The Impact of Green Human Resource Management Practices on Employees’ Sustainable Work Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Environmental Commitment

Abstract

As organisations turn to their employees to implement their formal policies of sustainability, they are turning more often to their employees to carry them out in their day-to-day work. Nevertheless, the sustainable work behaviour of employees is not always ensured by a combination of green human resource management. However, the internalisation of the environmental purpose of the practices is a prerequisite if green HRM practices are to ensure consistence in sustainable work behaviour. Believing that Ability–Motivation–Opportunity theory and Social Exchange Theory are suitable theories for this study, this study reviews the effect of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) practices on Sustainable Work Behaviour (SWB) through the mediation of Environmental Commitment (EC). The quantitative, cross-sectional approach was specified and had a dataset of 384 employees from the service sector evaluated and recommended for the use of the SEM. The measurement model had adequate internal consistency and convergent validity as measured by the Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability values, which were greater than the recommended minimum values, as well as higher Average Variance Extracted values than the minimum value of .50. The structural model demonstrated that whereas GHRM was significant an important predictor of Environmental Commitment (β = .531, p < .001) and Sustainable Work Behaviour (β = .281, p < .001). Environmental Commitment, too, had positive influence on Sustainable Work Behaviour (β = .520, p < .001). This model accounted for 28.2% of the variance in Environmental Commitment and 50.5% in Sustainable Work Behaviour. There was an indirect effect of GHRM on SWB, with medium effect size (β = .276, 95% CI [.219, .339] = 79.9) supported by the bootstrapping test, which represented partial mediation. The results reveal that the integration of personal and affective commitment to organisational environment objectives is essential in making the green HR systems, behaviourally effective. The paper advances HRM implementation for sustainable HRM, as it identifies environmental commitment as a core HR conversion mechanism between the environmental HR policies and the HR daily activities of the employees.

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