Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) A Systematic Literature Review from 2011 to 2024

Abstract

Introduction: The United Nation’s report, ‘Our Common Future’ contributed to underline the crucial role of human resource management in strategically greening the organization and, in turn the economies and society at large. Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) was born out of this awareness. In the last ten years, the field of conceptual and empirical works on Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) has grown, both inside and outside the larger sustainable human resource management (HRM) topic. Therefore, now is a good time to give a summary of the research on green human resource management that has been conducted up until 2024 and to critically examine the direction that GHRM is taking.

Objectives: This paper's goal is to analyze the representation of the field in GHRM research, taking into account various factors such as year, national context, research methods, dimensions of triple bottom line covered and technology integration and consequently, determine the areas that still necessitate further research.

Methods: The review process adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Protocol 2020 in order to identify highly qualified and GHRM-focused articles that have been published in English from the Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection databases. The articles must have reached the final stage of publication by the end of May 2024.

Results: The results reveal the increasing interest, diversification and tendencies of GHRM research and highlight the disequilibrium of research in terms of the dimensions of sustainability studied. Based on the results, evidence-based recommendations were provided for both practitioners and researchers regarding the context and trend, as well as the methodology for GHRM development.

Conclusions: Research on Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) has shown an upward trend, peaking in 2020, with a concentration of studies based in emerging countries and a need for broader geographical representation, including underexplored continents like Oceania and Africa. Widely studied practices include green training, performance appraisal, and recruitment, while areas such as employee involvement, green innovation, and health and safety remain under-researched; Additionally, the dominance of quantitative methods presents opportunities for qualitative and mixed-method research. Technological integration in GHRM studies and the exploration of economic and social sustainability, beyond the heavily examined environmental aspect, remain significant gaps for future research.