The Role of Business Sustainability in Human Resource Management: A Study on Indian Manufacturing Companies

Abstract

Business sustainability from the point of view of human resource management (HRM) is a management and leadership philosophy about how people are most enable to contribute to success at their work by minimizing the negative impactof their work on the environmental and social factors and at the same timeimproving the financial factors in the organizations. This study is an empiricalstudy conducted on 233 Indian manufacturing firms operating in the Karnatakaregion to investigate the role for HRM in business sustainability. The role for HRMin business sustainability is studied with the construct HRM strategic integrationin business sustainability strategy. Further, this study focuses on the way HRMincorporates sustainability in its practices in the organization and its impact onthe organizational performance. The data are analyzed using SEM, and the resultsrevealed the significance of the relationship of the HRM strategic integration ofsustainability strategy with the organizational performance. The organizationalperformance studied with respect to the three factors of business sustainability viz.,profit, people, and planet. Further, these relationships are tested with contingencyfactors, age of the firm, and the number of employees for its significance in thisrelation. The empirical evidence of the study shows a significant positive relationof organizational performance when HRM has strategic integration in businesssustainability strategy. Model I4C is derived to show the role for HRM in business sustainability. 

Keywords

• Sustainability, Human Resource, Organizational Performance, I4C Model