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Sustainable Human Resource NHRD Network Journal

12(3) 241–252, 2019
Management: A Literature-based © 2019 National HRD
Network, Gurgaon
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DOI: 10.1177/2631454119873495
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Kadumbri Kriti Randev1

Jatinder Kumar Jha1

Abstract
The concept of sustainability has deeply penetrated in all functions of management such as supply chain,
organisational behaviour, human resource, strategic management and so on. But recently, sustainable
human resource management (S-HRM) has garnered a significant amount of attention from industry
practitioners and academicians due to the escalation of adverse impact of existing HRM approaches on
employees, society and the environment (Mariappanadar, 2003, International Journal of Social Economics,
30(8), 906–923; 2014a, Human Resource Management Review, 24(4), 313–329; 2014b, Sustainability and
Human Resource Management, Springer). Human resource sustainability is being desired by all because
of its notable implications for both the employees and the organisations. Previous literature establishes
that human resource management (HRM) practices play a vital role in determining organisational suc-
cess and survival. Furthermore, the harmful impact of high performance work systems and their existing
HRM practices on the well-being of employees and their families has made it even more pertinent for
industry practitioners to identify mechanisms to reduce employee harm and increase human resource
sustainability for organisational growth and well-being.
A research report by the Society for Human Resource Management in 2010 and a few other scholars
claim that S-HRM can help HRM practitioners to reduce the negative impact of business practices on
employees, society and the environment (Cohen & Taylor, 2012, HR’s role in corporate social responsibility
and sustainability; Daily & Huang, 2001, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 21(12),
1539–1552; Dumitrana, 2009, Human resources role in sustainable development). However, S-HRM has
been studied sporadically, and there is a lack of convergence in its understanding. It has been broadly
defined with the help of various perspectives borrowed from literature on strategic HRM, corporate
social responsibility, Green HRM and sustainable work systems. This article aims to explore the existing
literature of S-HRM to develop a deeper understanding of the concept.Through a comprehensive litera-
ture review, this article also highlights the evolution of S-HRM along with its implications for employees,
HR managers and the organisations that have been studied in the previous literature.

Keywords
Sustainable HRM, development, economic, social, environment, employee well-being

1
XLRI—Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India.

Corresponding author:
Kadumbri Kriti Randev, XLRI—Xavier School of Management, CH Area (East), Jamshedpur, Jharkhand 831035, India.
E-mail: kadumbri.randev@astra.xlri.ac.in
242 NHRD Network Journal 12(3)

Introduction
Dynamics of the business environment keep getting affected due to the turbulence offered by the
uncertain times of today. The need for innovation, continuous technological advancements and regular
upheavals in the socio-economic, political and legal fabric of nations are a few challenges that the HR
managers have to combat to maintain the relevance of their HRM systems and processes. In addition,
during these testing times of intense internal and external pressures—such as outsourcing, increased
performance pressures, tight deadlines, downsizing, work–life balance conflicts and extended working
hours—organisations that seem to have the interests of their employees in mind are often branded as
‘employers of choice’ (App & Büttgen, 2016).
Sustainable HRM (S-HRM) could be seen as the next step to strategic HRM (SHRM; Ehnert, 2009a).
SHRM is defined by Wright and McMahan (1992) as ‘the pattern of planned human resource deployments
and activities intended to enable the firm to achieve its goals’. But, the traditional strategic management
scholarship explains firm-level outcomes in terms of firm performance, satisfaction, absenteeism,
turnover, etc., that have economic consequences. The objective of SHRM is to increase the output or to
decrease the input by stationing the human resource more efficiently and effectively (Allen & Wright,
2009). SHRM specifically relates HR management practices and policies to the fulfilment of a firm’s
goals and achieve higher performance, most notably financial and market results (Kramar, 2014a). Even
though some SHRM frameworks give due recognition to the influence of HR practices of an organisation
on employee-related outcomes, the value is calculated through their effort towards enhancing
organisational performance rather than the employees receiving any kind of benefit for the same (Miles
& Snow, 1984).
On similar lines, some scholars like Mariappanadar (2014b) have explained that if an HRM strategy
compels valuable employees to overwork or overstrain in order to survive in a high performance work
systems (HPWS), at the cost of their health and families’ well-being, it is an unsustainable strategy that
shall ultimately result in employee harm. According to Bush (2018), a multi-goal approach which is a
fundamental feature of HPWS has several potential challenges associated with it that may lead to two
specific role stressors: ‘role conflict and role ambiguity’. These may occur in HPWS due to a focus on
multiple goals and ultimately promote adverse employee outcomes. These HRM practices are subjected
to negative externalities that harm employees on these three aspects (Mariappanadar, 2014b): social
aspect such as ‘family breaks, divorce, work–family conflict’, psychological aspect such as ‘negative
well-being, job-related suicide, psychological injuries’ and occupational health aspect such as ‘stress,
depression, alcohol and drugs, fatigue’.
It is now no longer feasible to ignore the permeating pressure on HR managers to build and sustain
HPWS and also behave in an ethical (Thevanes & Arulrajah, 2017), social and environmentally
responsible manner (Järlström, Saru, & Vanhala, 2016). Therefore, to combat such challenges and
spurred on by these factors, the literature supports that S-HRM is the way forward for organisations
(Aibaghi Esfahani, Rezaii, Sharifi Parsa, & Koochmeshki, 2017; Baum, 2018; Daily & Huang, 2001;
Ehnert, 2006b, 2009c; Ehnert, Harry, & Zink, 2014; Guerci, Decramer, Van Waeyenberg, & Aust, 2018;
Kramar, 2014a; Thom & Zaugg, 2004; Wikhamn, 2018). S-HRM is defined by Ehnert, Parsa, Roper,
Wagner, and Muller-Camen (2016) as,

the adoption of HRM strategies and practices that enable the achievement of financial, social and ecological
goals, with an impact inside and outside of the organization and over a long-term time horizon while
controlling for unintended side effects and negative feedback.
Randev and Jha 243

This article aims to introduce the concept of S-HRM on the basis of literary evidence. The review of
literature is done with the purpose of enriching the understanding of this concept. The next section
comprises of a detailed review of literature followed by concluding remarks.

Review of Literature
In the early 2000s, sustainability diffused into all functions of management including HRM. An
alternative approach to triple bottom line defined sustainability as the ‘balance of resource consumption
and resource reproduction’ and also incorporated human resources into its description (Müller-Christ &
Remer, 1999). In their book on sustainable resource management, they define it as, ‘What companies
themselves have to do in their environments to have durable access to skilled human resources in the
future.’ This leads to the recognition of employees of an organisation as key resources that also needed
sustainable utilisation.
Then, the representatives of the University of Bern in Switzerland, Thom and Zaugg (2004), proposed
the first systematic, theoretically and empirically substantiated definitions of S-HRM as, ‘those long-
term oriented conceptual approaches and activities aimed at a socially responsible and economically
appropriate recruitment and selection, development, deployment, and downsizing of employees’.
Consequently, several authors tried to develop an understanding about S-HRM and a breakthrough in the
S-HRM literature was done by the scholarly work of Kramar (2014a, 2014b) and Ehnert et al. (2016)
who gave one of the most cited and frequently used definition of S-HRM in a global context, ‘it is the
adoption of HRM strategies and practices that enable the achievement of financial, social and ecological
goals, with an impact inside and outside of the organisation and over a long-term time horizon while
controlling for unintended side effects and negative feedback.’
This definition created a stir in the HRM literature where the focus until that time was predominantly
on enhancing the financial performance of the firm. The impact of HRM practices on other stakeholders
of an organisation started being acknowledged (Järlström et al., 2016). However, negative impact of
HRM practices on internal stakeholders of organisation was still sparsely studied and instead of exploring
‘S-HRM’ in its entirety, many competing terms emerged in the context of HRM (Ehnert & Harry, 2012)
such as, ‘socially responsible HRM’ or ‘corporate social responsibility (CSR)’ that explore the role of
HR in making an organisation socially sustainable (Daily & Huang, 2001). Another term, ‘Green HRM’
or ‘GHRM’ refers to the HRM practices that enable an organisation to achieve its environmental
objectives by decreasing the adverse influences of business on the environment (Bombiak & Marciniuk-
Kluska, 2018).
The S-HRM literature can be broadly classified into four themes, namely economic orientation of
HRM, social orientation of HRM, environmental orientation of HRM and employee orientation of HRM.
These themes are categorised concerning their outcomes. However, these themes are not mutually
exclusive. The similarity among them is the common understanding that sustainability refers to long-
term and durable results.

Economic Orientation of HRM

One group of literature links HRM practices to internal outcomes, specifically economic outcomes by
focusing on achieving financial goals and creating a ‘sustainable competitive advantage’ for the firm.
244 NHRD Network Journal 12(3)

This group falls under the theme of economic orientation. The group of literature under this theme
essentially borrows literature from SHRM which has maintained its dominant status in the field of HRM
for the last 30 years.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, the concept and processes of SHRM emerged as a tool for the management
of employees in turbulent and an increasingly fast-changing business environment. SHRM categorically
established a linkage between HRM policies and practices for the fulfilment of organisational goals that
lead to higher performance, specifically financial and market outcomes. Numerous HRM practices have
been found to contribute to these positive internal and external outcomes such as ‘cost-effective
recruitment and selection, collaborative HR development’ (Browning & Delahaye, 2011), ‘organisational
structures which facilitate employee participation and direct communication with employees’, ‘providing
continuous and effective feedback’ (Ehnert, 2009b) and ‘work roles and performance evaluation which
focus on building on employee strengths and facilitating performance’ (Wells, 2011).
If we analyse closely, it can be inferred that this stream of literature essentially talks about such HRM
practices that eventually result in enhancing financial gains of an organisation. Therefore, it has been
named as one that has an economic orientation.

Social Orientation of HRM

The second group of writers such as (Frynas & Stephens, 2015; Jamali, El Dirani, & Harwood, 2015;
Jamali, Lund-Thomsen, & Jeppesen, 2017; Linnenluecke & Griffiths, 2010; Mishra, 2015; Porter
& Kramer, 2006; Strandberg, 2009; Weerts, Vermeulen, & Witjes, 2018) have tried to ‘establish the
relationship between HRM and external outcomes that are typically representative of CSR and the triple
bottom line (economic, social and environmental outcomes)’. It should be noted that this stream of
literature also explains the positive economic outcomes as a result of social and environmental initiatives.
By the late 1990s, the existence of CSR as an essential element in the organisational goals was
acknowledged by approximately 90 per cent of Fortune 500 firms. They actively promoted their CSR
activities in annual reports (Lee, 2008). By the early 2000s, CSR had also been coupled with strategy and
HRM literature and became a concept for sustainability (Porter & Kramer, 2006). Research establishes
that human resource has an instrumental role to play towards achieving the sustainable business goals of
an organisation (increasing financial outcomes, being socially responsible and environmentally just).
The triple bottom line approach became an increasingly popular concept for CSR. Stakeholder theory
became the pivotal theoretical approach for CSR (Bowen, 2013). People in the 3P framework represent
the social bottom line that reminds organisations to develop a symbiotic relationship with the society
around them for their sustainable development.
In addition, authors like Voegtlin and Greenwood (2016) propose a typology regarding CSR-HRM
perspectives, namely ‘instrumental CSR-HRM’ that suggests ‘involvement of workers in CSR is
instrumental in achieving positive economic outcomes for the organisation’, ‘social integrative CSR-
HRM’ that suggests ‘social demands should be integrated with businesses demands, as businesses and
society are dependent on each other for continuity and growth’ and ‘political CSR-HRM’ that addresses
‘the power of corporations in society and concomitant responsibilities’.
In S-HRM literature, there is sufficient evidence that if effectively implemented, CSR can have a
significant impact towards motivating, developing and retaining staff. It also helps in boosting employee
well-being (Celma, Martinez-Garcia, & Raya, 2018), employee morale, loyalty and productivity.
Randev and Jha 245

Environmental Orientation of HRM

The third group of literature essentially talks about environmental sustainability through HRM practices.
In S-HRM literature, this group has borrowed inspiration from GHRM literature. Formulation of HRM
policies and practices that build trust among all the stakeholders of the organisation is pertinent for the
development and implementation of advanced environmental policies and capabilities that mitigate the
impact of business practices on the environment.
The Green Movement that swept across the globe in the middle of the 20th century, gradually paved
its way into management in the 1980s (Galtung, 1986; Peattie & Ratnayaka, 1992). By the early 1990s,
after the term ‘sustainable development’ and ‘green consumerism’ became increasingly coveted in the
fields of management and consulting, the green scholarship formally entered the corporates. This effort
was undertaken because different pollutants such as the industrial wastes were depleting our natural
resources. This lead to the greening of all functions of management such that green marketing, green
accounting, green supply chain, green investments and GHRM to decrease the adverse influence of
business practices on the environment.
GHRM provides a direction towards promotion of green behaviour by tailoring the HR practices,
systems and policies of organisations by using mechanisms that minimise the negative impact of business
on environment and society. This has a positive impact on organisations as GHRM practices are known
to raise an organisation’s brand image for potential candidates and customers and also radiate positive
vibe in the market (Mishra, 2017).
GHRM portrays an organisation’s emphasis towards environmental protection and includes a set of
specific HRM practices that focus on the ‘fragility of ecosystems’ and the negative effects of business
activities (Tang, Chen, Jiang, Paillé, & Jia, 2018). Previous research establishes that GHRM can be
measured by keeping its ‘multidimensional nature’ in consideration (Redman, Redman, & Maguire,
2013; Renwick, 2018; Renwick, Jabbour, Muller-Camen, Redman, & Wilkinson, 2016; Tang et al.,
2018). For example, many researchers such as (Arulrajah, Opatha, & Nawaratne, 2015; Likhitkar &
Verma, 2017; Renwick et al., 2013, 2016; Tariq, Jan, & Ahmad, 2016; Wagner, 2013) have proposed
HRM practices as drivers of GHRM such as recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits,
performance management, training and development and career management.

Employee Orientation of HRM

The fourth group of literature focuses on the needs and requirements of the employees and discusses
human implications of current HRM practices. This stream of work has taken inspiration from sustainable
work systems literature.
Researchers like Docherty, Forslin and Shani (2002) who have written about sustainable work systems
seek to explain the negative human/social outcomes that the individuals in the organisation face due to
the compelling pressure to perform in HPWS. These researchers admit to the harmful impact of HRM
practices such as ‘work intensification’, ‘temporary employment’, ‘excessive performance standards’
and ‘ambiguous job roles’ on organisational climate and culture, employee and their families’ well-being
and community health and satisfaction. Mariappanadar (2014b) explains in his scholarly work that it is
an unsustainable HRM strategy when organisations make their employees stretch the limits and get
overworked just to sustain in the HPWS. He defined ‘harm of negative externality of HRM practices’ as,
246 NHRD Network Journal 12(3)

the profound, incomprehensible and negative impact on employees’ and their family members’, reduced
personal outcomes, social and work-related health well-being that are caused by work practices used by
organizations to extract maximum skills, abilities, and motivation of employees to achieve highly effective
and efficient performance.

Cleveland, Byrne, and Cavanagh (2015) in their quest to give a new meaning to HR in the form of respect
for humanity (RH) at work assert that the individual should be at the core of the system. This approach
shall lead to positive organisational outcomes such as an engaged workforce, enhanced employee well-
being, talent acquisition, development and retention.
Therefore, according to this stream of literature, S-HRM revolves around soft HRM such as providing
healthy and safe working environment, projecting sincerity towards the employees, creating
developmental opportunities and showing attention towards their physical and psychosocial well-being
(Wikhamn, 2018). S-HRM also leads to an enhancement in profit maximisation for the organisation and
also ‘reduces the harm on employees, their families, and communities’ (Mariappanadar & Kramar,
2014). A central interest of this stream of literature according to Docherty et al. (2002) and Ehnert
(2006a, 2006b) is the formulation and implementation of such HRM practices that not only result in
positive human/social outcomes such as ‘work–life balance’ but also ‘positive organisational economic
outcomes and sustainable change processes’.

Impact of S-HRM on Organisational and Individual Outcomes

There are several studies that have examined S-HRM by using a conceptual approach (Boudreau
& Ramstad, 2005; Ehnert, 2006b; Gollan, 2000), quantitative techniques (Ehnert et al., 2016;
Mariappanadar & Kramar, 2014; Wagner, 2013), assessed its relationship with other concepts such as
employer branding (App, Merk, & Büttgen, 2012), innovation and customer satisfaction (Wikhamn,
2018) or qualitative approach in European (Ehnert, 2009b; Thom & Zaugg, 2004) and Finnish contexts
(Järlström et al., 2016)
A study by Vihari et al. (2018) suggested that employee’s perception of S-HRM has a positive
significant influence on ‘employee voice behaviour and employer attractiveness’ and negative significant
influence on ‘employee turnover intentions’. In addition, ethical leadership and corporate sustainability
perceptions have positive significant perceptions towards implementing S-HRM practices.
The qualitative analysis after collecting empirical data as part of the Finnish study by Järlström et al.
(2016) report four dimensions of S-HRM: ‘Justice and equality’, ‘transparent HR practices’, ‘profitability’
and ‘employee well-being’. It also suggests four broader responsibility areas: ‘legal and ethical’,
‘managerial’, ‘social’ and ‘economic’.

Concluding Remarks
The existing literature on S-HRM provides useful insights for both academic researchers as well as
industry practitioners. S-HRM revolves around the incorporation of four sustainable goals (financial,
social, environmental and human) into the current HRM systems and strategies. Due to the intense
performance pressures from the internal and external business environment on the HR managers to
enhance financial performance, minimise negative impact of business practices on the society and
environment and to also behave in an ethical and people-friendly manner, it is extremely significant and
also relevant for them to adopt the four sustainable goals into their system and processes. This shall not
Randev and Jha 247

only enable them to contribute towards organisational sustainability but also obtain, develop, retain and
maintain a durable access to skilled human resource in the future.
The current HRM practices focus on obtaining good talent, develop them according to organisational
needs and also the usage of certain retention mechanisms like performance related pay, etc. But, previous
literature establishes that managing the social and environmental impact of business practices is not only
a moral responsibility of the organisations but it also has positive impact on the brand image that leads
to increased financial performance. In addition, literature affirms that the impact of current practices on
employees is usually measured in terms of such outcomes such as turnover and employee productivity
that eventually predict financial performance. There is a lack of ‘people orientation’. Incorporation of
sustainability in HRM shall change the way HR operates and the way it is perceived. Based on extensive
literature review, it can be inferred that S-HRM provides practical guidelines towards the designing of
such strategies and practices that shall not only help in achieving good financial performance but also
lead towards positive social, environmental and employee-related implications. This shall enable HR to
make a holistic contribution towards organisational survival and success.
However, the literature on S-HRM is piecemeal and fragmented. The concept has been used in
numerous ways and the scholarly works differ not only in their context but also the emphasis that they
have given to different organisational outcomes. Furthermore, the ‘how’ part of S-HRM still remains to
be answered. This has also resulted in divergence in defining this particular concept. Some studies only
refer to the term ‘S-HRM’ as ‘socially responsible HRM’ that has significant impact on organisation’s
social and environmental outcomes linking it with CSR or Green HR initiatives. Some studies such as
Mariappanadar (2012, 2014a), Sotome and Takahashi (2014) and De Prins, Stuer, and Gielens (2018)
emphasise on the negative impact of existing HRM approaches on employees due the overwhelming
focus of business strategy only on financial outcomes.
The field of S-HRM is still evolving and has a lot of scope for future research. There is a dire need of
studies that aim to integrate the sporadic literature on S-HRM and enrich the understanding of this
concept. Furthermore, there is no scale in the existing literature that can measure S-HRM. Therefore,
future research can include scale development and empirical studies that test the impact of S-HRM on
various organisational outcomes. Lastly, sectoral differences in S-HRM practices could also be studied
and their impact on different work-related outcomes could be tested. There is also a need for a qualitative
study in different national contexts, given that this domain of research is still emerging and is yet to be
fully explored.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of
this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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Authors’ Bio-sketch
Kadumbri Kriti Randev is a full-time doctoral research scholar in human resource management area
at XLRI–Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur. Her educational qualifications include an MBA
in HRM and marketing management from School of Management Studies, Motilal Nehru National
Institute of Technology, Allahabad, and a BTech in electronics and communication engineering from
Amity University, Jaipur. Her research interests lie in the area of sustainable HRM, employee well-
being, decent work, high performance work systems and future of work. Her work on sustainable HRM
and decent work has been accepted for presentation at various international and national conferences.
She aspires to build a career in academia and aims to make a significant contribution to the body of
knowledge in the field of human resource management that may help the practitioners to build more
efficient and healthier workplaces.

Jatinder Kumar Jha is a faculty member at XLRI—Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur,

teaching HRM courses in postgraduate and executive education programmes. He earned his doctorate
(fellow) in human resources management (HRM) from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management
Ahmedabad (IIMA), Ahmedabad, in 2017.
Professor Jha is actively involved in consulting, managerial development programmes and in-house
company programmes, with his forte in HR analytics, performance management, talent management,
sustainable HRM, and compensation and reward management. Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL),
252 NHRD Network Journal 12(3)

Tata Steel and Accenture are some of the organisations he is associated with. He worked on the Seventh
Pay Commission, a Government of India project related to ‘recommendation on salary revision of
government employees in 2015’ and currently developing the HR competency framework for large
public sector unit (PSU). Professor Jha has been assigned a research project titled ‘Studying HR/Labour
Issues in Jewellery Manufacturing Sector in India’ by India Gold Policy Center, IIMA.
Professor Jha has widely published research papers in reputed peer-reviewed reputed international
and national journals such as Journal of Knowledge Management, IIMB Management Review,
International Journal of Knowledge Management, Journal of Global Operations and Strategic
Outsourcing, International Journal of Employment Studies, South Asian Journal of Human Resources
Management and others. He has presented research papers in international and national conferences
including the British Academy of Management (UK) in 2016 and 2018 and Academy of Management,
Dublin, Ireland in 2019. His research and teaching interests include compensation management,
performance management, strategic human resources management, knowledge management, leadership,
ethics and HR analytics.

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