Comparative Green HRM

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Marcus Wagner
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 355074828

Tackling environmental and sustainability issues is one of the mostimportant global challenges facing mankind, and given the societal,political, and competitive pressures and growing concerns about thelong-term consequences of environmental damages, manyorganizations have engaged in becoming more ecologicallyresponsible and sustainable. Increasingly this is attempted throughenhanced employee engagement in sustainability issues andactivities. However, there is still a scarcity of research in Greenhuman resource management (HRM), especially as concerns theteam level and its paradoxical interaction with other levels (e.g.country, industry, individual). The aim of our research is to investigateGreen HRM on different levels with a special focus on the individualand team levels as well as paradoxes from the interaction of differentlevels. By examining these and similar tensions and correspondingcoping strategies, our findings will make an impact in overcomingbarriers of building greener organizations. Our main researchquestions for this project are: Do antecedents of VWGB on theindividual and work group level differ between countries? Whatcharacterizes teams in which employees show VWGB? How do theseteams differ internationally? How do organizational and institutionalfactors relate to individual and team VWGB? Which internationaldifferences exist in paradoxes in Green HRM? Which organizationaland institutional variables are associated with Green HRM paradoxesand can this be related to specific country and industry contexts?Which coping strategies for paradoxes in Green HRM exist and dothese differ between countries? What role does the team play incoping with paradoxical tensions in Green HRM? Whichorganizational levels and interactions are affected by paradoxes? Areemployees just as much affected as (HR) managers and do thecoping strategies for paradoxes of employees and managers differ?We conduct our study in four different countries (Austria, Germany,US, UK) chosen to enable meaningful and generalizable contrastsand comparisons in an international context. We adopt a multileveland multi-method approach that draws on an array of researchmethods, both qualitative and quantitative, to shed light on HRM andenvironmental sustainability practices. The quantitative phase usestwo different surveys; one for team members and one for leaders,whereas the qualitative phase involves analysis of company reports,websites, and other public data with regard to Green HRM practicesand sustainability. These will then be combined with semi-structuredinterviews in order to explore the effects of the organizational,industry, and country levels. This way, we explore paradoxicaltensions in a comparative and multilevel approach and alsoinvestigate possible coping strategies with special focus on the teamlevel and its interaction with other level. The key researchers in thisproject are Michael Müller-Camen and Marcus Wagner.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria, South Korea, United Kingdom, USA
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Lisa Jackson; Professor Dr. Andrea Kim; Professor Dr. Michael Müller-Camen; Lisa Obereder; Dr. Doug Renwick