Green Human Resource Management: A Theoretical Overview

Abstract

The business environment is transforming itself from a traditional financial perspective to a competency based, strategic perspective. Green issues have already been popular in environmental and social aspects of present corporate world. Corporate green HR focuses on high level of technical and managerial competencies for employees as the firms wants to develop innovative environmental initiatives and functions that have tremendous managerial implications. In general, green HR particularly deals with the HR activities with are environment friendly and promote the sustainability of resources that an organization may have. However, there is a substantial gap exists in human resource management (HRM) literatures on environmental aspects of human resources. There is still a growing need for formulating green HRM strategies, including literature, processes, models and examining their implications on overall firm performance. Firms are also under immense pressure from different stakeholders for integrating green HR policies and strategies into overall firm strategy. The general purpose of this study is to discuss the concept of green HRM practice from a theoretical point of view and to study the strategic implementation of it on various traditional HR activities. The paper will hopefully create an interest for the academicians and tentative researchers who wish to study the basic understanding of green HRM practices in a literature perspective.

Keywords: Human Resource Management, Green HRM Practices, Firms, HR Strategy, HR Practices & Policies

JEL Classification: L12