Leveraging green HRM for firm performance: The joint effects of CEO environmental belief and external pollution severity and the mediating role of employee environmental commitment
Abstract
The topic of green human resource management (HRM) has drawn increasing attention of HRM scholars in the past decade. Recent research has called for more studies to identify the antecedents of green HRM used in organizations and explore the mediating mechanisms through which green HRM is related to performance outcomes. This study represents an effort to address these research needs by examining the joint effects of chief executive officer (CEO) environmental belief and external pollution severity on the use of green HRM and testing the mediating role of employee environmental commitment in the relationship between green HRM and firm performance. Drawing upon data collected from multiple sources (i.e., survey data from chief executive officer (CEOs), chief financial officers (CFOs), HR managers and employees, and archival data from government statistics), we found that CEO's environmental belief is significantly related to the use of green HRM, especially for companies operating in locations with severer pollution. Green HRM in turn has a positive relationship with the firm's environmental and financial performances via employee commitment to the environment. The findings highlight the often‐overlooked role of in the strategic HRM literature pertinent to environmental management and clarify the antecedents and influential mechanisms of green HRM at the firm level of analysis. We also discuss theoretical and practical implications in this study.
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Green HRM, a domain-specific form of sustainable HRM, contributes to the simultaneous attainment of economic and environmental performance.
“In this direction, Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022 utilize the strategic HRM theoretical perspective to provide the first empirical evidence that green HRM, a domain-specific form of sustainable HRM, contributes to the simultaneous attainment of economic and environmental performance.”
From Advancing the sustainability agenda through strategic human resource management: Insights and suggestions for future research (2023) · cites this paper as Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022
The top management team plays a pivotal role in an organization's sustainability efforts, yet it often remains the missing stakeholder in the HRM literature.
“It is worth noting that the top management team plays a pivotal role in an organization's sustainability efforts (e.g., Ren, Fan, & Tang, 2022;Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022), and yet it often remains the missing stakeholder in the HRM literature (Boada-Cuerva et al., 2019).”
From Advancing the sustainability agenda through strategic human resource management: Insights and suggestions for future research (2023) · cites this paper as Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022
Ren, Fan, & Tang (2022) and Ren, Jiang, & Tang (2022) conceptualize four types of organizational institutional logics: greenie, marketer, ambidexter, and opportunist.
“For example,Ren, Fan, & Tang, 2022;Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022 conceptualize four types of organizational institutional logics, namely greenie (the dominance of environmental protection), marketer (the supremacy of market profit logic), ambidexter (the coexistence of environment protection and market profit logic), and opportunist (where no single institutional logic is dominant).”
From Advancing the sustainability agenda through strategic human resource management: Insights and suggestions for future research (2023) · cites this paper as Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022
Other studies show that sustainable HRM and firm performance, sometimes through a mediator, are mutually compatible and have a positive sum.
“while others show that both variables (sometimes through a mediator) are mutually compatible and have a positive sum (Ren, Fan, & Tang, 2022;Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022;Úbeda-García et al., 2021).”
From Advancing the sustainability agenda through strategic human resource management: Insights and suggestions for future research (2023) · cites this paper as Ren, Jiang, & Tang, 2022
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Ren, S., Cooke, F. L., Stahl, G. K., Fan, D., & Timming, A. R. (2023) · Human Resource Management · doi:10.1002/hrm.22169 · Cited by 148 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Ren, S., Jiang, K., & Tang, G.
- Affiliations
- Deakin University (AU)
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Shandong University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Tang, Guiyao
- Venue
- Human Resource Management
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2021-07-12
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 75-90
- ISSN
- 0090-4848 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-050X
- OpenAlex
- W3179266167
- Cited by
- 180
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 22.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2022-03-03)
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Human Resource Management (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (71872102)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Human Resource and Talent Management
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Employer Branding and e-HRM
- Keywords
- green human resource management, firm performance, environmental performance, financial performance, mediating effect, strategic human resource management, environmental management
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