The Effect of Green HRM on Environmental Performance in Dairy Industry in Sri Lanka: The Mediating Role of Green Employee Empowerment

Abstract

With the massive industrialization, environmental sustainability is one of major preconditions of contemporary business organizations in this century in response to the occurrence of depletion of natural resources, natural disasters, climate changes and health concerns. In order to propel an environment performance, eco-friendly human resource management practices are indeed. This study focuses on exploring the effect of green HRM practices including green recruitment and selection, green training and development, green performance management and green rewards systems on environmental performance with the mediating effect of green employee empowerment in dairy industry in Sri Lanka. This study has adopted quantitative research strategy and six hypotheses were developed based on empirical gaps identified in literature review. 210 managers were selected through random sampling method and data collection was done through self-filled closed ended questionnaire and analyzed through SPSS software tool. The findings present a considerable impact of green HRM practices on environmental performance. Study found that green employee empowerment partially mediates the relationship between green HRM practices and environmental performance in dairy industry. Further, green performance management was the most impacted green HRM practice on environmental performance. Therefore, it can be recommended that employee performance management systems should be modified with green criteria while employees are empowered to engage in green initiatives. Implication of this study highlights gaps in the human resource management systems and provides managerial policy makers fruitful insights on sustainable business operations. Future studies are mainly encouraged to construct measuring scales in the field of Green HRM.

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability, Environmental Performance, Green HRM, Green Employee Empowerment, Dairy Industry