographics of respondents (N = 200).

4. Data Analysis and Results

Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3.0 was used for
data analysis [59]. PLS-SEM is considered a good choice for HRM models when the goal of the study is
to explore key predictors of the outcome variables. Measurement model (internal consistency reliability,
convergent validity, and discriminant validity), structural model (R-square (R2), path coefficient, f2, and Q2),
and multigroup analysis (significantly differs between groups) were performed [60,61].
 Table 2 summarizes the results of convergent validity and internal consistency reliability. All
indicators and constructs are found to have met the reflective measurement criteria. Specifically, the outer
loadings (λ) are all above 0.651, demonstrating that indicator reliability is achieved [59]. Moreover, the
average variance extracted (AVE) values are all more than 0.50, denoting that convergent validity is also
achieved [59]. Furthermore, composite reliability (CR) values are 0.822 or higher, which are clearly above
the required minimum level of 0.70 and thus have secure internal consistency [59]. In other words, the
test results show the measurement criteria of the model are being achieved.
Table 2. Measurement model.

Discriminant validity is the degree to which a construct is unique from its counterparts [62]. The
criterion was used to determine the discriminant validity proposed by the authors [63]. The values in the
diagonal must be larger than all other values in the corresponding rows and columns [62]. As shown
in Table 3, all the diagonal values are higher than others, thereby confirming the discriminant validity.
Table 3. Fornell–Larcker criterion.

The assessment of the structural model includes R2, effect size (f2), multicollinearity (VIF), model fit,
coefficients, p-values, and t-values [62]. Table 3 and Table 4 summarize the results of the structural
model. Before moving into this step, we first test the collinearity of the structural model. Collinearity is
measured using the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF).
Table 4. Structural model results.

Table 4 reports that all VIF values are below the threshold of 5, suggesting that there is no such
issue of collinearity among the constructs [62]. The adjusted R2 measures the predictive power of the
model, and this shows the amount of variance in the endogenous variable that can be explained by the
exogenous variables. The adjusted R2 (0.578) indicates that all GHRM practices combined to contribute
more than 57% to corporate sustainability.
Table 4 also reports the effect size using f2 of the model. The values range from 0.005 to 0.089,
which fall in the small category of effect size. The Q2 value indicates the predictive relevance values
generated of variables. All the values of Q2 are >0, which means that the model has predictive relevance.
The values of the goodness of fit that were generated through the standardized root mean squared
residual (SRMR) are equal to 0.073 < 0.080; the normed fit index (NFI) 0.736 is close to 1; and the rms
Theta are close to <0.20, which means that our model fits the empirical data.
The statistical values furnished in Table 5 indicate a positive significant relationship (β = 0.308, t-
value = 3.945, p < 0.01) between green involvement and corporate sustainability which supports our first
hypothesis (H1) of the study. The findings are in line with the previous authors who found that green
involvement is a crucial factor in improving sustainability performance such as reducing waste, pollution,
and making full use of resources in a workplace [42,64].
Table 5. Hypotheses testing.
 Similarly, the numerical values provided a positive significant relationship (β = 0.296, t-value =
4.295, p < 0.01) between green pay and reward and corporate sustainability which supports our second
hypothesis (H2). Our results are according to the postulations of previous studies that stated that green
performance rewards both financial and non-financial motivate the employees to participate and improve
the corporate sustainability of the organization [6,65].
Likewise, there is a positive significant relationship (β = 0.199, t-value = 2.874, p < 0.01) between
green recruitment and selection and corporate sustainability which clearly supports our hypothesis (H3) of
the study. These results support previous studies that recorded that green recruitment and selection is an
important component that helps identify green employees who exhibit green inclinations and helps
develop corporate sustainability culture within the organization [45,49]. Lastly, the relationship between
green training and corporate sustainability is not supported as the p-value is >0.05.
By employing PLS structural model technique, the study performed multigroup analysis. “PLS
multigroup analysis is used to determine if the PLS model significantly differs between groups” [60]. The
author further explained multigroup analysis by using independent samples t-tests to compare paths
between groups [66,67,68]. The multigroup analysis is “parametric” because significance testing requires
the assumption of multivariate normal distributions, unlike traditional PLS. As the study consists of
different groups of industries, it is important to evaluate the difference between these groups.
Table 6 reported the multigroup analysis for four sectors, namely, industrial, banking, information
technology (IT), and education sectors. The study assumes the industrial sector as the dirtiest industry,
and hence selected it as a base industry. According to the statistics of parametric and Welch–
Satterthwaite tests, there is a significant difference between green recruitment and selection and
corporate sustainability of industrial and banking sectors (showing in bold figures). The results explain
that the banking sector performs better in green recruitment and selection and corporate sustainability
practices than the industrial sector. However, there is no significant difference between the two industries
for the rest of the variables or their association. On the contrary, the green involvement and corporate
sustainability path are significant between the industrial and IT sectors. Surprisingly, the industrial sector
performs better than the IT sector in the aforementioned practices. Lastly, the study found significant
differences in the association of green recruitment and selection with corporate sustainability in the
industrial and education sectors. Thus, it is concluded that the education sector performs better than the
industrial sector for the association of green recruitment and selection with corporate sustainability.
However, there is no significant difference between the two industries for the rest of the variables or their
association.
Table 6. Multigroup analysis (MGA) between industries.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

This study aimed to investigate the industry’s perspective on the impact of GHRM practices (i.e.,
green recruitment and selection, green training, green pay and rewards, and green employee
involvement) on corporate sustainability practices. It was interesting to see how the industry perceives
GHRM practices as important factors for corporate sustainability. The findings indicate that human
resource is an important stakeholder if managed well, which assists organizations in attaining corporate
sustainability. Green awareness of the employee (candidate) enables an organization to achieve its
sustainability and organizational strategic green goals. In the same way, green employer branding
generally develops the green reputation of the company through better environmental management that is
formed via GHRM practices [42], specifically during the recruitment and selection process. The results
further documented that green involvement and recruitment and selection vary among the industries
particularly among industrial, banking, and education sectors. For instance, the association of green
recruitment and selection with corporate sustainability in the banking sector is better than in the industrial
sector. Likewise, green involvement has a significant relationship with corporate sustainability in both the
industrial and IT sectors, where the performance of the former is better than the latter. Besides, the
education sector has better statistics than the industrial sector for the impact of green recruitment and
selection on corporate sustainability.
Unexpectedly, unlike past findings, the results of the present study show that the respondents of the
study do not perceive green training as the predictor of corporate sustainability. One of the reasons for
such findings is that in fast-paced business activities employees are being pushed to focus more and
more on core activities of daily operations, thus other activities such as “training” are probably going to be
assumed less important. The findings also show a strong and significant nexus of green involvement with
corporate sustainability. This finding is consistent with the prior literature reporting that green involvement
is a vital element in improving sustainability performance, such as reducing waste, pollution, and making
full and efficient use of resources at the workplace [42,64]. Likewise, the results of the present study also
confirm the significant positive relationship between green pay and reward and corporate sustainability.
This result endorses the claims of previous literature that both financial and non-financial rewards
motivate employees to participate and improve the corporate sustainability of the organization [6,65].
The finding of this study offers several implications for theory and practice. First, the study
contributes to the limited literature of GHRM practices and corporate sustainability by increasing the
understanding of their nexus. Second, there is a lack of literature on GHRM practices and corporate
sustainability, particularly in developing and emerging economies. Hence, the study partially validated a
newly developed GHRM scale by the authors [4] in the developing country context. Third, the study
underpins the crux of stakeholder theory for the subject relationship and hence has practical implications
for the CEOs and HR managers to implement GHRM and integrate corporate sustainability within the
organization for the satisfaction of multiple stakeholders in developing countries. From a practical
perspective, the study sheds light on how an organization implements GHRM initiatives by involving its
employees in green practices. Organizations should recruit and select their employees through the green
process, train them in, and design their pay and reward system sustainably. The findings of the study help
organizations by addressing the broad agenda of sustainable productions by adopting GHRM and
corporate sustainability practices particularly in industrial and IT sectors. Similarly, the findings bring
practical implications for the banking sector as the regulator issued a policy towards the implementation of
green banking practices. Likewise, the findings also helpful to inform the education sector, particularly the
universities, on the adoption of the broad agenda of education for sustainable development (ESD).
This study has a few limitations that may be addressed in future studies. Firstly, as in the current
study the perceptions of the industrial respondents are captured, in future studies the model should be
replicated on a general sample such as business graduates, academics, and other practitioners related to
the fields. Similarly, the new scale developed by the author [2] should also be tested in the sample
country context. Secondly, in the future, the studies should be directed towards qualitative aspects of the
GHRM practices, and their role in the implementation of corporate sustainability. Thirdly, the available
theory used for this study also paves a path for considering organizational culture and strategic
orientation variables for any future studies. This would be carried out by utilizing the moderating and
mediating models in the relationship between GHRM and corporate sustainability. Last but not least, the
studies in future directions should consider the multigroup analysis and longitudinal nature, particularly
secondary data analysis.

Author Contributions
Conceptualization, T.J.; data curation, M.Z.; formal analysis, M.Z.; funding acquisition, M.N.M.,
P.N.M.; resources, J.M.M. and H.U.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the
manuscript.

Funding
 This work was partially supported by the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon through the Projects for
Research, Development, Innovation and Artistic Creation (IDI&CA), within the framework of the project
ANEEC—Assessment of the level of business efficiency to increase competitiveness,
IPL/2020/ANEEC_ISCAL.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A
Questionnaire of the Study
Corporate Sustainability
1. We know enough about corporate sustainability.
2. Organizations, where operations are based on sustainable growth, social responsibility, and environmental
protection, are sustainable organizations.
3. Sustainable organizations would consider sustainability as one of the essential components of the corporate
culture.
4. Sustainable organizations exploit environmental challenges and legislation to their advantage by
developing new greener products.
5. Ecological regulations add more restrictions on firms.
6. Due to ecological constraints, it is okay to think of relocating production to other countries, where
ecological requirements are lower.
7. Sustainability has to be taken as an important route for the long-term development of the enterprise.
Green Recruitment and Selection
1. We attract green job candidates who use green criteria to select organizations.
2. We use green employer branding to attract green employees.
3. Our firm recruits employees who have green awareness.
Green Involvement
1. Green organizations have a responsibility to provide a clear developmental vision for the guidance of the
employees’ actions in environmental management.
2. The green firm shall have a mutual learning climate among employees for green behavior and awareness.
3. In green organizations, there should be several formal or informal communication channels to spread green
culture within the organization.
4. Green organizations are those that involve employees in quality improvement and problem-solving on
green issues.
5. Green organizations involve their employees by offering practices to participate in environment
management (such as newsletters, suggestion schemes, problem-solving groups, low-carbon champions, and green
action teams, etc.).
6. Those organizations that emphasize a culture of environmental protection are green.
Green Pay and Reward
1. The green organization will make available green benefits to its employees such as combine transportation
and travel to support green efforts.
2. Provision of financial or tax incentives to employees is an essential part of the ‘Pay and Reward’ system in
a green organization (e.g., bicycle loans, use of less polluting cars)
3. Recognition-based rewards in environment management for staff (e.g., public recognition, awards, paid
vacations, time off, gift certificates) are given due importance in the green organization.
Green Training
1. Organizations with GHRM must develop training programs in environmental management to increase
environmental awareness, skills, and expertise of employees.
2. Organizations with GHRM should consider integrating training to create the emotional involvement of
employees in environment management.
3. Organizations with GHRM will have a defined green knowledge management system (link environmental
education and knowledge to behaviors to develop preventative solutions).

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Jamal, T.; Zahid, M.; Martins, J.M.; Mata, M.N.; Rahman, H.U.; Mata, P.N. Perceived Green Human Resource
Management Practices and Corporate Sustainability: Multigroup Analysis and Major Industries
Perspectives. Sustainability 2021, 13, 3045. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063045
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03
The Effect of Green Human Resource Management on
Environmental Performance in Small Tourism
Enterprises: Mediating Role of Pro-Environmental
Behaviors
by

Ibrahim A. Elshaer

1,2,*
,

Abu Elnasr E. Sobaih

1,3
,
 Meqbel Aliedan
1
and

Alaa M. S. Azazz

4,5
1

Management Department, College of Business Administration, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa 31982,
Saudi Arabia
2

Department of Hotel Studies, Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Suez Canal University, Ismailia
41522, Egypt
3

Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Helwan University, Cairo 12612, Egypt
4

Social Studies Department, College of Art, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa 31982, Saudi Arabia
5

Department of Tourism Studies, Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Suez Canal University,
Ismailia 41522, Egypt
*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 1956; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041956
Submission received: 14 January 2021 / Revised: 4 February 2021 / Accepted: 6 February
2021 / Published: 11 February 2021
Downloadkeyboard_arrow_down
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Versions Notes
Abstract
Research on the interrelationship between green human resource management (GHRM), employee pro-
environmental behaviors, and environmental performance remains very limited, especially in relation to
small tourism enterprises. This research bridges a knowledge gap and examines the direct effect of
GHRM on environmental performance in small tourism enterprises and the indirect effect through
employee pro-environmental behaviors. For this purpose, a quantitative research approach was adopted
using a pre-tested instrument. A questionnaire was handed to employees in small hotels and travel
agencies in Greater Cairo, Egypt. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) showed a positive
significant effect of GHRM on both types of pro-environmental behaviors (tasked-related and proactive).
However, the results, surprisingly, showed no significant direct effect of GHRM on environmental
performance. Notwithstanding, there was an indirect, positive, and significant effect of GHRM on
environmental performance through tasked-related and proactive pro-environmental behaviors. This
reflects the value and vital role of employee pro-environmental behaviors in the relationship between
GHRM and environmental performance in small tourism enterprises. The research provided various
implications for tourism scholars and practitioners, especially those related to small tourism enterprises.
Research limitations and opportunities for further research are also discussed.
Keywords:
green human resource management (GHRM); environmental performance; pro-environmental
behavior; task-related pro-environmental behavior; proactive pro-environmental behavior; small
tourism enterprises

1. Introduction
Sustainability has gained greater attention from policymakers, scholars, and industry practitioners in
recent decades, especially after issuing the United Nations sustainable development goals (UNSDGs). In
this context, organizations have realized that sustaining their business is dependent on the preservation
of natural resources or the environment. It is well documented that organizations’ slovenliness of the
natural environment will definitely disturb not only environmental sustainability but also their financial
sustainability [1]. Hence, organizations have recognized the value of integrating sustainability of
environmental, social, and financial dimensions into their business model and operations [2]. As a result,
there has been a growing interest of scholars in “greening” organizations in recent years [3]. This includes
the emergence of green human resource management (GHRM) to integrate environmental management
into HRM functions [4]. GHRM was found to play a crucial role in developing a culture of sustainability in
organizations [5].
GHRM could be defined as the implementation of HRM functions that positively affect employee pro-
environmental behaviors, and ultimately support proper environmental performance of the organizations
[3,6]. It integrates the environmental management in all HRM practices, starting from recruitment and
selection through training and development till the management of employee performance [4]. Pro-
environmental behavior is a form of workplace behavior that includes all actions undertaken by
employees, whether formal duties or voluntary initiatives, to conserve the environment, e.g., saving water
and electricity, recycling paper, and double-sided print [3]. These actions are more likely to positively
affect environmental performance in the organizations [3,6]. Research has also confirmed that
environmental performance depends on sustaining employees’ abilities, capabilities, and motivation, who
are the basis of the environmental management system [5].
Recent research [3,5,6,7] has shown a relationship between GHRM, employees’ green or pro-
environmental behaviors, and environmental performance. However, research on the interrelationship
between these variables in the tourism context remains very limited [5]. Research on GHRM, green or
pro-environmental behavior, and environmental performance often focuses on large businesses with
limited studies addressing these issues on small businesses [8]. This is especially true for small tourism
enterprises [7]. Despite small tourism enterprises encompassing a major proportion of tourism industry
globally, research on GHRM, eco-friendly, green or pro-environmental behavior, and environmental
performance remains very limited, and few studies have addressed these issues in the small tourism
context [7]. Hence, this research is an attempt to bridge this gap in knowledge regarding the
interrelationship between GHRM, employee pro-environmental behaviors, and environmental
performance in small tourism enterprises.
 The results of research on large businesses cannot simply be applied to small tourism enterprises,
e.g., small hotels and travel agencies, since they have different characteristics from large businesses,
such as deficiencies in HRM support [7], which could affect the environmental management system.
Hence, the role of leadership is crucial to ensure the provision of GHRM that positively affects
environmental performance [8]. Recent research on GHRM and environmental performance in small
enterprises in general [8] and on small tourism enterprises in particular [7] has identified the need for
further research on GHRM in small businesses to enhance their environmental performance, i.e., the
sustainability of these businesses and their contribution to the industry as well as the overall economy.
The purpose of the current research is to examine the interrelationship between GHRM and
environmental performance through employee pro-environmental behaviors in small tourism enterprises.
More specifically, this research has two main objectives. First, the research examines the direct effect of
GHRM on pro-environmental behavior, whether tasked-related or proactive behaviors, and on
environmental performance in small tourism enterprises in Egypt. Second, it also investigates the
mediating role of employee pro-environmental behaviors, both tasked-related and proactive, in the
relationship between GHRM and environmental performance of small tourism enterprises. The research
draws on GHRM theory [4] and resource-based view theory [8], adopting a comprehensive framework to
examine the interrelationship between GHRM and environmental performance through both types of
employee pro-environmental behaviors, which have not been studied before in small tourism enterprises.
The research establishes proper implications for tourism scholars and practitioners, especially those of
small tourism enterprises in Egypt and other countries of the same context, of how to achieve appropriate
sustainability and environmental performance through GHRM and employee pro-environmental
behaviors.

2. Review of Literature
2.1. GHRM and Pro-Environmental Behaviors
GHRM incorporates environmental management objectives into HRM practices, such as recruitment
and selection, compensation and incentives, training and development, and performance appraisal [4].
GHRM is linked with employees’ pro-environmental behaviors and the environmental strategy of the
organization [3,9]. Pro-environmental behaviors are workplace behaviors that are intended for positive
actions towards the environment, such as conserving water and saving energy. Pro-environmental
behaviors include two different types of behaviors: task-related pro-environmental behavior and proactive
pro-environmental behavior [6]. Task-related pro-environmental behavior comprises performing the formal
activities or tasks mentioned in the job description in an environmentally friendly way [10]. On the other
hand, proactive pro-environmental behavior is a voluntary behavior, which contains personal initiatives
and a self-starting approach to behave in an eco-friendly way [6]. Hence, both types of pro-environmental
behavior are essential in the environmental management system of any organization.
Previous studies on GHRM [4,5,7] have shown that GHRM affects employees’ green, eco-friendly,
or pro-environmental behaviors. Employees are expected to exhibit pro-environmental behavior, whether
formal tasks related to the job or voluntary actions, e.g., taking green initiatives when they receive
appropriate GHRM. A recent study on the hotel industry showed that high-performance HRM positively
and significantly affects employee attitudes and behaviors [11]. The hotel’s environmental management of
HR was found to be significantly related to employee green behavior, i.e., organizational commitment and
organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) [12,13,14]. A recent study found that
GHRM in general and green training in particular are the best predictors for individual environmental
behavior and performance [15] GHRM also enhances eco-friendly behavior among hotel and tourism
employees [5,16]. Moreover, GHRM was found to predict the two types of pro-environmental behaviors
(task-related and proactive pro-environmental behavior) [3]. Drawing on resource-based view theory, a
recent study on SMEs [8] showed that the leadership of small businesses, as a strategic resource in
environmental management, has a direct, positive, and significant effect on GRHM, especially employee
competencies and behavior. The same study also confirmed that GHRM policies and practices enhance
employee abilities and competencies, and thus their environmental behaviors. Based on these
arguments, it could be proposed that:
Hypothesis 1 (H1).
 GHRM has a positive effect on employee task-related pro-environmental behaviors in small tourism
enterprises.
Hypothesis 2 (H2).
GHRM has a positive effect on employee proactive pro-environmental behaviors in small tourism
enterprises.
2.2. GHRM and Environmental Performance
Studies on strategic and/or high-performance HRM has shown a positive and direct relationship with
both job performance and organizational performance [11,17]. Studies have shown that when employees
receive proper HRM practices, e.g., proper training, development, and compensation, they are more likely
to exhibit proper job performance, which affects the overall organizational performance [15]. In the
environmental management literature, studies have shown that GHRM has a positive and direct effect on
environmental performance [4,5,18]. More specifically, GHRM has been found to raise employee green
consciousness and green behaviors [3,4], green innovation, as well as the environmental performance of
the organization [8]. GHRM, especially green training and employee involvement, has been also found to
directly and significantly influence hotel environmental performance [12].
GHRM also enhances green organizational culture and overall environmental performance of the
organizations [18]. Research has found that businesses adopting formal environmental management
systems are more likely to exhibit high environmental performance [19]. This formal environmental
management system comprises GHRM policies and practices. However, small tourism businesses, e.g.,
small hotels, restaurants, and travel agencies, are less likely to adopt formal HRM practices due to limited
resources and HR support [20]. Notwithstanding, the environmental management of leadership or
owner/managers of these small tourism enterprises still has a positive effect on the environmental
performances of these small businesses [7,8]. Hence, it could be hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 3 (H3).
GHRM has a positive effect on environmental performance in small tourism enterprises.
2.3. Pro-Environmental Behavior and Environmental Performance
Pro-environmental behavior is among the various types of strategies considered by organizations to
achieve environmental performance and promote environmental sustainability [21]. This includes all
positive actions by employees directed to save natural resources or the environment and/or reduce the
negative impact on the environment [3]. This comprises both proactive (or voluntary) green initiatives and
task-related (or official green responsibilities in job description) green duties [6].
The limited published research on environmental management in the tourism context has shown
that hotel employees’ eco-friendly behavior positively, significantly, and directly affects environmental
performance [5]. This eco-friendly behavior is equivalent to pro-environmental behavior which includes
saving energy, conserving material, saving water recycling, as well as providing green initiatives [5]. Other
research studies on employee green behavior and environmental performance [12,13,22] have shown a
positive relationship between employee OCBE and environmental performance. Based on these
arguments, it could be hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 4 (H4).
Task-related pro-environmental behavior has a positive effect on environmental performance in
small tourism enterprises.
Hypothesis 5 (H5).
Proactive pro-environmental behavior has a positive effect on environmental performance in small
tourism enterprises.
2.4. The Mediating Role of Pro-Environmental Behavior in the Relationship between GHRM and
Environmental Performance
Research has shown that GHRM has a direct link with employees’ pro-environmental behaviors and
environmental strategy of the organization [3,8,12]. It has also been confirmed that GHRM is a predictor
of employee pro-environmental behaviors [3] and environmental performance [8]. An up-to-date research
study examined different mediators in the relationship between GHRM and environmental performance. A
study on the hotel industry showed that GHRM has a positive direct influence on environmental
performance and indirect influence via employee commitment and eco-friendly behavior [5]. Another
study on large hotels showed that OCBE mediates the influence of GHRM on hotel environmental
performance [12]. Additionally, perceived organizational support has been found to influence individual
environmental performance when employees are highly satisfied with organizational engagement [15].
A study on SMEs in the manufacturing industry showed that green innovation mediates the
relationship between GHRM and environmental performance [8]. A third study on small lodging
enterprises showed that green innovation partially mediates the relationship between owner–manager
green ability, motivation, and opportunity (the three different dimensions of GHRM) and the environmental
performance of these small lodging enterprises [7].
To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, there is no published research (in English) that has
examined the mediating role of both types of pro-environmental behaviors in the relationship between
GHRM and environmental performance, especially on small tourism enterprises. This research makes the
first attempt to examine this relationship. It is expected that employees’ pro-environmental behaviors have
a positive role in this relationship, similar to the positive mediating role of employee eco-friendly behavior
in the relationship between GHRM and environmental performance. Hence, the following hypotheses can
be proposed:
Hypothesis 6 (H6).
Task-related pro-environmental behavior mediates the relationship between GHRM and
environmental performance.
Hypothesis 7 (H7).
Proactive pro-environmental behavior mediates the relationship between GHRM and environmental
performance.
The literature review discussed above showed that despite the crucial role of GHRM in enhancing
employee pro-environmental behaviors (task-related and proactive) and environmental performance of
organizations, it could be clearly noticed that previous studies on the interrelationship between these
variables are limited in the tourism context in general and very limited for small tourism enterprises in
particular. This research examines these relationships in small tourism enterprises in the Egyptian context
(see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The research conceptual framework.

3. Methodology
3.1. Research Population and Sample
A quantitative research design was carried out using a survey research strategy and a self-
administered questionnaire (see Appendix A) for data collection. All the study variables were adopted
from previous well-established and widely used measures. The population of this study covers small
tourism enterprises in Egypt. Small tourism enterprises contain small restaurants, hotels, and travel
agencies that are funded by their owner and operated by their owner–manager or independent managers
with often less than 50 workers [23]. The communication with several governmental authorities in Egypt
declared that there is an unavailable database about small tourism enterprises; notwithstanding, there is
evidence that comprehends the major proportion of small tourism enterprises in the tourism industry in
Egypt [22]. A total of 800 questionnaires were self-administrated during July and August 2020, employing
the drop and collect technique, which increases the response rate [24]. Respondents in this study were
identified via a personal network. The authors work in the Colleges of Tourism and Hotel Management in
Egypt. Hence, they have a good network with hospitality enterprises, including small tourism enterprises.
The collection process yielded 560 valid responses for analysis with a response rate of 70%. This
research sample size was compared favorably with similar studies on small enterprises [7,8,25].
3.2. Measure and Questionnaire Development
The authors derived the study measure from widely employed, reliable, and validated measures in
previous studies. GHRM was measured by six items (a = 0.981) derived from [26]. The sample variables
were “My enterprise encourages employees to provide suggestions on environmental improvement”;
“Employees fully understand the extent of corporate environmental policy”; and “My enterprise provides
adequate training to promote environmental management as a core organizational value”. Task-related
pro-environmental behavior was operationalized by employing [27] a scale; the scale had three items: (a
= 0.960) “I adequately completed assigned duties in environmentally friendly ways” and “I fulfilled
responsibilities specified in my job description in environmentally friendly ways”. Similarly, we measured
proactive pro-environmental behavior by three items (a = 0.964) adapted from [28]; the sample variables
were “I took a chance to get actively involved in environmental protection at work” and “I took the initiative
to act in environmentally friendly ways at work”. Finally, a seven-item scale (a = 0.980) derived from [5,29]
was employed to measure environmental performance. The sample items included “environmental
management within our enterprise has reduced wastes, conserve water usage, and conserved energy
usage”. A five-point Likert type rating scale was employed, where 1 = “strongly disagree” and 5 =
“strongly agree”.
The questionnaire was mainly in its original English version and then translated into Arabic, and
consequently validated employing back-translation by an English–Arabic professional; the two English
forms were consistent. The questionnaire was pre-tested with five academics in tourism and hotel
faculties, six professionals in the tourism industry, and 10 employees in small hotels and travel agencies.
All were requested to assess the scale variables for content validity and note any observations that could
be employed to revise the scales. The comments were then employed to improve the clarity and
relevance of the research instrument. Finally, a pilot survey was conducted with 10 employees in small
hotels and travel agencies. Based on the respondents’ feedback, the questionnaire variables were
refined, and a modified final version was designed. The pilot test feedback provided positive comments
on the content validity of the questionnaire variables. This feedback further clarified and improved the
questionnaire content.
3.3. Data Analysis
Some successive data analysis techniques were employed as follows. First, descriptive statistics
were employed to investigate the respondents’ profiles and the statuses of enterprises. Second,
subsequently, a first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the validity and
reliability of the study’s outer model (measurement model). Following suggestions from [30], model
goodness of fit measures, such as χ2/df, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), comparative
fit index (CFI), and standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR), were estimated to analyze the
model data to fit the previously theorized model. Third, the authors carried out structural equation
modeling with Amos vs. 21 graphics for hypotheses testing, as shown in Figure 2. SEM was employed,
as it permits the comprehensive and concurrent inspection of all theorized hypotheses for
multidimensional and complicated phenomena [31], considering the possible measurement error as well
[26].
Figure 2. Summary of the employed research methods.
To spot the difference in the mean values between early and late collected questionnaires, an
independent sample t-test analysis was used. No statistical differences were observed (p > 0.05), which
gives evidence that non-response bias is not an issue in this study [32].
To test the potential common method variance (CMV) that might arise from collecting dependent
and independent information from the same respondent, four procedures, as suggested by [33], were
adopted. (1) All participants were guaranteed that their information was saved confidentially and
anonymously. (2) The questionnaire was created where dependent items were located before the
independent variables. (3) The scale was pilot tested with 20 practitioners and 20 academic and refined
accordingly. (4) Harman’s single factor test was conducted; all the questionnaire items were subjected to
exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and the extracted choice was fixed to the value of 1 with no rotation
option. Subsequently, one dimension arose, which explains 41.5% of the variance. Taken together, the
preceding procedures show that CMV is not an issue in this study.
The mean (M) scores were between 3.82 and 4.22; the minimum standard deviation (S.D) value
was 0.785; the maximum S.D. was 1.160, which indicates that the study data are more dispersed and
less centralized around its mean [34].

4. Results
4.1. The Profiles of Respondents
As discussed above, the questionnaire was handed to employees in small hotels and travel
agencies. The vast majority of respondents in small hotels were males (85.3%), whereas males were
slightly higher than females in travel agencies (55%) (Table 1). In relation to age, the profiles were similar
in both small hotels and travel agencies, as 44.1% and 43.2% were aged between 30 and 45 years, 45.3
and 31.8 less than 30 years old, and 20.6 and 25 between 46 and 60 years old for small hotels and travel
agencies, respectively. Most of the respondents held a university degree (55.9% and 72.8% in small
hotels and small travel agencies, respectively). Regarding the types of employees, more than three-
quarters of the respondents (82.4) were temporary or casual workers (hourly paid). This proportion was
slightly lower in small travel agencies, but still more than half of the respondents 52.3% (Table 1).
Table 1. The profile of respondents.

4.2. Measurement Model

Table 2 shows the convergent and discriminant validity of the employed scales. The validity of the
employed measures was examined by conducting first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with
Amos vs. 21. The CFA model showed a good fit: χ2 (146, N = 560) = 552.442, p < 0.001, normed χ2 =
3.777, RMSEA = 0.042, SRMR = 0.036; CFI = 0.963 (see Table 2). As per the suggestions in [35], three
conditions should be met to approve convergent validity: (1) The item loading on its related factor should
exceed 0.7 [35]. (2) Composite reliability [CR] should be more than 0.70. (3) The average variance
extracted (AVE) should be greater than 0.50. All the three previous conditions were met, which approves
the convergent validity of the study measures [36]. All loadings (see Figure 3) were between 0.891 and
0.98 and were above 0.7 with minimum t-values exceeding 41.16 (Table 2). The CR values for all factors
were above 0.7, and the AVE values for all dimensions exceeded the threshold value of 0.50 (Table 3),
which guarantees convergent validity as endorsed by [36].
Figure 3. The first order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Table 2. CFA Factor loading: t-value (C.R), M (mean), and standard deviation (S.D.).

Table 3. Discriminant validity based on Fornell–Larcker criterion analysis.

To assess discriminant validity, the recommendations in [26,36] were followed. The AVE square root
for each factor should be more than the values of the shared correlations of other factors in both the row
and column [36]. Moreover, the AVE scores should exceed the maximum shared value (MSV) for each
factor [22] (Table 3). As revealed in Table 2 and Table 3, the discriminant validity conditions were met
and guaranteed.
4.3. Structural Model
To test the study hypotheses, the researchers ran SEM with the maximum likelihood method and
employed Amos vs. 21 graphics. Overall, the SEM results revealed a good model fit to data
(X2 = 662.235, df = 147 (n = 560), p < 0.001; CFI = 0.951; SRMR= 0.044; RMSEA = 0.049) (Table 4).
Moreover, the model has good explanatory power (SMC), as the dependent variables can explain 0.60 of
variance in environmental performance.
Table 4. The results of the structural model.

The results of the SEM structural model are shown in Table 4 and Figure 4. The results show the
direct and indirect relationships in this study. The SEM outputs supported the direct positive and
significant impacts of GHRM on both task-related pro-environmental behavior (β = 0.29, t-value=
7.691, p < 0.001) and proactive pro-environmental behavior (β = 0.32, t-value = 8.438, p < 0.001);
accordingly, hypotheses H1 and H2 were supported. Nevertheless, the direct effect of GHRM on
environmental performance was positive but insignificant (β = 0.11, t-value= 0.931, p = 0.352), and
accordingly, hypothesis H3 was not supported. The SEM results also showed a high positive and
significant impact of task-related pro-environmental behavior on environmental performance (β = 0.51, t-
value = 13.402, p < 0.001), which supported hypothesis H4. Similarly, proactive pro-environmental
behavior was found to have a high positive and significant impact on environmental performance (β =
0.57, t-value= 15.763, p < 0.001); hence, hypothesis H5 was supported.

Figure 4. The research structural model. *** p < 0.001.

 To test the mediation impacts, the authors followed the suggestions from [27,37]. Full mediation can
only be accepted if the indirect effects are significant, while the direct path is not; if both direct and indirect
paths are significant, partial mediation is established [37]. Consequently, the SEM results in Table 4 show
that the indirect relationships (the relationship between GHRM and environmental performance through
task-related pro-environmental behavior and proactive pro-environmental behavior) are significant, while
the direct one (the direct path from GHRM to environmental performance) is insignificant in this study,
which indicates that both task-related pro-environmental behavior and proactive pro-environmental
behavior can fully mediate the relationships between GHRM and environmental performance. The
previous conclusion is further confirmed by inspecting the SEM output of the standardized indirect
impacts from GHRM to environmental performance. The insignificant direct effect of GHRM on
environmental performance increased from β= 0.11, p = 0.352 to a total significant effect of β= 0.79, p <
0.001. The previous results further support the full mediation of both task-related pro-environmental
behavior and proactive pro-environmental behavior in the relationship between GHRM and environmental
performance.

5. Discussion
This research was established to bridge the gap in knowledge in relation to the interrelationship
between GHRM, employee pro-environmental behaviors (both task-related and proactive pro-
environmental behavior), and environmental performance in small tourism establishments, particularly
small hotels and travel agencies in Egypt. The research started by developing a conceptual framework
based on previous studies on GHRM, employee pro-environmental behavior, and environmental
performance with a specific focus on small enterprises wherever possible. The results of SEM showed
that GHRM positively and directly influences both task-related and proactive pro-environmental behaviors
of employees in small tourism enterprises. The results showed that when small tourism enterprises
consider environmental management in the selection of the right person, provide adequate environmental
training, reward eco-friendly behavior, and have an environmental policy, employees responded by
exhibiting proper task-related pro-environmental behavior. This could be clearly noticed in the
performance appraisal of employees’ environmental incidents, responsibilities, concerns, and policy.
Additionally, GHRM was found to predict proactive employee behavior. In other words, in small tourism
enterprises that encourage their employees to provide suggestions and initiatives in environmental
improvements, employees are more likely to become environmentally friendly and work in a team to
resolve any environmental issues. These findings support previous studies [3,5] in which GHRM positively
affects employee green, ecofriendly, or pro-environmental behaviors.
The results also showed that both types of pro-environmental behavior (task-related and proactive)
significantly and positively affect environmental performance. This means that both types of pro-
environmental behavior have a significant positive effect on waste reduction, conserving water and
energy usage, reduction in purchasing non-renewable materials, reduction in overall cost, and enhancing
the reputation and marketplace position of the organization. These results coincide with a previous study
[5] in which employee eco-friendly behavior affects and enhances environmental performance. It also
supports other work [12,13] in which voluntary pro-environmental behavior, such as OCBE, has a direct
influence on the environmental performance of large businesses. The results of current research confirm
this finding in the small tourism enterprise context.
Unlike the results of many previous studies [5,7,8], the results of this research, surprisingly, showed
that GHRM does not have a significant impact on environmental performance in small tourism
enterprises. This could be because the vast majority of employees in small tourism enterprises are part-
timers. Earlier research on part-time employees [38,39] showed that they are not a homogenous group
and should be treated differently in comparison to full-time employees to achieve appropriate
performance. It is, therefore, essential that small tourism enterprises pay sufficient attention, when
selecting part-time employees, to their pro-environmental behavior and invest in them appropriately.
However, the results showed that pro-environmental employee behavior fully mediates the relationship
between GHRM and environmental performance, which encourages small tourism enterprises to put
more emphasis on the pro-environmental behavior of their employees. This finding confirms the work of
previous studies [12,13] in which pro-environmental behavior, i.e., OCBE, mediates the effect of GHRM
on environmental performance. However, such studies were undertaken on large businesses. This
research confirms this finding in the small tourism enterprises context.

6. Implications of the Study

The research provides several theoretical implications, especially for tourism and hospitality
scholars. First, the research contributes to the limited studies on GHRM, employee pro-environmental
behavior, and environmental performance in small businesses, particularly small tourism enterprises. It
advances understanding regarding the interrelationship between GHRM, employee pro-environmental
behavior, and environmental performance in small tourism enterprises. The research showed that GHRM
positively and significantly affects pro-environmental behavior and pro-environmental behavior positively
and significantly affects the environmental performance of small tourism enterprises. Second, the
research confirmed the mediating role of pro-environmental behavior in the relationship between GHRM
and environmental performance in small tourism enterprises. Third, the research did not confirm the direct
significant effect of GHRM on environmental performance. This confirms that the results of GHRM on
large businesses and small businesses in another context cannot always be generalized to all small
tourism enterprises. Thus, scholars need to be cautious when generalizing the results to another context.
Fourth, further attention should be paid to fully examine and understand the two types of employee pro-
environmental behavior (task-related and proactive), since it plays a fully mediating role between GHRM
and environmental performance.
The research has several implications for tourism practitioners, especially those in small hotels and
travel agencies. First, owners–managers and/or managers of small tourism enterprises need to pay more
attention to recruiting and selecting employees with pro-environmental behaviors. A personality test
confirming these types of behavior should be conducted before selecting the right employees. This
practice ensures that the new candidates fit with the environmental management policy of the
organization. Second, owners–managers and /or managers of small tourism enterprises should recognize
the heterogeneity of their temporary employees. The majority of employees in current research are
temporary workers on an hourly or casual basis. Studies [38,39] should consider that temporary
employees are not a homogenous group, and recognizing this heterogeneity helps in selecting the right
people with pro-environmental behavior that fits organization policy, e.g., environmental management
policy. Third, investment in temporary employees is urgently needed to ensure positive pro-environmental
behavior. Research [40] has shown that if temporary employees perceive lower investment, they are
more likely to respond with a negative attitude and behavior. Hence, proper environmental training should
be provided to new employees to enhance their new positive pro-environmental behavior.

7. Limitations and Opportunities for Further Research

This research paper was conducted on small tourism enterprises in Egypt. The classification of this
type of enterprise often varies from one country to another and occasionally from one industry to another.
The current study investigated hotels and travel agencies with less than 50 workers, the majority with less
than 25 workers, thus limiting the generalization of the results to a wider population. It is, therefore,
suggested for further research to gather data in another context (country and/ or industry) to validate the
current study results. Further research could test the hypotheses of this study in different categories of
tourism enterprises, e.g., luxury five-star hotels and in a different country as well. Further research could
also conduct a multigroup analysis approach [41,42] to differentiate between the results of hotel and
travel agencies, and additionally, the duration of work experience could be employed in further studies as
a moderating variable. The cross-sectional employed approach to gathering the required data in this
study could have limited the causality purposes in this paper. Further research could also take into
consideration the effects of peer to peer sharing economy services for hospitality, such as Airbnb, in the
employment process in small tourism enterprises and how these can affect the tested relationships. In
any study in which SEM if employed to infer causality, a longitudinal research approach is preferred to
support more solid inferences [43].

Author Contributions
 Conceptualization, I.A.E., A.E.E.S., A.M.S.A., and M.A.; methodology, I.A.E., A.E.E.S., and
A.M.S.A.; software, I.A.E. and A.E.E.S.; validation, A.E.E.S., A.M.S.A., and I.A.E.; formal analysis, I.A.E.,
A.E.E.S., and A.M.S.A.; investigation, M.A., A.M.S.A., A.E.E.S., and I.A.E.; resources, I.A.E. and
A.E.E.S.; data curation, A.E.E.S. and I.A.E.; writing—original draft preparation, I.A.E., A.E.E.S., A.M.S.A.,
and M.A.; writing—review and editing, A.E.E.S. and I.A.E.; visualization, I.A.E.; supervision, I.A.E. and
A.E.E.S.; project administration, A.E.E.S., I.A.E., A.M.S.A., and M.A.; funding acquisition, I.A.E. All
authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding
The authors extend their appreciation to the Deputyship for Research and Innovation, Ministry of
“Education” in Saudi Arabia, for funding this research work through the project number IFT20120.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was
approved by the Institutional Financing Committee (Project number IFT 20120, approval date 10 July
2020).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A. Questionnaire Used in This Study

Dear participant,
This questionnaire was designed to identify the Effect of green human resource management on
environmental performance with the mediating role of pro-environmental behaviors your contribution will
be appreciated; your answers will be kept strictly confidential and will be used only for research purposes.
The analysis of the survey will involve statistical aggregates making the individual responses impossible
to be identified.
Please circle the one number for each question that comes closest to reflecting your perception about it where 1 means
strongly disagree and 5 means strongly agree

Section 1: Measures of Environmental Performance

1 Environmental management within our enterprise has reduced wastes 1 2 3 4 5

2 Environmental management within our enterprise has conserved water usage 1 2 3 4 5

3 Environmental management within our enterprise has conserved energy usage 1 2 3 4 5

Environmental management has reduced purchases of non-renewable materials, chemicals, and

4 1 2 3 4 5
components.

5 Environmental management has reduced overall costs 1 2 3 4 5

 6 Environmental management has reduced wastes Improved its position in the marketplace 1 2 3 4 5

7 Environmental management has helped enhance the reputation of our enterprise” 1 2 3 4 5

Section 2: Measures of Proactive pro-environmental behavior

8 We are involved to become environmentally friendly 1 2 3 4 5

9 We regularly involved in teamwork for resolving environmental issues 1 2 3 4 5

10 Employees are encouraged to discuss environmental issues in team meetings 1 2 3 4 5

Section 3: Measures of Task-related pro-environmental behavior

11 Performance appraisal records environmental performance 1 2 3 4 5

12 Performance appraisal includes environmental incidents, responsibilities, concerns and policy 1 2 3 4 5

13 Employee gets reward for environmental management. 1 2 3 4 5

Section 4: Measures of Green Human Resource Management

My enterprise provides adequate training to promote environmental management as a core

14 1 2 3 4 5
organizational value.

My enterprise considers how well employee is doing at being eco-friendly as part of their
15 1 2 3 4 5
performance appraisals.

16 My enterprise relates to employee’s eco-friendly behavior to rewards and compensation. 1 2 3 4 5

My enterprise considers personal identity-environmental management fit in recruitment and

17 1 2 3 4 5
selection.

18 Employees fully understand the extent of corporate environmental policy. 1 2 3 4 5

19 My enterprise encourages employees to provide suggestions on environmental improvement. 1 2 3 4 5

Optional questions (section Four)
Name …………….
Type of Organization: Hotel Restaurant Travel agent
Gender: Male Female
Marital status: Unmarried Married
Educational level: High school degree University graduate Post-
graduate
Age: less than 30 30–45 46–60 More than 60
Type of employees: Salary employees Hourly employees
Your email address ……………………

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Elshaer, I.A.; Sobaih, A.E.E.; Aliedan, M.; Azazz, A.M.S. The Effect of Green Human Resource Management on
Environmental Performance in Small Tourism Enterprises: Mediating Role of Pro-Environmental
Behaviors. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1956. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041956
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Elshaer IA, Sobaih AEE, Aliedan M, Azazz AMS. The Effect of Green Human Resource Management on
Environmental Performance in Small Tourism Enterprises: Mediating Role of Pro-Environmental
Behaviors. Sustainability. 2021; 13(4):1956. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041956
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Elshaer, Ibrahim A., Abu Elnasr E. Sobaih, Meqbel Aliedan, and Alaa M. S. Azazz. 2021. "The Effect of Green
Human Resource Management on Environmental Performance in Small Tourism Enterprises: Mediating Role of
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04

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol., 29 June 2022
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 13 - 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.844488

Understanding the Impact of Green

Human Resource Management
Practices and Dynamic Sustainable
Capabilities on Corporate
Sustainable Performance: Evidence
From the Manufacturing Sector

Mahvish Kanwal Khaskhely1*† Sarah Wali Qazi2†

Naveed R. Khan3,4† Tooba Hashmi1† Asma Abdul Rahim Chang5†

1
 Institute of Science, Technology and Development, Mehran
University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro,
Pakistan
2
 Department of Management Science, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan
3
 Department of Management Studies, Bahria Business School,
Bahria University, Karachi, Pakistan
4
 Department of Management Studies, Faculty of Business and
Management, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
5
 Department of Management Science, Mohammad Ali Jinnah
University, Karachi, Pakistan

Pakistan ranks as the eighth most vulnerable country on the 2021

global climate change vulnerability index. Partially, this perilous
position is attributed to unsustainable practices in the large-scale
manufacturing sector since its contribution to carbon emission is
among the highest in the economy. These serious environmental
challenges impede the attainment of sustainable development goals
that concern responsible consumption and production. In
manufacturing organizations, there are an ongoing debate regarding
sustainable human resource management (HRM) determinants, which
can promote sustainable performance. In this regard, green human
resource management (GHRM) practices and dynamic sustainable
capabilities are significant components as they have a unique role in
transforming corporations into sustainable organizations. However,
there is a dearth of evidence regarding the impact of individual GHRM
practices, such as green recruitment and selection, green pay and
reward, and sustainable capabilities like monitoring and re-
configuration, in improving the corporate environmental and social
performance. Hence, an empirical investigation regarding the
association among these macro-level components with the corporate
environmental and social performance through partial least squares
structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is conducted. The findings
inferred from 396 employees affiliated with six large-scale industries
substantiate the main hypotheses of this study. It is empirically
confirmed that GHRM and dynamic sustainable capabilities
significantly and positively impact corporate sustainable performance.
This research contributes to the literature by employing dynamic
capabilities approach and a dynamic resource-based view (RBV) to
explicate how corporations can benefit from the interplay of
sustainable capabilities and GHRM functions. Hence, in the absence of
a significant predictive model, this research is the first of its kind to
isolate macro-level antecedents of sustainable HRM to find their
impact on corporate sustainable performance in a developing country
context. The study recommends that the management should prioritize
the acquisition of monitoring capabilities and hiring environmentally
conscious employees to achieve social equity and ecological
conservation goals.

Introduction
Globally, the large-scale manufacturing sector creates an enormous
amount of waste, exploitation of natural resources, overconsumption
of energy, and unsustainable workplace practices (Abdul-Rashid et al.,
2017). This case is especially true for developing countries; despite
exhibiting lucrative market growth potential, they are highly
vulnerable to environmental and social exploitations and crises
(Masud et al., 2018). Pakistan is no exception since it is the 5th most
populous country in the world with 220 million inhabitants (Mukhtar,
2020; The World Bank, 2020). The Global Climate Risk Index 2021
ranks it as the 8th worst stricken country in the world (Eckstein et al.,
2021). This index analyses and ranks countries and regions based on
the extent to which they are affected by climate-related extremities
like heatwaves and floods. The industrial or manufacturing sector is
the largest contributor to the GDP of this developing country (Sarstedt
et al., 2019). Consequently, it is one of the primary sources of carbon
emission (approximately 21%) in the country after the agricultural
sector (Tanveer et al., 2021). According to Dissanayake et al.
(2016) the manufacturing sector is the major cause of unmanaged
industrial waste, unsustainable workplaces, and Human Resource
practices. Therefore, this sector and its sustainability issues lend
themselves for further investigation in this research.

Moreover, many scholars suggest that the corporate solution to

sustainability issues can be materialized through sustainable
ecological and social performance. Ecological performance is the
expression of the corporate commitment to conserve the environment
through measurable, operational indicators concerning ecological care
(Roscoe et al., 2019; Haldorai et al., 2022). Whereas, corporate social
performance is determined through improved health and safety of
internal and external stakeholders, creation of job opportunities, and
reducing the negative impact of the organization on the community
(Mousa and Othman, 2020). Collectively, corporate sustainable
performance is essential for survival, ecological conservation, and
improving the human quality of life. It enhances employee productivity
and reduces the time and costs of hiring and attrition (Tang et al.,
2018). Further, it facilities the corporations in creating and maintaining
their competitive edge in the global market apart from ensuring
survival and conservation of the eco-system and societal wellbeing
(Orji, 2019). Therefore, both practitioners and academicians need to
have a clear understanding of the factors affecting corporate
sustainability performance (Jamal et al., 2021).

Furthermore, corporate sustainability performance is dependent on the

management and employees’ green practices like GHRM and dynamic
capabilities (Schaltegger and Burritt, 2018). Green HRM refers to
sustainable HRM practices that have an ecological impact on the
organization. It is a fundamental component of corporate sustainable
strategy, promoting across the board employee green behaviors and
ecological and social performance (Hameed et al., 2020; Singh et al.,
2020). It consists of key practices like green recruitment and selection
and, green pay and reward. The role of green human resource
management (GHRM) is crucial in the development of environment-
friendly norms and practices within organizations and ultimately leads
to improved corporate sustainable performance (Yong et al., 2020).

Apart from GrHRM, other antecedents of a sustainable organization

include dynamic sustainable capabilities. Organizational capabilities
contribute to implementing corporate sustainability strategies. They
enhance corporate sustainability performance as they constitute an
important part of a firm’s business strategy in many industries
(Shahzad et al., 2020). Dynamic sustainable capabilities are special
kinds of corporate capabilities that facilitate organizations to
systematically sense, seize, monitor, and configure sustainable
development opportunities to achieve superior performance in the
ecological and social domains (Wu et al., 2013). The discussion of
organizational capabilities in the corporate sustainability literature is
limited. Therefore, based on its relevance in dealing with external and
internal dynamism and its representation in dynamic resource-based
theory, its inclusion is made in the current study.

Furthermore, in the developing country context, despite being the

largest contributor to GDP, export, and employment creation after
agriculture, there is a dearth of literature regarding corporate
sustainability in the manufacturing sector (Bin Saeed et al., 2018; Kim
et al., 2019). Corporate sustainable practices are crucial for the sector
to successfully mitigate the ecological crisis and promote safer and
more humane workplaces (Summers et al., 2014; Koho et al.,
2015; Shang et al., 2020).

Therefore, to fill this gap, this article explores the impact of GHRM
practices (i.e., green recruitment and selection, green pay, and
reward) and dynamic sustainable capabilities (monitoring and re-
construction) on corporate sustainability performance in the
manufacturing sector. As there is a paucity of research on the causal
relationship between GHRM practices, dynamic capabilities, and
corporate sustainability performance, this study is timely in filling a
clear research gap by employing dynamic resource-based theory and
dynamic capability literature. The rationale for incorporating this
theoretical lens is to advance both the dynamic research-based view
(RBV) and the dynamic capability approach in the context of large-
scale manufacturing. This theoretical lens explains how organizational
green human resources and sustainable capabilities create a synergic
effect to improve the ecological and social performance of the sector.
Dynamic RBV provides a guiding paradigm for leveraging dynamic
capability framework to better understand, predict and control HR-
related practices and ensure continuous resource regeneration within
an organization (Helfat and Peteraf, 2003; Singh et al., 2020).
This research makes a significant contribution in terms of theory,
method, and practice. Firstly, it theoretically underpins the crux of
dynamic RBV theory in the relationship among capabilities, GHRM
practices, and corporate sustainability performance to satisfy the
demands of the environment and society. The second contribution is
the addition of empirical evidence in the scarce literature concerning
the manufacturing sector of developing economies. Third, the study
employs multisource sampling through well-defined sample selection
criteria to prevent common method bias in the model (Podsakoff et al.,
2003). Additionally, a large sample size is taken in a developing
country context to improve the generalizability of the findings. Also, it
validates the recently developed social sustainability scale (Shang et
al., 2020) in Pakistani large scale manufacturing industries including
textile, automobile, food, and beverages, pharmaceutical and
chemical. Further, the study offers an empirical explanation of how
green HRM and organizational sustainability-oriented capabilities are
critical for corporate performance. Finally, it offers practical
implications for the aforementioned industries in the light of the
Environmental Protection Agency’s objective of capacity building of
stakeholders for better environmental management (Ministry of
Environment, 2005) and sustainable workplace practices in the
manufacturing sector.

The structure and flow of research include a brief review of GHRM,

corporate sustainable performance, and sustainable capabilities from
the perspective of the aforementioned theories. The literature review
includes research hypotheses and provides gaps and inconsistencies
in the previous body of knowledge. Next, research design and methods
are discussed, followed by an analysis and in-depth discussion of the
findings. Finally, pertinent implications, limitations, and future
directions are deliberated.

Literature Review
Sustainability as the Dynamic Organizational Capability
Dynamic means changing, evolving in response to or in anticipation of
environmental change, and capability is defined as an ability to learn
and improve in contrast to an organizational capacity which means
holding, accommodating, or receiving knowledge in a restrictive
manner. Therefore, Bhupendra and Sangle (2015) define dynamic
capabilities as the routines of tasks that when followed are
internalized and in the long run become part of organizational
capabilities. This is because dynamic capabilities create, combine,
and use their resources in new ways; meaning they can synthesize and
integrate such routines in unique ways leading to the creation of new
knowledge, solution, or configurations (Winter, 2003; Barreto, 2010).
So, for example, dynamic capabilities could be adopting new
technologies to prevent environmental pollution which will also lead to
a competitive edge in the ecological domain. However, for such
technologies to flourish, certain micro-level capabilities are required
for instance management’s eco-friendly perspective, organizational
learning, shared vision, and knowledge through cross-functional
integration (Leonidou et al., 2015). Few studies have explored how
sustainability can become an organizational capability, enhancing the
organizational capacity to mold and innovate toward a sustainable
paradigm (Gabler et al., 2015). Also, the resource-based theory is
employed by many researchers to understand the organizational
response to confront environmental imperatives, However, the
dynamic capability framework is better suited for the ever-changing
micro and microenvironment of the organization.

However, the work on dynamic capabilities as a dominant perspective

in the development of corporate sustainability is scarcely discussed in
the literature. Its in-depth discussion is required since such studies
can guide corporations to develop required capabilities that can help
them to respond successfully to a sustainability challenge arising from
their external or internal environment by adjusting their strategies
accordingly.

Typologies of Dynamic Capabilities

According to Teece (2007), there are three coherent clusters of
dynamic capabilities including sensing, seizing, and reconfiguration
capabilities. Sensing is the capability that identifies and assesses
opportunities for sustainability. The process of mobilizing internal and
external resources and competencies to capture value is termed
seizing capability. Finally, the continuous resource regeneration and
orchestration for aligning the organization’s resources with the
evolving business environment is referred to as reconfiguration
capability. However, another core capability as discussed
by Schreyögg and Kliesch-Eberl (2007) is the monitoring capability
which refers to continuously checking the validity of capability in
regular intervals to prevent it from being obsolete, and facilitating the
organization in gaining flexibility and adaptability. Furthermore, the
dynamic sustainable capabilities are supported by micro-foundations
like employee skills and competencies, organizational routines, and
structure which should be considered as a multidimensional construct.
These organizational routines are different ways through which the
organization can deploy these sensing, seizing, monitoring, and
reconfiguration capabilities.

In terms of theoretical approaches employed to study organizational

capabilities, the RBV was the most common theory utilized to study
resources, capabilities, and strategic management (Barney et al.,
2001). RBV provided an explanation regarding the superior
performance of some organizations compared to others. Also, Teece
et al. (1997) discussed the dynamic capabilities approach to explicate
the organizational competitive advantage in dynamic markets.
However, focusing on the internal environment only and excluding the
ever-changing external environment proved to be a limitation of
Resource-Based Theory. This was addressed by Hart (1995) as he
proposed the Natural Resource-Based Theory (NRBV) to include
natural and organizational resources and environmental issues in RBV.
When considering that these resources are ever-evolving, the NRBV
transitions to a dynamic resource-based view. In Hart’s view,
challenges caused by the natural environment are among the most
influential factors in the new pattern of resource development and
Organizational Capabilities (Hart and Dowell, 2011). Moreover, over the
years, the economic and social environmental challenges raised in the
NRBV have multiplied.

In this regard, it is argued by Annunziata et al. (2018) that

sustainability-oriented organizations should identify and develop
specific capabilities to enhance their competitive advantage. The
literature mentions several strategies like the adoption of proactive
environmental strategies, for example, Delmas (2011), successful
implementation of environmental management systems and practices
(Yu and Ramanathan, 2016; Johnson, 2017; Charan and Murty, 2018),
adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (Choi et al., 2019) and
management of green supply chain. Hence, it is pertinent to develop
the dynamic capabilities to implement these strategies. Despite the
fact that there is a body of knowledge on dynamic sustainable
capabilities, there is a recent need for more research in this area.
According to Gelhard and Von Delft (2016) the literature has been
debating about performance in facing economic, social, and
environmental issues.

Organizational Capabilities and Corporate Sustainability

Also, organizations are increasingly considering the environmental
issues in their macro-environment which might be the side effect of
their production processes on account of tighter regulations by the
government or increasing pressure from a wide variety of
stakeholders. The literature regarding environmental management is
plentiful but not much is known about the organization-centric
capabilities which can facilitate to adopt of sustainable environmental
management (Grewatsch and Kleindienst, 2018). It was still unclear
whether being green is the antecedent of organizational capabilities or
whether organizations build certain necessary capabilities which help
them to become greener as a consequence. The literature suggests
that not only does environmental management increase environmental
as well as economic and social performance. Although there is ample
literature on environmental management and corporate performance,
the role of dynamic sustainable capabilities in explaining their
relationship is lacking. Also, there is a lack of integration of social and
environmental issues in the theoretical framework and empirical
model of previous studies (for instance, Grewatsch and Kleindienst,
2018). In this regard, the importance of corporate sustainability is
achieving prominence among organizations. Research has recently
studied corporate sustainability from the strategic perspective
highlighting that organization’s dynamic sustainable capabilities can
have a positive impact on corporate performance (Bocken and
Geradts, 2020).

Nevertheless, the relationship between organizational capabilities and

sustainability benefits like increased triple bottom line performance
remains little explored. For example, Gabler et al. (2015) argue that
little is known about how firms determine and use the appropriate
resources to maximize the performance of environmental initiatives.
Then, the impact of corporate capabilities on corporate performance is
addressed by Huang and Huang (2020) but it is limited to the
transportation industry and the dynamic nature of internal capabilities
is not discussed. Therefore, this study argues the following:

H1: Corporate Sustainable Capabilities significantly impact

Corporate sustainable performance.
Ha1a: Monitoring Capability has a significant impact on Corporate
Social Sustainability Performance.
Ha1b: Monitoring Capability has a significant impact on Corporate
Environmental Sustainability Performance.
Ha1c: Reconfiguration Capability has a significant impact on
Corporate Social Sustainability Performance.
Ha1d: Reconfiguration Capability has a significant impact on
Corporate Environmental Sustainability Performance.

Green Human Resource Management

Then, according to Jabbour and Santos (2008) and Iqbal (2018),
human resource forms the knowledge base of an organization
motivating them to invest further into its people. The greening of
human resources refers to the set of policies and bundle of practices
that enable the organizational human capital to preserve the copious
knowledge resource. It is achieved in an eco-friendly and efficient
manner in terms of high productivity and low cost (Masri and Jaaron,
2017; Tang et al., 2018). Greening involves engaging in sustainable
practices which apply to all the Human Resource functions like
recruitment, selection, performance management, pay and reward,
employee training, and development among others (Mustapha et al.,
2017). It is done to allocate the scarce resources efficiently
meanwhile promoting employee morale and their satisfaction with the
job which is precisely environmentalism (Renwick et al., 2013; Zaid et
al., 2018).

For instance, through recruitment and selection, the potential

candidates for employment are informed about the organizational
mission and values for sustainability. The green element is included in
their job description as well to highlight the desirability of green
practices for the organization. Through employee training and
development function, green competencies and skills among the
employees are fostered. Green team building, green skills, and
learning management systems are established to develop and re-
enforce pro-environmental behavior (Hameed et al., 2019, 2020). Then,
another function of human resource is motivating employee which can
be partly done through green performance management which reward
employees based on their actions and behaviors about green issues
like responsible resource consumption and similar attitude toward the
environment and appropriate reward system.

Furthermore, regarding rewards, intrinsic, public, social, and

personalized reward systems along with positive performance
appraisals lead to pro-social and proactive behavior among employees
resulting in higher sustainability performance (Govindarajulu and Daily,
2004; Jackson and Seo, 2010).

The relation between the GHRM and environmental commitment is

discussed by Maung et al. (2016) while GHRM’s impact on
environmental performance is highlighted by Daily et al. (2012), Kim
et al. (2019), and Haldorai et al. (2022). However, the social pillar of
the triple bottom line has been mostly ignored in the literature. This
scenario is improving since some studies like the one conducted
by Amrutha and Geetha (2019) attempt to bridge this gap between
GHRM and the social sustainability of the organizations by including
the mediating role of Employee Green Behavior (also used
interchangeably with the term of Employee Pro-Environment Behavior)
and establishing these links through the theories of Ability, Motivation,
Opportunity, and Social Identity. Thus there is a major gap in the
literature for exploring the social aspect of sustainability in GHRM
literature. The questions like what is the contribution of GHRM
practices in achieving the triple bottom line can be further explored by
empirical testing of each of the Green Human Resource Practice on
health, wellness, and wellbeing of the employees along with the
organization’s environmental and financial performance.

Also, among GHRM practices, Khan et al. (2020) found that green
assessment and rewards are not effective individually for explaining
sustainable performance in the case of the Malaysian manufacturing
industry. To test their findings, the following is argued:

H2: Green human resource management significantly impacts

corporate sustainable performance.
Ha2a: Green recruitment and selection have a significant impact
on corporate social sustainability Performance.
 Ha2b: Green recruitment and selection have a significant impact
on corporate environmental sustainability performance.
Ha2c: Green pay and reward have a significant impact on
corporate social sustainability performance.
Ha2d: Green pay and reward have a significant impact on
corporate environmental sustainability performance.

Literature Gap
Literature on green HRM and sustainability is limited and shows mixed
results in the research (Shafaei et al., 2020; Yong et al., 2020).
Further, little discussion is made regarding Green HRM practices
leading to corporate sustainability within Pakistan (e.g., Awan et al.,
2017). The contribution of Green HRM practices in developing a
sustainable working environment has been confirmed by researchers
like Chams and García-Blandón (2019) and Muisyo et al. (2021). Yet,
the association between green HRM and a firm’s ecological
performance has overall mixed findings. For instance, Shahzad et al.
(2020) discussed the association of Environment Sustainability to
Corporate Social Responsibility and Green Innovation in the Pakistani
manufacturing industry. Similarly, Abbas (2020) established a positive
relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility with corporate
green performance in Pakistani manufacturing industries. But these
researchers have considered only one facet of corporate sustainability
which is the environment. The other dimensions of sustainability have
been largely ignored in the literature like society or social
sustainability in a particular sector. The past studies have
contemplated the importance of integrating the studies of HRM
practices and sustainability-related performance of the organization
and it is also suggested for future studies by Macke and Genari
(2019) to determine the impact of sustainable HRM practices on the
psychological and social wellbeing of individuals. It then manifests in
the behavior and commitment of the management.

Moreover, a recent study conducted by Rehman et al. (2021) on 244

Malaysian large manufacturing corporations revealed the lack of
association between GHRM and sustainability performance.
Consequently, researchers like De Stefano et al. (2018). acknowledge
the importance of further examining the relationship between GHRM
and corporate social sustainability performance. The paucity of
research in this area serves as the motivation to address sustainability
performance in the current study seeking empirical evidence of a
significant association between GHRM and sustainable performance
as conceptualized in Figure 1.

Figure 1
 Figure 1. Conceptual framework (author’s development).
Inspiration is taken from Amrutha and Geetha (2019) and Nisa et
al. (2019).

Materials and Methods

Data Collection
In terms of the target population, discussion regarding Pakistan’s
manufacturing sector is paramount since it is the second-largest
contributor to the country’s GDP, the first being the agriculture sector.
Therefore, the manufacturing company’s sustainability status or
performance is pivotal to study since it can play a significant role in
steering Pakistan on the road toward sustainable development (Ikram
et al., 2019). Hence, the impact of two macro-level components of
management is investigated on two levels of Corporate sustainability
performance. Corporate Sustainable Performance, as a result, leads to
achieving a competitive edge through balancing improved performance
as well as demonstrating a responsible attitude toward society and
the environment. This research investigates the relationship between
the GHRM, dynamic sustainable capabilities, and corporate
sustainability performance variables with each other to test a
predictive Corporate Sustainability Performance framework from the
perspective of human resource management. Corporate Sustainable
Performance has the potential to provide a competitive edge to a
highly lucrative industry in Pakistan.

Further, SECP registered and PSX listed organizations from the

manufacturing sector make the sampling frame for this research. Six
large-scale industries based on their contribution to the GDP, their
export percentages, and their contribution to the employment
generation are selected and purpose sampling is done (Economic
Survey of Pakistan, 2019; OECD, 2020). For instance, textile has the
highest contribution to the country’s economy, and the COVID-19
pandemic has presented a unique opportunity; due to the shutdown of
China, which was the single largest textile-related exporter, the
Pakistani textile industry is working at full capacity to replace China in
the global market. Also, it has nearly achieved its export target of $24–
25 billion (Siddique, 2020).
The respondents were employees from large-scale manufacturing
companies including men and women with 2 years and above
experience. These companies belonged to industries like textiles,
pharmaceuticals, automobiles, chemicals, food and beverages, and
coke and petroleum products from major cities of Pakistan including
Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Quetta.

Measurement Development
In this study, the items used in the survey were adapted from existing
research to fit the context of Corporate sustainable performance and a
seven-point Likert scale is used ranging from strongly disagree to
strongly agree. Items for GHRM are adapted from the study by Tang et
al. (2018). The dynamic sustainable capabilities scale is adapted
from Wang and Ahmed (2007) and Shang et al. (2020). Finally,
Corporate sustainable performance is defined as the performance of a
corporation in all the dimensions or parameters of sustainability
including environmental, social, and economic (Schaltegger and
Wagner, 2006). Scale adapted from Wijethilake (2017) and Shang et
al. (2020). The questionnaire items are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2
 Figure 2. Questionnaire items.

Data Analysis

Respondent’s Demographic Profile

The respondent’s demographical profile was assessed through
frequencies and percentage-wise distribution of the pertinent data
demonstrated in Table 1. The table provides important insights
regarding the respondents and the industry.

Table 1
 Table 1. Respondent and industry profile.

Results
Measurement Model
The relationship between latent constructs and their indicators is
examined through the measurement model and it is commonly
employed to determine the inter-relationship patterns among the
constructs of a conceptual model. To analyze and establish the causal
associations among several constructs, a good measurement model is
required. The first step in the analysis process is to check the
reliability and validity of a measurement model before conducting the
tests for the structural model. The measurement model needs to have
acceptable levels of reliability and validity.

Reliability Analysis
The reliability is equal to the squared correlation between the true
construct and the construct scores in absence of systematic error. In
this research, three types of reliability measures are determined.
According to Dijkstra and Henseler (2015), the most important among
them is ρA. Then, composite reliability (ρc) and Cronbach’s alpha are
also calculated over the measure of composite reliability Jöreskog’s ρ,
ω, or ρc, and Cronbach’s alpha is also calculated. In particular, the true
reliability is under-estimated by Cronbach’s alpha and therefore,
should only be considered as a lower boundary or minimum criteria of
the reliability.

Table 2 shows all three reliabilities of the constructs used in this

research. All the values of Dijkstra–Henseler’s rho (ρA), Jöreskog’s rho
(ρc), and Cronbach’s alpha exceed the threshold level of 0.7, which
represent that the constructs adapted for this research are highly
reliable (Henseler et al., 2014).

Table 2
 Table 2. Reliability analysis.

Validity
Convergent validity is calculated for the constructs to ensure that the
items of the same construct should be related to each other as well as
the construct. On the other hand, discriminant validity helps to ensure
whether items from different constructs are different from each other.
The average variance extracted (AVE) is the most common measure of
convergent validity whereas the Hetero-trait mono-trait ratio of
correlations (HTMT) measures the discriminant validity.

Table 3 exhibits that the convergent validity of each construct

exceeds the standard value, i.e., 0.5, confirming the validity of the
constructs in the instrument.

Table 3
 Table 3. Average variance extracted-convergent validity.

Hetero-Trait Mono-Trait Ratio of Correlations

Moreover, the assessment of discriminant validity is a must in any
research that involves latent variables for the prevention of multi-
collinearity issues. The HTMT ratio of correlations method is applied in
this study, and its threshold value is lesser than 0.90 as depicted
in Table 4 (Hamid et al., 2017). The smaller the HTMT of a pair of
constructs, the more likely they are to be distinct which is the case in
this study’s constructs. The outer model is shown in Figure 3.

Table 4
 Table 4. HTMT ratio–Discriminant validity.
Figure 3
 Figure 3. Model-partial least squares (PLS) quality criteria
overview.

Outer Model Assessment

Since the reliability statistics are high, therefore, item if the deleted
option is not availed in this case. The next step is to move the
pertinent data to SmartPLS for predictive model measurement and
analysis. The structural model (representing relationships among
constructs) has three constructs. Among them, the latent variables
were GHRM Practices (GRS and GPR), Dynamic sustainable
capabilities (MC and RC), and Corporate sustainable performance (ENP
and SP). Based on the hypotheses generated in the previous phase, all
the constructs are treated as first-order and reflective in nature (Hair
et al., 2017; Sarstedt et al., 2019). The measurement model has
twenty-seven indicators, where all items were directly measured in the
research sample (reflective in which the construct defines the
indicator variables) as conducted by Annunziata et al.
(2018) and Zaid et al. (2018) for CSP. Also, organizational
capabilities have reflective measurements similar to the study
conducted by Huang and Huang (2020). Table 5 shows the outer
loadings of the measurement model.

Table 5
 Table 5. Outer loadings.

Assessment of Structural Model

After testing the outer model, structural analysis (inner model
assessment) was conducted with standard assessment criteria which
include reporting coefficient of determination (R2), blindfolding based
cross-validated redundancy measure Q2, and path co-efficient
relevance and statistical significance. Figure 4 depicts the structural
model after bootstrapping.

Figure 4
 Figure 4. Structural model after bootstrapping.

Coefficient of Determination (R2)

The paths between constructs are exhibited as standardized
coefficients. In Table 6, there are two target constructs also known
as endogenous constructs whereas the rest of the constructs in the
model are categorized as predictors or exogenous. The graphical
representation of R squared is provided in Figure 5. As suggested
by Cohen (1992) in social science research, R-square value of 0.12 or
below indicates low, between 0.13 and 0.25 values indicate medium,
0.26 or above, and above values indicate high effect size.

Table 6

Table 6. The R square value.

Figure 5
 Figure 5. Graphical representation of R squared value.
The R square for Corporate sustainable performance is 15.2%
meaning 15.2% of the variance in CSP can be successfully explained
by these exogenous variables, namely, GHRM and Dynamic sustainable
capabilities.

Predictive Relevance Q2
The Q square measure is used to determine the predictive relevance
of the reflective construct in the PLS-SEM model. This statistic is
highly relevant since this research model is essentially predictive and
has all reflective constructs and indicators. In this case, the construct
cross-validated redundancy approach is employed (Hair et al., 2014)
because of its suitability in its evaluation. It uses components of the
structural, and path model as well as anticipated excluded data points
with the following results.

As depicted in Table 7, the value for Corporate sustainability

performance meets the criteria; it is significant with a value of greater
than zero, however, its predictive accuracy is weak.

Table 7

Table 7. Construct cross-validated redundancy.

Then, effect size or f square needs to be measured which provides
the contribution of a variable to the predictive relevance of the
concerned construct. It is checked to employ the same threshold
values, meaning that according to Hair et al. (2017), f square values
higher than 0.35 is considered as having a large effect size, 0.15–0.35
are medium, whereas value lying between 0.02 and 0.15 is small. As
depicted in Table 8, the independent variables’ DSC and GHRM effect
size on the dependent variable (CSP) is small.
Table 8

Table 8. Effect size (f2).

Path Analysis
After substantiating the explanatory and predictive powers of our
model, the researchers proceeded toward the final steps of testing the
extent to which various factors affect Corporate sustainability
performance through path analyses. A path model was tested that
related two independent variables including GHRM and Dynamic
sustainable capabilities with Corporate sustainable performance (Hair
et al., 2019). It is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6
 Figure 6. Outer loadings of the main model.
Consistent with Ha1, overall Green HRM was found to significantly
impact Corporate sustainable performance CSP (β = 0.198, p = 0.00).
Hence the first alternate hypothesis was accepted. Ha2 stated that
DSC on the whole has a significant impact on Corporate sustainable
performance. It was found to be substantiated. (β = 0.257, p = 0.00)
as shown in Table 9.

Table 9

Table 9. Path analyses for the main model.

Further, the sub-hypotheses for Ha1 and Ha2 were evaluated in Table
10 with the following result:

Table 10
 Table 10. Path analysis of the sub-hypotheses.
The results of the bootstrapping are provided in Table 10 which
shows that among the eight hypotheses, three are empirically
supported the remaining five hypotheses could not be supported and
the hypothesized relationships among the exogenous constructs and
with the endogenous construct could not be established for those
hypotheses. Moreover, the direct effect has been validated through the
two-tailed test with a 0.05 significance level. The above table reveals
that green recruitment and selection has a positive and significant
impact on both corporate social and environmentally sustainable
performance. Further, among the dynamic sustainable capabilities,
monitoring capability has a significantly positive impact on corporate
sustainable social performance.

Test for Common Method Bias Through Herman’s Single Factor

Analysis
A common problem in research that can compromise its rigor is the
presence of common method bias in the research instrument which
can become a source of measurement errors (Ardura and Artola,
2020). Extraction sums of squared loadings values below 50% in Table
11 indicate an absence of the common method bias according
to Jordan and Troth (2020) and hence add credibility and rigor to our
findings.

Table 11

Table 11. Test for common method variance.

Findings and Discussion

This research is conducted to determine the impact of GHRM
practices and dynamic sustainable capabilities on corporate
sustainable performance in the manufacturing sector in a developing
country context.

In the first step, descriptive statistics in SPSS were studied which

provided insights regarding the manufacturing sector and the
respondents’ demographical profiles. On average, there were more
male respondents as compared to their female counterparts. Middle
and low-level employees were in high percentage as compared to top-
level managers who were less than 10% of the total sample. The
industries covered included Textile (18.2%), Pharmaceuticals (21%),
Food and Beverages (21%), Coke and Petroleum products (13.1%),
Chemicals (15.9%), and Automobiles (10.9%).

In the second stage, SmartPLS 3 was employed to assess the outer

(measurement) model and inner (structural) model of the research
model. Upon running the algorithm, the Cronbach’s alpha, and
composite reliability scores were found to be above threshold values.
Then convergent validity was assessed through AVE extracted and
discriminant validity was found through heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT)
ratio and they met the criteria for acceptable values. Any potential
Multi-collinearity issues were checked through the Variance Inflation
Factor and their values were below 5 as per the conservative
estimates. The outer loadings were also found to be greater than 0.5
(Shrestha, 2020). To achieve higher factor loadings some items of the
constructs were removed. However, this is not a problem in reflective
scales since the items of a construct are inter-changeable.
Adjusted R square was approximately 15% which means that green
human resource management and dynamic sustainable capabilities
can explain 15% of the variance in corporate sustainable performance.
According to Cohen (1992), r-square value 0.12 or below indicates
low, between 0.13 and 0.25 values indicate medium, 0.26 and above
values indicate high effect size. Therefore, the independent variable
has medium explanatory power. Then, the bootstrapping was done to
check the Q square and F square values and both of them indicated
low effect size. The path analysis showed that the t values higher
than 2.5 and p values were significant for both main hypotheses.

Therefore, the study found that both GHRM practices and dynamic
sustainable capabilities can significantly predict the corporate
sustainable performance of the manufacturing sector from a
developing country perspective. Similar studies regarding the efficacy
of GHRM in the Pakistani manufacturing sector have been conducted
by Islam et al. (2020) and Ahmad et al. (2021). Both these studies
asserted that corporate ecological performance is improved in the
presence of GHRM practices via improved employee green behaviors.
Furthermore, in the Pakistani manufacturing sector, another study
conducted by Islam et al. (2021) proved that Green HRM can mediate
the relationship between corporate leadership and employee green
behaviors. In particular, green recruitment and selection can promote
social and environmentally sustainable performance whereas,
monitoring capabilities can successfully predict the social sustainable
performance of the sector. Unlike previous findings, the employees do
not perceive green pay and reward as predictors of sustainable
environmental and social performance. This can be explained by the
study of Unsworth et al. (2021) according to which green HRM
practices do not work uniformly for all employees. They influence
“non-green” employees more as compared to “green” ones. For
example, a green feedback and incentives program was successful in
engaging some employees but turned off those who already had a
strong pro-environmental commitment. Similarly, inadequate evidence
of the predictive relationship between reconfiguration capabilities and
corporate social and ecological sustainability performance can be
explained through the logic provided by Jamal et al. (2021). According
to their study, in the fast-paced corporate world, employees have
deadlines meant to improve the financial performance of the
organization. They are “pushed” to focus more on core activities of
daily operations, instead of developing their capabilities in favor of
sustainability goals.

Hence, this research is conducted on the environmental and social

sustainability performance of a manufacturing sector in a developing
country scenario. Similar studies are done by Ghouri et al.
(2020), Jayabalan et al. (2020), and Khan et al. (2021) studied
Corporate sustainable environment performance in the Malaysian
context. According to them, GHRM practices are found to significantly
impact sustainable performance which complements the current
research. Additionally, they have proposed to include multiple
industries from the manufacturing sector in future research. Hence,
this suggestion is incorporated and six industries with the highest
contribution to GDP are studied in the current study. Also, Masri and
Jaaron (2017) found the positive impact of a GHRM practice on
environmentally sustainable performance. Then, green selection and
recruitment are positively related to sustainable performance.
Moreover, our research findings are consistent with Gilal et al.
(2019), Khan et al. (2020), and Yusoff et al. (2020) in which GHRM
functions such as recruitment and selection positively influence
sustainable performance. It furthers the study of Ameer and Khan
(2020), by asserting the importance of minimizing environmental and
social problems generated due to manufacturing operations.
Notwithstanding, further exploration in terms of green HRM in large
manufacturing companies in Asia is required.

Then, this research is also consistent with the findings of Mousavi et

al. (2018), Bezerra et al. (2019), and Kitenga et al. (2020). These
results indicate that there is a significant positive relationship
between dynamic capabilities (like sensing, seizing, reconfiguration,
and monitoring) and corporate sustainable performance. Therefore, in
this manner, our findings support dynamic capabilities theory by
confirming that corporate performance and competitive edge are
based on organizational ability to respond swiftly to changing external
environments.

Finally, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this study is the

first of its kind to isolate GHRM practices like green recruitment and
selection, green pay and reward, and monitoring and reconstruction
capabilities to find their impact on corporate social and environmental
performance,

Implications, Recommendations, and Future

Research
As asserted by Bombiak and Marciniuk-Kluska (2018) and Yong et al.
(2019), GHRM practices and dynamic capability development are a
logical solutions for the manufacturing industry to realize the goal of
reducing pollution and social value creation. The green value fit
between the employer and employee due to green recruitment and
selection improve the chances of employees’ involvement in green
behaviors on regular basis. It translates into organizations displaying
higher corporate social and environmental performance. In addition, it
also enhances their satisfaction and retention in the organization as
asserted by Pham and Paillé (2019). Based on the findings of the
study, it is recommended that the management should focus on GHRM
functions, particularly green human resource recruitment and
selection, to improve the social and environmental performance of the
organization. The idea is to align the recruitment and selection
process with the strategic green goals of the organization which leads
to the hiring of employees with green values and behaviors.

Moreover, the corporations in which sustainability capabilities are

embedded will have a significant inclination to develop monitoring
capabilities that are conducive to developing new sustainability-
oriented products and processes. Also, as asserted by Marshall et al.
(2015), these organizations have a higher propensity to re-define
strategy toward social care. Therefore, management should prioritize
monitoring capabilities that help in capturing opportunities in the
external and internal environment to further their goal of improving the
corporate social performance from a sustainability perspective in a
developing country context.
From a broader perspective, the findings of the study facilitate
corporations in addressing the broad SDG agenda of sustainable
consumption and production by adopting GHRM practices. Also, the
study makes a case for developing sustainability-oriented capabilities
in industries like textiles, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages,
chemicals, and automobiles. It furthers Pakistan’s environmental
policy aim regarding conserving the country’s environment and
improving the quality of life.

This research contributes to the existing literature in the following

ways. Firstly, based on the literature gap it attempts to conceptually
propose a link between GHRM and dynamic sustainable capabilities
with corporate sustainable performance. Secondly, the theoretical gap
offered by previous studies with regard to corporate sustainability
from an organizational perspective is filled by the current research. In
particular, it contributes to determining a pathway between
sustainable human resource management attributes and corporate
environmental and social performance of firms in the large-scale
manufacturing sector. Henceforth, this research is important because
it provides a reasonable frame of reference for understanding the
dynamics of the sustainable performance of the organizations. It
recommends that management should prioritize the acquisition of
monitoring capabilities and hiring environmentally conscientious
employees by manufacturing firms in their corporate strategy for the
attainment of social equity and ecological conservation goals.

Then, the limitations of the study include the fact that this research
only focuses on a single sector (manufacturing) and a single country
(Pakistan). Also, GHRM practices dynamic sustainable capabilities,
and corporate sustainable performance are considered reflective and
first-order constructs. For future research, a comparative study can be
conducted on corporate sustainable performances in the
manufacturing versus service sector. Also, the constructs can be
measured as higher-order for future studies.

Further two practices for each independent variable (GHRM and

dynamic sustainable capabilities) are considered through the
researcher’s discretion for model parsimony. For future studies, the
GHRM bundle approach can be adapted to include all GHRM practices
for evaluating their impact on corporate sustainability performance.
Similarly, for holistic evaluation of this predictive model, Triple Bottom
Line Approach can be adopted while assessing the corporate
sustainability construct since, in the current study, only social and
environmental dimensions are evaluated.

Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic might have influenced the

respondents’ perception regarding the sustainable performance-
related variables of this research. Therefore, re-collecting the data
post-pandemic can improve the predictability of the research model.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in this study are included in the
article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the
corresponding author/s.

Author Contributions
MK and NK conceived the manuscript idea and wrote and compiled the
major sections of the manuscript. SQ and NK guided regarding the
methodology. MK, NK, TH, and AC interpreted research data and
critically contributed to the manuscript revisions. All authors
contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence
of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed
as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and
do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or
those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that
may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its
manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: green human resource management, dynamic sustainable
capabilities, manufacturing sector, green recruitment and selection,
green pay and reward, corporate sustainable performance, social
equity, ecological conservation

Citation: Khaskhely MK, Qazi SW, Khan NR, Hashmi T and Chang AAR
(2022) Understanding the Impact of Green Human Resource
Management Practices and Dynamic Sustainable Capabilities on
Corporate Sustainable Performance: Evidence From the Manufacturing
Sector. Front. Psychol. 13:844488. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.844488

Received: 28 December 2021; Accepted: 31 May 2022;

Published: 29 June 2022.

Edited by:
Talat Islam, University of the Punjab, Pakistan
Reviewed by:
Maria Gianni, University of Macedonia, Greece
Sobia Naseem, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, China
Copyright © 2022 Khaskhely, Qazi, Khan, Hashmi and Chang. This is
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*Correspondence: Mahvish Kanwal

Khaskhely, [email protected]
†
ORCID: Mahvish Kanwal Khaskhely, orcid.org/0000-0003-0238-7467;
Sarah Wali Qazi, orcid.org/0000-0002-0785-9147; Naveed R.
Khan, orcid.org/0000-0002-1974-9113; Tooba Hashmi, orcid.org/0000-
0001-8010-1650; Asma Abdul Rahim Chang, orcid.org/0000-0001-8477-
4561
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.844488/full

Effect of Employees’ Perceived Green HRM on Their

Workplace Green Behaviors in Oil and Mining
Industries: Based on Cognitive-Affective System
Theory
by

Silu Chen

1
,

Wanxing Jiang
2,*
,
 Xin Li

3,4
and

Han Gao
5
1

School of Economics and Business Administration, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079,
China
2

School of Business Administration, Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai
201620, China
3

School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

4

School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
5

College of Fashion and Design, Donghua University, Shanghai 200051, China

*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(8), 4056; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084056
Submission received: 6 March 2021 / Revised: 31 March 2021 / Accepted: 7 April 2021 / Published:
12 April 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Issues in Occupational Health Psychology)

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Abstract
Drawing on cognitive-affective system theory, this study proposes that employees’ perceived green
human resource management (HRM) influences their’ workplace green behaviors through two
psychological processes: the cognitive and the affective route. By analysing 358 questionnaires collected
from Chinese firms in the oil and mining industry, we obtain evidence in support of our predictions, finding
that employees’ perceived green HRM positively impacts their voluntary workplace green behaviors and
green creativity. Additionally, green psychological climate and harmonious environmental passion are
found to partially mediate the relationship between employees’ perceived green HRM and voluntary
workplace green behavior while harmonious environmental passion is found to fully mediate the
relationship between employees’ perceived green HRM and green creativity. These findings shed light on
the importance of green HRM in shaping employees’ proactive workplace green behaviors and uncover
how green HRM transforms employees’ cognitive, affective, and motivational (CAM) factors into green
actions.
Keywords:
perceived green HRM; green psychological climate; harmonious environmental passion; voluntary
workplace green behavior; green creativity

1. Introduction
At present, economic development has inevitably brought about issues related to environmental
pollution in China, including climate change, sewage discharge, and biodiversity loss. Such environmental
issues are directly or indirectly caused by people’s daily behaviors [1]. As organizations draw essential
inputs from the natural environment, the sustainability of business depends greatly on their treatment of
the natural environment [2]. Research [3,4] has found that organizations can generally increase their
levels of branding recognition and sales by having a set of green policies in place. Employees, as the
agents who actually implement such green practices, play an important role in helping an organization
achieve its corporate green goals [5]. Given that human resource management (HRM) is mainly
presented in relation to the environmental bottom line [6] and HRM practices play a critical role in dictating
whether employees feel comfortable exhibiting their proactive tendencies [7], organizations have
increasingly adopted green HRM practices to promote employees’ green behaviors, such as
organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) towards the environment [8], task-related and voluntary
employee green behaviors [9], eco-friendly behavior [10], and proenvironmental behavior [11]. Green
HRM can be defined as “HRM aspects of green management”, to promote employee green behavior in
the workplace [12] (p. 1). Despite a recent surge in green HRM research, an understanding of how HRM
is perceived by employees and affects their attitudes and behaviors remains limited. For example, little is
known about whether and how green HRM shapes prospective employee outcomes from both cognitive-
affective frameworks. Even though the current literature has documented the antecedents of employees’
workplace green behaviors, including individuals’ values and behavioral intentions [13], corporate
environmental responsibility [14], corporate social responsibility [15], daily affect [16], and
transformational leadership [17], little work has focused on the effect of formal organizational context (i.e.,
HRM). In fact, compared to individuals’ characteristics or leadership styles, which are usually stable and
hardly change over a short period of time, green HRM as an instrumental strategy helps organizations to
achieve their sustainability-oriented goals through creating a green environmental culture and green
employees who are concerned about environmental issues [6,11,18]. Moreover, some HR literature [19]
suggests that different HRM practices may influence employees’ behavior through different psychological
processes, however, it still remains unclear how green HRM influences employees’ green behavior in the
workplace. Therefore, it would be of great significance to focus more on the effect of the organizational
situation factor, i.e., the green HRM on employees’ proactive green behaviors as well as on the mediating
process about how such HRM practices exert important influence on employees’ workplace green
behaviors.
This paper focuses on employees’ proactive workplace green behaviors (i.e., voluntary workplace
green behavior and green creativity). Voluntary workplace green behavior refers to “discretionary
employee actions that contribute to the environmental sustainability of the employer organization but are
not under the control of any formal environmental management policies or system” [20] (p. 3). It can also
be seen as an extra-role behavior in which employees use their initiative to engage in behavior that
encourages sustainability in the work context going beyond their formal job-tasks [21]. According to Kim
et al. [20], this behavior benefits organizations directly by conserving resources and energy for cost
reduction and indirectly by preserving the natural environment for organizational sustainability. Besides,
green creativity refers to ‘‘the development of new ideas about green products, green services, green
processes, or green practices that are judged to be original, novel, and useful’’ [22] (p. 109). Nurturing
green creativity among employees to produce innovative end results is the primary concern of managers
[22,23]. To achieve sustainable development of environment, organizations heavily depend on the
behaviors of their employees [24]. Thus, we purpose that voluntary workplace green behavior and green
creativity are two importance outcomes of green HRM, which is beneficial to an organization’s operations.
This study intends to make three main theoretical contributions. First, it adds to the literature of
green HRM by exploring the employee outcomes of green HRM in the workplace, thus help better
understand the concept of green HRM as well as its consequences. As an emerging research topic of
HRM, green HRM has not been sufficiently explored in terms of its effect on employees’ workplace
outcomes. Even though past research mostly reached the conceptualization stage [12,25], empirical
testing and theorizing of the effect of green HRM on employees’ workplace green behaviors is still in its
infancy. Our study thus contributes this stream of research by empirically testing the effect of employees’
perceived green HRM on their green behaviors, especially such effect in the context of the oil and mining
industry in which the companies are very environmentally sensitive in nature and employees’ proactive
green behaviors are encouraged and valued.
Second, past research suggests that HRM practices might not directly exert influence on employee
outcomes in the workplace, but indirectly does so through certain path or some psychological processes
[19]. However, such a mediation path has been merely studied. Our research therefore contributes to
these streams of research and enriches the literature on the psychological processes of individuals’ green
behaviors such as employees’ green psychological climate and harmonious green passion. Responding
to the call of Renwick et al. [12] for better understanding of the underlying mechanisms between
organizations’ practices and employees’ green behavior, our research fills such major gap in the existing
literature, thus making an indispensable contribution theoretically.
Last but not least, existing research explained the influence mechanism of green HRM on
employees from various theoretical perspectives, such as the theory of planned behavior (TPB) [24],
supplies-values fit theory [26,27], social identity and stakeholder theory [11,28], social exchange theory
[29], Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) and contingency theory [30,31], but few studies have examined
the mechanism from the cognitive-affective system theory. In fact, cognitive-affective system theory
encompasses important psychological determinants of behavior within one dynamic system and provides
a more detailed conceptual model for people’s attitude and behaviors, thus can be a very helpful
theoretical perspective in explaining how green HRM transforms employees’ cognitive, affective, and
motivational (CAM) factors into green actions. However, this perspective has been absent from the
current literature in the field of green HRM and environmental protection. Our current study, therefore, fills
such a research gap and makes an important contribution theoretically.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, we develop our hypothesis based on
cognitive-affective system theory. We then conduct an empirical study from the oil and mining industry
and discuss the results, while detailing the associated methods. From there, we present the theoretical
contributions and practical implications of this research. Finally, we summarize the current study by
outlining its limitations and potential future research directions.

2. Theory and Hypotheses

2.1. Cognitive-Affective System Theory

Cognitive-affective system theory was first used to describe the dynamics between individuals’
personalities and related behaviors [32]. It states that individuals’ behaviors are influenced by their own
characteristics. Cognitive-affective units are not isolated, but rather are interconnected and organized,
guided by a stable network of cognitions and affects the characteristic for that individual [32]. An
organization can be regarded as a unit, and individuals’ personalities and behaviors can be activated and
processed dynamically through the cognitive, affective and motivational mediating processes that occur
within such a unit [33]. Besides, cognitive-affective system theory assumes that individual differences in
social behaviors tend to show some variability across different situations. In other words, the extent to
which individuals exhibit different personalities and behaviors depends on the different units or
organizations they are in, i.e., there exists a dynamic interactive effect between the environment and the
individuals’ behaviors [34].
According to this theory, the personality system contains mental representations whose activation
leads to the behavioral consistencies that characterize the person. These representations consist of
diverse cognitive-affective units, which include the person’s construal and representations of the self,
people, and situations, enduring goals, expectations, beliefs, and feeling states, as well as memories of
people and past events [35]. Drawing on cognitive-affective system theory, in this study, we argue that it
is possible that employees may exhibit different levels of green behaviors in the workplace based on the
organizational situation factors as well as their different cognitive-affective psychological processes or
psychological features they experience. In other words, the current study assumes that individuals’ levels
of green behaviors can be influenced by the interactive effect among the cognitive, affective and
motivational factors.

2.2. Green HRM and Employee Workplace Green Behavior

This paper measures green HRM from employees’ perceptions because differences in personal
experiences and idiosyncratic preferences may lead employees to react differently to practices [36,37].
Existing studies have identified that green HRM can encourage employees to participate in practices
beneficial to an enterprise’s sustainable development (e.g., electronic filing, virtual conferencing, online
training or energy-saving office management) [38,39], as well as improve employees’ cognition and levels
of commitment towards their organizations’ environmental agendas and then better address their
organizations’ green goals and objectives [10]. Specifically, in the recruitment and selection process,
green HRM focuses more on employees’ green values and tends to attract those who value sustainable
development [40]. For instance, green and sustainable development agendas can be incorporated into
job descriptions and organization descriptions. Interview questions related to green issues and an
organization’s sustainable development can also be used to help select employees who exhibit potential
and knowledge in terms of green issues [39]. With green HRM training, it helps increase employees’
environmental protection awareness [41], improve their skills and abilities in terms of environmental
protection [42], enhance their sense of responsibility and motivation in regard to environment
management and encourage their engagement and participation in green behaviors. As for performance
appraisal, green HRM considers employees’ green performance in the appraisal, promotion and rewards
process. For instance, bonuses, promotions and extra gifts can be given to employees who engage in
green behaviors so that employees are more likely to be motivated to contribute to and engage in green
activities [12,43]. For the employee involvement, green HRM focuses more on empowering employees in
terms of green issues and should encourage and value employees’ suggestions regarding pro-
environmental initiatives [44]. To sum up, green HRM incorporates “green” elements into these sets of
practices in terms of recruitment, training, performance appraisals, and rewards, which can influence
employees’ attitudes to elicit green behavior in the workplace. When employees perceive that their
organization is adopting an openly communicated and formalized series of policies and practices that can
overtly demonstrate their organization’s green commitment and goals [10], they are more likely to not only
act in accordance with their organization’s green policies but to also engage in more voluntary workplace
green behaviors and even green creativity. Hence, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 1a.
Employees’ perceived green HRM is positively related to employees’ voluntary workplace green
behavior.
Hypothesis 1b.
Employees’ perceived green HRM is positively related to employees’ green creativity.

2.3. The Mediating Role of Green Psychological Climate

In this study, we draw from cognitive-affective system theory and propose that employees’
perceptions of green HRM may transmit its influence on employees’ proactive green behaviors through
two different paths (i.e., cognitive and affective routes). Cognitive attributes such as expectancies
influence how individuals perceive cues and construct meaning of green HRM [45]. In particular, we argue
that green psychological climates can serve as key psychological and social factors through which
employees’ perceived green HRM influences their green behaviors in the workplace. Green psychological
climate is developed from psychological climate and green climate. Psychological climate refers to how
organizational environments are perceived and interpreted by their employees [46,47]. Green climate has
been described in the literature as the climate that applies to corporations that achieve sustainable
objectives by implementing a range of pro-environmental policies [18,48,49]. Green psychological climate,
therefore, is the perception an individual has of the organization’s pro-environmental policies, processes,
and practices that reflect the organization’s green values [26]. Research has shown that green
psychological climate is positively related to employees’ green behavior [13,26,49].
Employees’ social interaction with their organizations will contribute to the psychological climate,
and they can determine the value of organizational practices, procedures and policies that they observe
or encounter [50], including green HRM. When an organization has a strong HRM system in place,
employees may interpret and digest such a management style and in turn determine how they perceive
such green values and their organization [36,51]. It is through such a cognitive process that employees
gradually develop views regarding organizations’ green psychological climates. When an organization
adopts a series of HRM practices, employees view the organization as concerned not only with economic
gains but also with employees’ green-related activities and decisions [12]. In other words, organizations
adopted green HRM and will incorporate these “green” elements into management areas by clarifying
green responsibilities through job design and appraisals, rewarding green behaviors or promoting
employee involvement in green behaviors. All of these strategies can help employees bring “green” to
their attention and perceive a strong green psychological climate.
We argue that the green psychological climate perceived by employees could increase their
willingness to make extra efforts beyond their duties. Prior research [52] suggests that an organization’s
climate can predict its employees’ behavior and performance to some extent. For instance, employees
may increase their overall effort in response to perceived concern for their climate safety [53]. Parker et
al.’s [54] literature review also demonstrates that psychological climates are related to employees’
outcomes, including job burnout, job satisfaction and job performance. Specifically, Rupp et al. [55] found
that employees’ perceptions of activities involving corporate social responsibility can trigger their
attitudinal, emotional and behavioral responses. Similarly, Norton et al. [49] found that the association
between employees’ perceptions of the presence of environmental policies and green behaviors,
including proactive and task-related green behaviors, and green work climate perceptions constitute
psychological mechanisms that link such policies with behaviors. Based on the above arguments, we
hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 2a.
Green psychological climate mediates the relationship between employees’ perceived green HRM
and employees’ voluntary workplace green behavior.
Hypothesis 2b.
Green psychological climate mediates the relationship between employees’ perceived green HRM
and employees’ green creativity.

2.4. The Mediating Role of Harmonious Environmental Passion

In addition to the cognitive mediating process of green psychological climates, employees’ perceived
green HRM may influence employees’ green behaviors via an affective route. Affect refers to a broad
range of feelings that individuals experience including emotions (intense feelings that are directed at
green HRM), moods (feelings that tend to be less intense, longer-lived, and more diffuse feelings), and
attitudes (positive or negative orientations toward green HRM) [45,56]. Based on the affective concepts
related to this theory, the current study investigates the other path, i.e., harmonious environmental
passion, through which green HRM influences employees’ proactive green behaviors. According to
Robertson and Barling [57], harmonious environmental passion refers to a positive emotion that results in
an individual wanting to engage in pro-environmental behaviors. Gilal et al. [27] found that green HRM
enhances environmental performance via employees’ environmental passion. When employees view the
organization that they work for adopting a set of green HRM practices that penetrate various human
resource attributions (e.g., rewards for environmentally friendly behaviors, high levels of empowerment
given to employees to engage in pro-environmental initiatives and strong employee involvement in green
decision-making, take initiative on environmental issues) [58], they are more likely to exhibit a high degree
of passion towards these environmentally friendly activities. In this case, green HRM perceived by
employees will evoke their harmonious passion for environmental sustainability.
Harmonious passion consists of two key characteristics: the activity that one feels harmoniously
passionate about is autonomously integrated into one’s identity and is enjoyable to oneself [59].
Employees who experience a high level of harmonious passion will feel energized and such passion will
inspire them to make a difference [60,61] and further motivate employees to engage in activities that are
the object of their passion. Research has identified positive effects of harmonious environmental passion
on individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, Robertson and Barling [57] reveal that employees’
environmental passion is a driver of employees’ environmental behaviors. Afsar et al. [62] reported that
employees’ levels of environmental passion serve as a predictor of pro-environmental behavior.
Moreover, prior studies [63] suggest that positive emotions such as job satisfaction and happiness can
encourage employees to exhibit pro-environmental behaviors in the workplace. In this vein, harmonious
environmental passion can also be regarded as a positive emotion that is more likely to encourage
employees’ green behaviors. Additionally, research conducted by Dong et al. [64] identifies the mediating
role of harmonious passion that connects contextual autonomy support and individual autonomy
orientation with employee creativity. In summary, we predict that when employees develop higher levels
of harmonious passion for the environment, they feel sense of responsibility and are more likely to be
motivated to engage in green behaviors such as voluntary workplace green behavior and green creativity
to benefit the organization’s environmental development. Thus, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 3a.
Harmonious environmental passion mediates the relationship between employees’ perceived green
HRM and employees’ voluntary workplace green behavior.
Hypothesis 3b.
Harmonious environmental passion mediates the relationship between employees’ perceived green
HRM and employees’ green creativity.
In sum, the hypothesis model is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The concept model.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Participants and Procedure

The sample of firms examined in this study was drawn from the oil and mining industries in China.
Compared to other industries, companies of the oil and mining industries generally pose a greater threat
to the environment [65]. The oil and mining industry mainly includes oil field and mining services, as well
as petroleum and mining equipment manufacturing. It uses oil field and mining as the main business, also
providing engineering technical support and solutions for oil and mining exploration and production.
Employees in this industry usually work in remote areas next to the oil fields and mines, and they are
increasingly adopting highly efficient, energy-saving modern technology. In China, comprehensively
improving the level of green and low-carbon recycling, mining technology innovation, and process
equipment upgrade has become an urgent task for the high-quality development of the oil and mining
industry. Thus, these companies do not simply meet their economic and legal obligations, but consider
their green responsibilities to their employees and wider stakeholder groups in society. Before the mass
distribution of questionnaires, we contacted four firms located in Hubei province and found that they have
implemented green HRM practices to varying degrees. For instance, they have established an energy-
saving, emission-reduction and low-carbon office as a daily management organization for energy
conservation. Besides, they have established a green training program to ensure that employees fully
understand the green standards. Employees are also encouraged to participate in green activities such as
process innovation projects, recycling programs, and clean production. Thus, we conducted an onsite
investigation and invited frontline employees and their supervisors to participate in our survey. We offered
5 RMB incentive for participation.
A cover letter attached with the questionnaire assured the participants that their participation was
voluntary and their responses would be used only for research purposes [66]. To reduce common method
variance, data were collected from two sources: employees and their supervisors [67]. We used a code to
match employees’ ratings to their supervisors’ responses. Employees completed questionniare included
items on their demographic information and perceived levels of green HRM, on their surrounding green
psychological climate and on their levels of harmonious environmental passion. A separate questionnaire
for supervisors evaluated their subordinates’ behaviors, including their voluntary workplace green
behavior and green creativity. The questionnaire was sent onsite three times with a two-week time lag in
data collection applied between the measurement of the predictor (perceived green HRM), mediator
(green psychological climate and harmonious environmental passion), and outcomes (voluntary
workplace green behavior and green creativity).
For the initial survey, we distributed 500 questionnaires, and 100 individuals failed to respond to our
survey invitations. After removing incomplete questionnaires, we obtained 358 valid questionnaires
yielding a response rate of 71.60%. The majority (57.82%) of the respondents were males. Of the
respondents, 19.83% were under 25 years old, 22.90% were 26–35 years old, 22.35% were 36–45 years
old, and 34.92% were more than 46 years old. Regarding their work experience, 10.90% had less than 5
years, 21.23% had 5–10 years, 32.12% had 11–15 years, and 35.75% had more than 16 years.
Regarding their education level, 16.20% had a secondary technical school degree, 26.26% had a junior
college degree, 31.56% had a Bachelor’s degree, and 25.98% had a Master’s degree. As to their
occupations, 33.16% engaged in mining work, 21.08% engaged in geological prospecting work, 27.91%
engaged in oil and gas field development, and 17.85% engaged in petroleum refining work.

3.2. Measures

We followed the standard translation and back-translation procedures [68] to ensure that the survey
materials were accurately translated from English into Chinese. We used a 7-point Likert-type scale (from
1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) for the participants’ ratings of our survey measures.

3.2.1. Perceived Green HRM

Perceived green HRM was assessed with items taken from Tang et al. [40] (see Appendix A). The
18-item scale represents green HRM in terms of green recruitment and selection, green training, green
performance management, green pay and reward, and green involvement. Participants rated their
perceptions of their companies’ HRM practices. Items measured included the following: “we attract green
job candidates who use green criteria to select organizations”, “we have integrated training to create the
emotional involvement of employees in environment management”, “our firm sets green targets, goals
and responsibilities for managers and employees”, “in our firm, there are financial or tax incentives
(bicycle loams, use of less polluting cars)”, and “in our firm, there is a mutual learning climate among
employees for green behavior and awareness in my company”. The coefficient alpha for this scale was
measured as 0.83.

3.2.2. Green Psychological Climates

Green psychological climates were assessed with five items taken from Norton et al. [13]
(see Appendix B). Each participant rated the extent to which his or her company “is worried about its
environmental impact” and “is concerned with becoming more environmentally friendly”. The coefficient
alpha for this scale was recorded as 0.83.

3.2.3. Harmonious Environmental Passion

Harmonious environmental passion was assessed with the 10-item scale developed by Robertson
and Barling [57] (see Appendix C). Sample items included “I am passionate about the environment” and
“I enjoy practicing environmentally friendly behaviors”. The coefficient alpha for this scale was recorded
as 0.73.

3.2.4. Voluntary Workplace Green Behavior

Voluntary workplace green behavior was assessed with a measurement developed by Kim et al. [20]
(see Appendix D). Supervisors rated the voluntary green workplace behaviors of each member of their
work group with 6 items. Behaviors measured included the following: “using stairs instead of elevators
when going from floor to floor in the building,” and “recycling reusable things in the workplace”. The
coefficient alpha for this scale was recorded as 0.72.

3.2.5. Green Creativity

Green creativity was measured with the 6-item scale developed by Chen and Chang [22]
(see Appendix E). Supervisors rated the following behaviors of their employees such as “the members of
the green product development project suggest new ways to achieve environmental goals” and “the
members of the green product development project promote and champion new green ideas to others”.
The coefficient alpha for this scale was recorded as 0.74.

3.2.6. Control Variables

Control variables included each employee’s gender, age, years of work experience and education
level because this demographic information may influence individual’s attitude and behavior towards
environmental issues based on previous research [11,29].

4. Analysis and Results

Table 1 reports the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which shows that the proposed five-factor
model provides a good fit (χ2/df = 1.93, RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation) = 0.05, CFI
(Comparative Fit Index) = 0.90, IFI (Incremental Fit Index) = 0.90). Table 2 shows the means, standard
deviations and correlations among the focal variables. Perceived green HRM is positively related to green
psychological climates, harmonious environmental passion, voluntary workplace green behavior and
green creativity (r = 0.14, p < 0.01; r = 48, p < 0.01; r = 33, p < 0.01; r = 24, p < 0.01, respectively).
Table 1. Confirmatory factor analysis results for model comparisons.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics and correlations of variables.

We applied the PROCESS method [69] to test the main effect of perceived green HRM on voluntary
workplace green behavior and green creativity. The results of a Bootstrap 5000 test are shown in Table 3.
The overall effect of perceived green HRM on voluntary workplace green behavior is valued at 0.40 (95%
CI: 0.28, 0.52), supporting Hypothesis 1a. Similarly, the overall effect of perceived green HRM on green
creativity is valued at 0.30 (95% CI: 0.17, 0.44), supporting Hypothesis 1b. After controlling for the
mediating effect of green psychological climates and harmonious environmental passion, the direct effect
of perceived green HRM on voluntary workplace green behavior is valued at 0.30 (95% CI: 0.17, 0.44),
showing that the direct effect of perceived green HRM on voluntary workplace green behavior is
significant. The direct effect of perceived green HRM on green creativity is valued at 0.10 (95% CI: −0.04,
0.24), showing that the direct effect of perceived green HRM on green creativity is non-significant.
Table 3. Total and direct effects.

We also applied the PROCESS method [69] to test the indirect effect of perceived green HRM on
voluntary workplace green behavior and green creativity. The results of a Bootstrap 5000 test are shown
in Table 4 and Table 5. As Table 4 shows, the mediating effect of green psychological climate between
perceived green HRM and voluntary workplace green behavior is 0.02 (95% CI: 0.001, 0.06), supporting
Hypothesis 2a. The mediating effect of harmonious environmental passion between perceived green
HRM and voluntary workplace green behavior is 0.08 (95% CI: 0.01, 0.15), supporting Hypothesis 3a.
When comparing the two mediating effects, the confidence interval of difference is −0.06 (95% CI: −0.14,
0.03), showing that the difference is non-significant. Similarly, as Table 5 shows, the mediating effect of
green psychological climate between perceived green HRM and green creativity is 0.01 (95% CI: −0.004,
0.04), which does not support Hypothesis 2b. The mediating effect of harmonious environmental passion
between perceived green HRM and green creativity is 0.19 (95% CI: 0.11, 0.28), supporting Hypothesis
3b. When comparing these two mediating effects, the confidence interval of difference is −0.18 (95% CI:
−0.28, −0.10), showing that the difference is significant.
Table 4. Indirect effects of perceived green HRM and voluntary workplace green behavior.

Table 5. Indirect effects of perceived green HRM and green creativity.

Besides, combining Table 3 with Table 4 and Table 5, we can conclude that green psychological
climates and harmonious environmental passion partially mediate the relationship between perceived
green HRM and voluntary workplace green behavior while harmonious environmental passion fully
mediates the relationship between perceived green HRM and green creativity.
5. Conclusions and Implication
The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between employees’ perceived
green HRM and their proactive outcomes (including voluntary workplace green behavior and green
creativity) and to explore underlying mechanisms. In line with our expectations, employees’ perceived
green HRM positively impacts their voluntary workplace green behavior and green creativity. This finding
is in line with past research showing that green HRM has a direct impact on employee outcomes
[11,24,26]. Moreover, green psychological climates and harmonious environmental passion were found to
partially mediate the relationship between employees’ perceived green HRM and voluntary workplace
green behavior while harmonious environmental passion was found to fully mediate the relationship
between perceived green HRM and green creativity. These finding are consistent with previous research
showing that it is useful to cultivate employees’ green psychological climates and harmonious
environmental passion to improve their outcomes [13,57]. Employees’ green psychological climates only
partially mediate the relationship between perceived green HRM and voluntary workplace green behavior,
which may be because employees are generally motivated to exhibit behaviors that are consistent with
their perceptions (cognition) of organizational practices [13] when their emotions (affection) regarding
creativity have not been evoked. When employees experience positive emotions (i.e., harmonious
environmental passion), they are more likely to become passionate about something of organizational
and social importance (e.g., green creativity) to achieve environmental sustainability [57].

5.1. Theoretical and Practical Implications

The findings of this study make important contributions to the literature in three respects. First, past
research suggests that HRM practices might not directly influence employee outcomes in the workplace
but may indirectly do so through certain paths or psychological processes [19]. Despite the considerable
volume of literature centered on the effect of green HRM, there is still much to be learned. Specifically,
existing research investigated the influence mechanism of green HRM from the theory of planned
behavior (TPB) [24], supplies-values fit theory [26,27], social identity and stakeholder theory [11,28],
social exchange theory [29], Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) and contingency theory [30,31], and
most of them focused on cognitive perspective of psychological process. Our research therefore
contributes to these streams of research and enriches the literature on the psychological processes (i.e.,
both cognitive and affective paths) that shape individuals’ green behaviors, including employees’ green
psychological climates and harmonious green passion. In responding to Renwick et al.’s [12] call for a
better understanding of the underlying mechanisms that operate between organizations’ practices and
employees’ green behaviors, our research fills a gap in the existing literature and thus makes an
indispensable contribution theoretically. Secondly, our study contributes to the literature on environmental
management by investigating how individual green behaviors could be promoted in the workplace. While
the current literature has documented the antecedents of employees’ green behaviors, including
individuals’ values and behavioral intentions [13], corporate environmental responsibility [14], corporate
social responsibility [15], daily affect [16], and transformational leadership [17], few works have focused
on the role of formal organizational context such as employees’ perceived green HRM. As HRM practices
take care of systems and processes to influence employees in an orderly manner on a bigger scale [70],
by identifying green HRM as an important management style that contributes to employees’ green
behaviors, this study enhances our understanding of human and organizational elements of
environmental management and especially of the antecedents of individuals’ proactive green behaviors in
the workplace.
As a key practical implication of this study, we find that employees’ perceived green HRM may help
organizations stimulate their proactive environmentally oriented behavior. To achieve an organization’s
green goals and elicit broader positive employees’ attitudes and behaviors, organizations should hire
employees with strong environmental sensibilities and develop training programs to enhance employee
skills for effectively undertaking green activities and enhancing green cognition. Organizations should also
provide green performance indicators to performance management systems and appraisals. Further,
organizations should offer green rewards to employees and involve employees in problem-solving and
decision-making regarding green issues. In addition, our findings show that employees’ perceived green
HRM influences their outcomes through difference paths. Voluntary workplace green behavior is
stimulated by both green psychological climates and harmonious environmental passion. Green creativity
is only stimulated by harmonious environmental passion. As green creativity is connected to the
maintenance of core competencies of an organization and is very important for firm growth, managerial
attention should focus on ways to foster and develop employees’ positive emotions, including their levels
of harmonious environmental passion. For example, organizations may cultivate employees’ harmonious
environmental passion by strengthening their sense of psychological ownership (e.g., green
empowerment and autonomy) and may provide guidance on issues concerning creativity to enhance their
employees’ positive views of their organizations.

5.2. Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Several limitations of our study can guide future research. Firstly, the data collection process was all
carried out in a single location and the data from the oil and mining industry has limited
representativeness. As such, it may be necessary to explore how green HRM is implemented in different
parts and different industries in China. The present work might be extended to other geographic and
industrial settings, both in China and cross-culturally. Secondly, we only tested two mediating effects of
cognitive- and affective-based variables on relations between employees’ perceived green HRM and their
proactive green behaviors. In order to respond to the call for the development of the psychology of human
behaviors and cognitive processes in complex environments [71], future works should explore other
potentially mediating processes and the boundary conditions (i.e., task complexity) through which
relationships between employees’ perceived green HRM and their proactive green behaviors can be
strengthened or weakened. Thirdly, consider the literature on general HRM which strongly emphasizes
that culture affects people’s aspirations, attitudes, and behavior. Environmental (or green) organizational
culture, which reflects how important environmental problems are to the organization, serve as invisible
guiding principles of an employee in the workplace [72]. Future research is recommended to consider the
role of green culture when examine the visible green practices. In addition, this study only focused on
greenery and green model. Future research is thus suggested to explore more the biological aspects of
greenery to see if there are other methods, such as brief relaxation practice, that are more effective to
improve cognitive performance of employees [73]. Lastly, the current study mainly talked about
psychological theories and did not study the biological aspects of greenery. However, there is also
research evidence examining the greenery issue from the biological perspective, proving that certain
horticultural therapy and greenery can be helpful in improving employees’ physical health and mental
health, thus activating more proactive green behaviors [74]. Future research is suggested to study more
about the biological mechanism through which proactive green behaviors are more likely to be aroused.

Author Contributions
S.C. provided the resource; S.C. and W.J. conceived the frame of the research and wrote the first
draft of the manuscript; S.C. and X.L. collected the data; W.J. and X.L. performed the statistical analysis.
W.J. and H.G. wrote the revised manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of
the manuscript.

Funding
This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(71902068), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (CCNU20QN037;
CCNU19TD009; 2232021E-01).

Institutional Review Board Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Central China Normal
University’s ethics committee.

Informed Consent Statement

 Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A. Items Used to Measure Perceived Green HRM

Appendix A.1. Green Recruitment and Selection

1. We attract green job candidates who use green criteria to select organizations;
2. We use green employer branding to attract green employees;
3. Our firm recruits employees who have green awareness;

Appendix A.2. Green Training

1. We develop training programs in environment management to increase environmental awareness, skills and
expertise of employees;
2. We have integrated training to create the emotional involvement of employees in environment
management;
3. We have green knowledge management (link environmental education and knowledge to behaviors to
develop preventative solutions);

Appendix A.3. Green Performance Management

1. We use green performance indicators in our performance management system and appraisals;
2. Our firm sets green targets, goals and responsibilities for managers and employees;
3. In our firm, managers are set objectives on achieving green outcomes included in appraisals;
4. In our firm, there are dis-benefits in the performance management system for non-compliance or not
meeting environment management goals;

Appendix A.4. Green Pay and Reward

1. We make green benefits (transport/travel) available rather than giving out pre-paid cards to purchase green
products;
2. In our firms, there are financial or tax incentives (bicycle loans, use of less polluting cars);
3. Our firm has recognition-based rewards in environment management for staff (public recognition, awards,
paid vacations, time off, gift certificates);

Appendix A.5. Green Involvement

1. Our company has a clear developmental vision to guide the employees’ actions in environment
management;
2. In our firm, there is a mutual learning climate among employees for green behavior and awareness in my
company;
3. In our firm, there are a number of formal or informal communication channels to spread green culture in
our company;
 4. In our firm, employees are involved in quality improvement and problem-solving on green issues;
5. We offer practices for employees to participate in environment management, such as newsletters,
suggestion schemes, problem-solving groups, low-carbon champions and green action teams [40].

Appendix B. Items Used to Measure Green Psychological Climates

1. (Our company) is worried about its environmental impact;
2. (Our company) is interested in supporting environmental causes;
3. (Our company) believes it is important to protect the environment;
4. (Our company) is concerned with becoming more environmentally friendly;
5. (Our company) would like to be seen as environmentally friendly [13].

Appendix C. Items Used to Measure Harmonious Environmental Passion

1. I am passionate about the environment;
2. I enjoy practicing environmentally friendly behaviors;
3. I enjoy engaging in environmentally friendly behaviors;
4. I take pride in helping the environment;
5. I enthusiastically discuss environmental issues with others;
6. I get pleasure from taking care of the environment;
7. I passionately encourage others to be more environmentally responsible;
8. I am a volunteered member of an environmental group;
9. I have voluntarily donated time or money to help the environment in some way;
10. I feel strongly about my environmental values [57].

Appendix D. Items Used to Measure Voluntary Workplace Green Behavior

1. (This member) avoiding unnecessary printing to save papers;
2. (This member) using personal cups instead of disposable cups;
3. (This member) using stairs instead of elevators when going from floor to floor in the building;
4. (This member) reusing papers to take notes in the office;
5. (This member) recycling reusable things in the workplace;
6. (This member) sorting recyclable materials into their appropriate bins when other group members do not
recycle them [20].

Appendix E. Items Used to Measure Green Creativity

1. The members of the green product development project suggest new ways to achieve environmental goals;
2. The members of the green product development project propose new green ideas to improve environmental
performance;
3. The members of the green product development project promote and champion new green ideas to others;
4. The members of the green product development project develop adequate plans for the implementation of
new green ideas;
5. The members of the green product development project would rethink new green ideas;
6. The members of the green product development project would find creative solutions to environmental
problems [22].

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Chen, S.; Jiang, W.; Li, X.; Gao, H. Effect of Employees’ Perceived Green HRM on Their Workplace Green
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Health 2021, 18, 4056. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084056
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https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4056

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