Exploring the antecedents of green human resource management: A path dependence perspective

Authors

Mengwei Li
Javier Martínez-del-Río
Pingshu Li, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
James P. Guthrie

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-31-2024

Abstract

Green HRM (GHRM) delineates organizations’ efforts to address environmental concerns. However, the current research has not thoroughly investigated the antecedents of GHRM. Moreover, the internal structure of GHRM remains unclear, further limiting our understanding of firms’ different approaches to GHRM adoption. Using a sample of Spanish firms, our first study revealed GHRM to be a two-dimensional construct, with one bundle of practices emphasizing employer branding and another bundle emphasizing employee green performance. In our second study, we draw upon path dependence theory to examine the relationship between the use of high-performance work systems (HPWS) and GHRM adoption using a sample of Spanish plants in highly polluting sectors. We further examine how a plant’s green strategy and industry emissions serve as contingencies influencing the relative adoption emphasis on the two GHRM bundles. Our findings suggest that the adoption of GHRM is influenced by HPWS coupled with their strategic and institutional context.

Comments

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Under a Creative Commons license

Recommended Citation

Li, M. et al. (2024) ‘Exploring the antecedents of green human resource management: A path dependence perspective’, Journal of Business Research, 181, p. 114743. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114743

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Title

Journal of Business Research

DOI

10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114743