Common Good HRM: A paradigm shift in Sustainable HRM?

TLDR

Sustainable HRM has gained attention, yet its definition and effectiveness remain contested as organizations seek to align HRM with global sustainability goals. The study reviews Sustainable HRM literature to highlight a transformed HRM purpose, introduces four types, and proposes Common Good HRM as essential for advancing SDGs. The authors conducted a literature review and conceptual analysis, identifying four Sustainable HRM types and framing them within a common good economy perspective to address grand sustainability challenges.

Abstract

As organizations increasingly claim to have become more sustainable and to have contributed to global sustainable development, demands for Human Resource Management (HRM) to become sustainable intensify. In the past decade, the concept of Sustainable HRM received increasing attention in both practice and research. However, academics' views about what Sustainable HRM means are diverse, and the effectiveness of Sustainable HRM practices is uncertain. We reviewed key articles in the literature on Sustainable HRM and as a result highlight how the purpose of HRM has been transformed in the search for sustainability. We present four Sustainable HRM types and describe how HRM can effectively contribute to solving todays "grand" sustainability challenges by applying ideas from a common good economy perspective. We propose that a new type of Sustainable HRM – Common Good HRM – could be essential in driving progress toward addressing sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Sustainable HRM.