The role of Green Human Resource Management attributions in shaping employee green behavior: A multilevel perspective

Over the past decade society has started to develop growing concerns towards environmentalism; these concerns have also been reflected in the way companies are expected to operate. As a consequence, companies around the world have been changing their policies and have been adopting more sustainable business practices. Among the different resources organizations are activating to address environmental issues, Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) is increasingly considered as fundamental for the successful implementation of green strategies and environmental management practices. Organizations have thus begun to work on “greening” their core HR policies with the goal of implementing more sustainable business practices and of promoting pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. GHRM practices have proven to be effective in encouraging collective pro-environmental behavior. Despite the stream of research on GHRM has been growing recently, to date it has failed to properly investigate how employees respond to GHRM. Therefore, the present contribution has the objective to introduce a research project which aims to fill this gap. To achieve this goal, the reserch project which will be illustrated employs a multilevel research design based on a quantitative methodology. More specifically, the project’s aim is to understand how employees’ attitudes towards, interpretations and perceptions of GHRM practices shape their green behavior at work. This project makes a relevant contribution to the GHRM research stream as it measures the effectiveness of such practices by unveiling the variability of employees’ perceptions that exist on a micro level instead and their influence on employee green behavior.