Green office buildings and sustainability: Does green human resource management elicit green behaviors?
Introduction
With the emergence of green office buildings to promote sustainability, it is still not clear whether the benefits of green office buildings are significant enough to offset the costs of constructing these buildings (Li et al., 2021). Ironically, the stakeholders often focus on the physical infrastructure of green office buildings rather than understanding the intangible benefits of sustainability beyond its physical infrastructure (Cass et al., 2018). Indeed, there is a bi-directional relationship between physical infrastructure and occupants' behaviors (Brown et al., 2010). Within green building design currently, the physical infrastructure of green office buildings reflects sustainability standards rather than organizational readiness to embrace these sustainability standards. The physical asset of the green office building is argued to improve occupants' job satisfaction, work-related flow, comfort and well-being (Khoshbakht et al., 2018). However, when occupants (or employees) fail to demonstrate green behaviors such as conserving and restoring energy, the efficiency of the buildings’ life-cycle is compromised (Hedge and Dorsey, 2013). Hence, these issues raise questions about how key stakeholders of green office buildings maximize the benefits of the physical infrastructure.
Indeed, the normative and cultural-cognitive dimensions of green office buildings suggest that the occupants develop perceptions beyond visual persuasion of green office building design to establish place identity behaviors due to the physical infrastructure of the buildings (Faulconbridge, 2013). Thus, green office buildings might have a more substantial potential of persuasive power through occupants developing group identity, such as organizational identification (Udall et al., 2020). Such an identity has been linked to a wide range of green behaviors such as conscious recycling and energy conservation in green office buildings (Akerlof and Kranton, 2010).
Within the context of green office buildings, the responsibility to monitor behaviors typically, falls under the purview of facilities management (Lo et al., 2012). However, the behavioral barriers to achieve the benefits of sustainability implementation can, to a large extent, be reinvented by senior management and human resources (Nyberg and Wright, 2020; Wright and Nyberg, 2017). Indeed, green behaviors at the employee level can be encouraged using a proactive strategy fostered by human resource (HR) practices (Heerwagen, 2000). Nyberg et al. (2013) argue that organizations engaging employees in green practices, pre-empt issues in environmental management. However, little is known about integrating HR with physical infrastructure as an agency of green office buildings and thus warrants attention (Ahmad et al., 2019).
The current study proposes that the capacity of green office buildings can be better realized if employees undergo constant development, guided by human resource managers, potentially leading to improved employee outcomes. Thus, our research questions include - Can green human resource management (HRM) elicit green behaviors in green office buildings? Can such behaviors lead to improved employee outcomes? To answer these questions, we utilize Social Identity Theory (SIT) (Ashforth and Mael, 1989) that proposes employees develop positive workplace behaviors (e.g., green behaviors) as a result of organizational efforts (Green HRM). An integration of green workplaces comprising of organizational configurations with green workspaces incorporating physical infrastructure has the potential to improve the economic viability of green office buildings (Inalhan et al., 2010).
This study makes three contributions to theory. First, this study extends Green HRM to a green office building context by integrating Green HRM, the built environment and sustainability disciplines. Second, this research utilizes SIT to explain how Green HRM can be linked to occupants’ behaviors. Third, this study identifies specific employee outcomes, beyond traditional green outcomes, that are impacted by Green HRM. Moreover, the findings have practical implications for key stakeholders of green office buildings with an iemphasize on policies, regulations and enforcement mechanisms.
Section snippets
Theoretical background and hypotheses development
The conceptual model (Fig. 1) utilizes SIT to explain the relationships between the variables: organizational readiness, Green HRM, green behaviors, organizational identification, job satisfaction and work-related flow.
In green office buildings research, we argue green behaviors can be best explained by identity theories. To enact their agency of green office buildings, occupants might develop a sense of identity based on the physical and symbolic features of the building (Proshansky, 1978).
Mediating hypotheses
SIT suggests that employees develop specific behaviors as a result of self-identity through organizational practices (Edwards, 2009). Organizational practices such as Green HRM can create appropriate communication channels or create resource allocation for influencing employee behaviors. For example, HRM can allocate financial resources in terms of compensation and rewards to invoke extra-role environmental behaviors (Renwick et al., 2016). As a result, employees are likely to exhibit a very
Sample and procedures
The study is part of a wider multi-country survey questionnaire about the impact of green office buildings on employee outcomes. The target population for the current study is comprised of 549 employees and 91 managers employed in 17 organizations in Australia and located in Green Star or National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) rated offices. Relevant ethics approval was obtained from the Human Ethics Advisory Group prior to data collection. A pilot study was conducted to
Results
The CFA results showed that the proposed six-factor model including OR, GH, GB, OI, JS and WF was a good fit to the data (χ2 = 2.50, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.05). Content validity was maintained as the instruments used in the questionnaire were constructed based on theoretical concepts grounded in the academic literature and the advice of a panel of academic and professional experts which included one management academic, two built environment (one professional and one
Discussion
Green HRM has received inadequate empirical attention in green office building studies despite ongoing efforts to highlight the importance of a human-centric approach implicit in green HRM. The current study analyzed data from Australia to understand how Green HRM practices affected employees' green behaviors and in turn, impacted key outcomes such as job satisfaction and work-related flow in green office buildings. Based on the organizational behavior literature, employees’ green behaviors
Conclusion
Green HRM has a central role to play in eliciting green behaviors in green office buildings and consequently improving employee outcomes. Our study makes a significant contribution by situating the novel concept of Green HRM within the built environment. Our study affirms that there is a need to consider Green HR managers and employees (i.e., occupants) as important stakeholders in green office buildings, given the overall impact of their strategies and actions in furthering critical
Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CRCLCL or its partners, agents or employees.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Subhadarsini Parida: Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. Subramaniam Ananthram: Supervision, Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. Christopher Chan: Methodology, Writing – review & editing. Kerry Brown: Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This work is funded through the CRC for Low Carbon Living: Closing the Loop RP1009 project. The research team is at the University of New South Wales and Curtin University with representatives on the industry group from Hassell, Brookfield Multiplex and Aecom who are CRC partners.
© [2020] Cooperative Research for Low Carbon Living.
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