Comparative Green HRM

Organizations need environmentally friendly employees to support and enforce their business strategy of environmental sustainability. Only with the help of employees are organizations able to reach their goal of becoming green and sustainable organizations. Human resource management (HRM) is in a key position to provide employees with the competencies and knowledge necessary to environmentally friendly behavior in the workplace. Our research project is titled Comparative Green HRM - The Example of Austria, Germany, the U.S., and the U.K. and deals with the environmental aspects of HRM in four different countries. The aim of our research is to investigate 1) Green HRM on different levels (from the country level to the individual level) with a special focus on the individual and team levels, as well as 2) the tensions that can arise from the interaction of different levels within Green HRM. By examining tensions in Green HRM and corresponding coping strategies, our findings will contribute to overcoming barriers to building greener organizations. Our main research questions for this project are: Do antecedents of green behavior on the individual and team level differ between countries? What characterizes teams in which employees show green behavior? How do these teams differ internationally? How do organizational and institutional factors relate to green behavior on an individual and a team level? What international differences exist in tensions in Green HRM? Which organizational and institutional variables are associated with Green HRM tensions and can this be related to specific national and industry contexts? What coping strategies exist for tensions in Green HRM and do these differ between countries? What role does the team play in coping with tensions in Green HRM? Which organizational levels and interactions are affected by these tensions? Are employees affected as much as (HR) managers and do the coping strategies of employees and managers differ? We conduct our study in four different countries (Austria, Germany, U.S., U.K.) to enable meaningful and generalizable contrasts and comparisons in an international context. We adopt a multilevel and multi-method approach that draws on an array of research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, to shed light on HRM and environmental sustainability practices. The quantitative phase uses two different surveys - one for team members and one for team leaders - whereas the qualitative phase involves analyses of company reports, websites, and other public data with regard to Green HRM practices and sustainability. These will then be combined with interviews in order to explore the effects of the organizational, industry, and country levels. This way, we explore Green HRM and corresponding tensions within a comparative and multilevel approach and also investigate possible coping strategies with a special focus on the team level and its interaction with other levels.