Exploring the cornerstones of green, sustainable and socially responsible human resource management

Abstract

•Purpose: To delineate the fast-growing path of HRM research with a sustainable orientation and resolve confusion over the differences and interdependences of the various approaches that have emerged: green human resource management (GHRM), sustainable human resource management (Sustainable HRM), and socially responsible human resource management (SR-HRM). •Design/methodology/approach: Bibliometrics and science mapping were used to analyze the field’s conceptual structure based on 587 related documents extracted from the ISI Web of Science database. Co-word analysis with SciMAT software enabled us to map the main themes studied and identify their evolution, importance, and relevance. •Findings: SR-HRM is the least-developed of the three approaches analyzed and has been overlooked by the journals that publish the most work in the field of HR. We identify a lack of sustainability-related HRM studies on higher education and an ongoing need both to explore the role of culture in GHRM implementation and to explain further the potential non-green behavioral outcomes that can result from its use. •Originality: Explores in detail the interrelations among various emerging sustainable human resource approaches and subtopics derived from them to reveal hotspots, dilemmas, paradoxes, and research gaps. •Practical implications: Demonstrates how human resource factors are key to managing challenges such as aging workforce, unstable employment relationships, implementation of green supply chain management, and Industry 4.0.