Exploring the antecedents of green human resource management: A path dependence perspective

Green HRM (GHRM) delineates organizations’ efforts to address environmental concerns. However, the current research has not thoroughly investigated the antecedents of GHRM. Moreover, the internal structure of GHRM remains unclear, further limiting our understanding of firms’ different approaches to GHRM adoption. Using a sample of Spanish firms, our first study revealed GHRM to be a two-dimensional construct, with one bundle of practices emphasizing employer branding and another bundle emphasizing employee green performance. In our second study, we draw upon path dependence theory to examine the relationship between the use of high-performance work systems (HPWS) and GHRM adoption using a sample of Spanish plants in highly polluting sectors. We further examine how a plant's green strategy and industry emissions serve as contingencies influencing the relative adoption emphasis on the two GHRM bundles. Our findings suggest that the adoption of GHRM is influenced by HPWS coupled with their strategic and institutional context.