Ina Ehnert

Reporting on sustainability and HRM:a comparative study of sustainability reporting practices by the world's largest companies

As a response to the growing public awareness on the importance of organisational contributions to sustainable development, there is an increased incentive for corporations to report on their sustainability activities. In parallel with this has been the development of ‘Sustainable HRM’ which embraces a growing body of practitioner and academic literature connecting the notions of corporate sustainability to HRM. The aim of this article is to analyse corporate sustainability reporting amongst the worlds largest companies and to assess the HRM aspects of sustainability within these reports in comparison to environmental aspects of sustainable management and whether organisational attributes – principally country-of-origin – influences the reporting of such practices. A focus in this article is the extent to which the reporting of various aspects of sustainability may reflect dominant models of corporate governance in the country in which a company is headquartered. The findings suggest, first and against expectations, that the overall disclosure on HRM-related performance is not lower than that on environmental performance. Second, companies report more on their internal workforce compared to their external workforce. Finally, international differences, in particular those between companies headquartered in liberal market economies and coordinated market economies, are not as apparent as expected.

Sustainability and human resource management: reasoning and applications on corporate websites

The notion of sustainability has moved from a fringe issue towards a topic of increasing interest for management research and business practice. Recently, it has also appeared in the context of managing the corporate human resources. This paper seeks to explore the meaning of sustainability for Human Resource Management (HRM) and the reasoning for and applications of the concept for HRM through an analysis of corporate websites of 50 European multinational enterprises. It is explored how the companies define sustainability and sustainable development, how they justify applying the concept of sustainability, how they link sustainability to managing human resources and which key activities they suggest to manage human resources sustainably. These findings are critically reflected and the paper concludes with recommendations for future research.

Paradox as a Lens for Theorizing Sustainable HRM

Paradox as a lens for theorizing Sustainable HRM: Mapping and coping with paradoxes and tensions

Sustainability and HRM

In this introduction to ‘Sustainability and Human Resource Management: Developing sustainable business organizations’ we outline the content and structure of the book. In this book, our academic and practitioner authors explore the potential of sustainability as a new paradigm and Sustainable HRM as a concept for HRM. We wish to contribute to fruitful debates about the role of HRM in developing sustainable work and HRM systems and the role of HRM in supporting sustainable business organizations. Our goal with this book is to advance and bring together conceptual and empirical research as well as practitioners’ views on the meaning and motifs of sustainability for HRM, on how to design and evaluate sustainable HRM systems, and on enhancing our understanding for the complex, non-linear interrelationships, potential paradoxes and tensions between economic, ecological, social and human sustainability. In this introduction, we elucidate the conceptual underpinnings of sustainability and HRM embraced in this book, we critically review the historical roots and different areas dealing with sustainability and HRM, we summarize the limitations and gaps in prior research and finally, this introduction provides short summaries of the chapters in this volume.

Sustainability and HRM: A Model and Suggestions for Future Research

Sustainability is on the agenda of many organizations worldwide and has recently raised interest from human resources management (HRM).* Climate change, water shortages, the problem that the world population consumes more resources per year than are produced, education, demographic developments, and increasing strains from business activities on employees has given reason to criticize widespread assumptions about how organizations can be managed in the long term (for example, Bansal, 2005). Focusing on the market model which is successful for short-term economic success fails with regard to long-term effects on the environment and the wider system (Dunphy and Griffith, 1998). One reason is an over-occupation with efficient exploitation of natural, social, and human resources in organizations (see Docherty et al., 2008; Wilkinson, 2005) coupled with a lack of effort to sustain the companies’ resource base as long as this is not regarded as economically rational (Ehnert, 2009a).

The Future of Sustainable HRM

We have sub-titled this chapter ‘concluding thoughts’ rather than ‘conclusions’ as we believe that the subject of sustainability and HRM (Sustainable HRM) is still in the early stages of development with much thought and study still necessary before academics and practitioners are likely to come anywhere near consensus which would justify the term ‘conclusions’. Within this volume we have deliberately sought a wide variety of issues and geographical locations within which to consider the issues of sustainability and people at work. By its nature the variety has produced a wide diversity of views. We consider this range of viewpoints a strength as we believe that there are many routes and many outcomes to the ways of ‘managing’ in a sustainable way. We do recognize, however, that the variety might leave the reader with an impression of too much uncertainty so within this chapter we will draw attention to the key debates and analyses.

Lernen von Nachhaltigkeit: Exploration und Exploitation als Lernmodi einer vollständig ambidextren Organisation

Organizations that intend to become more sustainable are challenged to learn in social, ecological and economic dimensions simultaneously. Research so far has not acknowledged that within each of these dimensions (learning areas) the learning processes of exploration and exploitation occur. The paper addresses this research gap and discusses the paradoxical tensions that occur between explorative and exploitative sustainability learning. First, we show how exploration and exploitation can be understood as modes of learning of sustainability und develop a typology of sustainable ambidextrous organizations. Second, we discuss how organizations and their leaders can cope with the paradoxes of learning that occur when organizations learn to be more sustainable.ZusammenfassungOrganisationen, die nachhaltiger werden wollen, müssen sowohl in der sozialen, ökologischen als auch der ökonomischen Dimension lernen. Bislang wurde in der Forschung nicht beachtet, dass in jeder dieser Dimensionen (Lernfelder) die paradox verbundenen Lernprozesse Exploration und Exploitation möglich sind. Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt an dieser Forschungslücke an und diskutiert paradoxe Spannungen des explorativen und exploitativen nachhaltigkeitsorientierten Lernens. Hierbei wird zunächst aufgezeigt, dass Exploitation und Exploration als Lernmodi des Lernens von Nachhaltigkeit verstanden werden können und eine Typologie ambidextrer nachhaltiger Organisationstypen entwickelt. Anschließend wird diskutiert, wie Organisationen beziehungsweise deren Führungskräfte mit den Lernparadoxien beim Lernen von Nachhaltigkeit umgehen können.

Sustainable HRM in Europe

In this chapter, the European research on Sustainable HRM is explored by considering the role of context in shaping HRM practices and strategies. The authors argue that in the European context HRM is more prone to long-term thinking, to a multiple stakeholder perspective and to extending the notion of organizational performance beyond the financial bottom line. The chapter discusses the idea of European HRM taking a leading role in developing and implementing sustainability strategies and practices in organizations and also in making HRM systems themselves sustainable.

Theorising on Strategic HRM from a Sustainability Approach

As Sustainable HRM is conceived of as an extension of Strategic HRM and sustainability as a potentially new approach to theorise on HRM (see Sect. 2.6.4), the next step taken is to review how theorising in Strategic HRM has been previously done and by which developments this process has been influenced. The claim that the concept of sustainability has the potential to induce or contribute to a paradigm shift in Kuhn’s (1970) sense (see also Sect. 2.2.2) is reflected upon critically. It is assumed here that – at least currently – the main reason for more managers and scholars being interested in sustainability and in a Sustainable HRM approach is influenced by current socio-political developments.

Introducing Sustainability into HRM

This dissertation, Sustainable Human Resource Management: A Conceptual and Exploratory Analysis from a Paradox Perspective builds primarily on the recently emerging literature linking the concept of sustainability and human resource (HR) issues. Furthermore, it draws on relevant insights in established fields of research such as Strategic HRM (SHRM), Sustainable Resource Management (SRM), and organisation theory. Practical relevance of this topic is deduced in this introduction from examples as well as from the literature on sustainability and HRM.1