Structural Equation Modeling for Dimensions and Components of Green Human Resource Management of Firms Located in Birjand Industrial Town

Greening is a sustainable vision for the world and helps all parts of the organization, especially, marketing, manufacturing, financial, and human resource departments. Formulating and institutionalizing green values on an extra-organizational scale causes employees to love their job and change their personal lifestyles, and on the organizational scale, it reduces internal costs, improves the employer brand, and attracts eco-friendly applicants. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to issues such as green human resources.

 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Green human resource management refers to sustainable management of human capital for participating and making the environment healthy, and thus, it is currently of great importance in the field of business. In other words, it means using human resources to improve the organization's environmental actions and increase employees’ awareness and commitment to environmental issues. According to the literature, green human resource management is based on the coordination of routine human resource management activities by approaching environmental goals.

The current research is a fundamental-applied study in terms of purpose, and in terms of data collection method, it is a descriptive mixed-methods study. In the qualitative phase, the statistical population of the study was comprised of HRM and environment experts 10 of which selected as a sample using the snowball sampling method. Based on findings of the qualitative phase, a 43-item questionnaire was designed the validity of which established taking into account the opinions of experts. Its reliability, in the quantitative phase, was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha coefficients. The statistical population of the quantitative phase was comprised of experts and senior managers of companies operating in various industries of Birjand Industrial Town. According to Morgan’s table, a sample size of 130 was selected by conducting a stratified sampling method.

Based on data analysis, the first hypothesis corresponding to the effect of green causal-contextual factors on green intermediary-behavioral factors was not confirmed. The second hypothesis corresponding to the effect of green causal-structural factors on green intermediary-behavioral factors was confirmed. The third hypothesis corresponding to the effect of green causal-contextual factors on green outcomes was not confirmed. The fourth hypothesis corresponding to the effect of green causal-structural factors on green outcomes was confirmed. The fifth hypothesis corresponding to the effect of green intermediary-behavioral factors on green outcomes was also confirmed. In addition, the mediating effect of green intermediary-behavioral factors in the relationship between green structural-causal factors and green outcomes was confirmed. The green structural-causal factors also indirectly affected green outcomes through green intermediary-behavioral factors.

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

According to the obtained results, attention to causal-structural and intermediary-behavioral factors is of fundamental importance for companies operating in Birjand Industrial Town. Therefore, managers are suggested to pay special attention and place environmental issues in their strategic planning. To place the environmental issues in the company's vision and mission statement and values hierarchy would imply the importance of these issues.