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The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) sustainable compact is evident for many labor-intensive industries in emerging economies. This study aims to develop a sustainable human resource (HR) practice model for a labor-intensive industry from the evidence of the Bangladeshi ready-made garments (RMG) sector.

The study tests the factors identified from the literature for model validation. A total of 22 HR function items were used in a survey of 800 randomly selected respondents from the RMG sector in Bangladesh. The factor analysis (both exploratory and confirmatory) techniques were applied to explore and validate the model.

The study findings reveal that the factory management and policymakers should focus on sustainable HR practices for the betterment of a labor-intensive industry. In detail, the staffing function involves strategic HR planning, recruitment and selection and perfect employee placement; training and development functions entail proper organizational orientation, various training and development programs and employees’ career management and growth; the motivation function necessitates job design, fairness in the appraisal, practicing good organizational citizenship behavior with sound rewarding system and compensation packages; and finally, the maintenance function entails healthy and safe working environment, good communication and relationship management.

The study is original in developing a sustainable HR practice model with the alignment of ILO’s three inter-linked sustainability compact for a labor-intensive industry from an emerging economy perspective. The study’s outcomes will be a torchbearer for any labor-intensive industry’s sustainable HR practice from an emerging economy across the globe.

Sustainable operations are increasingly part of firms’ competitive strategies. Research widely investigates the relationship between sustainable operations and competitive advantage, considering financial performance as a dependent variable, and shows controversial results. The purpose of this paper is to operationalize competitive advantage as internal and external intangible benefits, such as human resource (HR) and customer benefits. HR benefits concern the deployment of a workforce pursuing a firm’s goals and strategy; customer benefits concern the improvement of a firm’s relationship with its customers.

Empirical results are provided in an analysis of data from a survey conducted on a sample of 107 Italian firms in the food industry. A single industry and country are selected to avoid possible differences in regulations and in operations processes. Structural equation modelling is used to test hypotheses relating sustainable operations to HR and customer benefits.

The authors distinguish between green and social operations practices. Green operations practices directly impact customer benefits but not HR benefits. Social sustainable operations practices do not directly impact customer benefits but instead have a direct impact on HR benefits. Hence, through HR benefits, they have an indirect impact on customer benefits.

The authors provide results showing to operations managers that both green operations and social operations are crucial to obtaining customer benefits. Social operations do this by enhancing HR benefits. Green operations instead are not positively related to HR benefits.

This research serves as an original contribution to the sustainable operations literature in two ways. First, from a resource-based perspective, the relationship between sustainable operations, HR benefits, and customer benefits is proposed and tested. Such benefits are also shown to be interrelated based on the service profit chain model. Second, green and social operations practices are analysed separately providing a nuanced view of benefits related to sustainable operations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between knowledge-enhancing HR practices, intellectual capital and sustainable competitive advantage in knowledge-based firms.

A quantitative approach was used to conduct the present study. The respondents were sampled from knowledge-based firms in Iran. Overall, 320 managers in 157 firms were selected using convenience sampling. A structural equation model was employed for testing the hypotheses.

The study confirmed that knowledge-enhancing human resource (HR) practices established a very strong connection with intellectual capital. The results further disclosed a positive relationship between intellectual capital and firms' competitive advantage. A mediated relationship between knowledge-enhancing HR practices and firms' competitive advantage through intellectual capital was also affirmed.

The study was conducted in knowledge-based firms in Iran, which limits the generalizability of the research findings. Therefore, future studies should be carried out with samples from other contexts. Moreover, as the study was cross-sectional, the causal relationships could not be inferred directly.

The paper underscored the importance of intellectual capital in improving knowledge-enhancing HR practices and firms' competitive advantage. It suggests to human resource managers to make the organizational arrangements to design knowledge-enhancing HR practices, thereby developing the intellectual capital that brings competitive advantage to knowledge-based firms.

The results of this study contribute to advance research on the intellectual capital literature by trying to explain how intellectual capital as a mediator variable can influence the relationship between knowledge-enhancing HR practices and sustainable competitive advantage.

This study aims to gain insight into how employee psychological and human resource (HR) practices impact employee work engagement behavior. In addition to that, the research model of this study has tested the moderating relationship of affective employee commitment between employee work engagement and sustainable employability.

The research model is empirically tested with data set of 311 responses retrieved from an employee working in private organizations. Sample size of this study is computed with prior power analysis. Data were analyzed with partial least square-based structural equation modeling (SEM).

Findings of the SEM revealed that altogether psychological well-being, psychological empowerment, HR compensation, HR training, transformational leadership and job enrichment have explained R² 66.1% variance in employee work engagement. Concerning individual impact size psychological well-being has shown medium level effect size (f²) in measuring employee work engagement. However, all other exogenous variables have shown a small effect in determining employee work engagement. The moderating effect of commitment is confirmed in such a way that the relationship between employee work engagement and sustainable employability will be higher when affective commitment is higher.

This research has synthesized HR literature into four core dimensions of HR practices and, hence contributes to HR literature. Similarly, this research contributes to well-being theory while integrating employee psychological well-being into the research model. For HR practitioners this research revealed that psychological well-being, psychological empowerment, affective employee commitment, transformational leadership, HR compensation and HR training are core factors, which influence employee behavior toward work engagement and sustainable employability.

The current research is unique as it investigates sustainable employability phenomenon with an integrated research model that combines employee psychological and HR factors. The concept of sustainable employability is less studied, and therefore this research fills the research gap in this context.

This study aims to investigate employee behavior toward work engagement with an integrative research framework that combines human resource practices, employee psychological empowerment and well-being. Moreover, the moderating effect of transformational leadership is tested between employee engagement at workplace during crisis such as COVID-19 and sustainable employment.

This study empirically investigates research framework with 353 responses retrieved from employees working in private sector organizations. The data were collected through structured, closed-ended questionnaires. For inferential analysis, structural equation modeling approach has been used. To test the predictive power of the research framework, blindfolding procedure Q² is incorporated.

Statistical findings indicate that HR compensation, HR training, opportunity enhancing, motivation enhancing, psychological well-being and empowerment have explained substantial variance (R² = 67.5%) in employee work engagement during crisis. Concerning with sustainable employment, the transformational leadership and work engagement have shown significant variance (R² = 20.6%) in determining sustainable employment. Moving further psychological empowerment has revealed maximum effect size (f²) to determine employee engagement behavior at work place during pandemic crisis. The blindfolding procedure Q² has exhibited substantial power to predict employee work engagement and sustainable employment during crisis such as COVID-19 pandemic.

This study has several contributions to theory and practice. Theoretically, this study develops an integrative research framework with the help of human resource practices and employee psychological factors such as employee well-being and empowerment. Therefore, practically, this research suggests that factors such as opportunity enhancing, transformational leadership and employee psychological empowerment need managerial attention to increase employee engagement at workplace and sustainable employment during pandemic crisis.

With the growing concerns of layoff during pandemic crisis, employees have shown lack of interest at workplace because of psychological fears. Nevertheless, this study has established that policymakers could enhance employee engagement at workplace and sustainable employment during crisis by redesigning HR practices and improving employee psychological well-being and empowerment. In addition to that, employee psychological well-being and empowerment are considered healthy factors for human beings and nurture society at large.

This research is original as it establishes an integrative research framework grounded in HR practices, employee psychological empowerment and employee psychological well-being to investigate employee behavior at work place during crisis such as pandemic. In addition to that, this study has enriched leadership literature by examining the moderating effect of transformational leadership between employee work engagement and sustainable employment.

The study aims to examine the influence of Sustainable Human Resource Management (SHRM) practices and Industry 4.0 Technologies (I4Te) adoption on the Employability Skills (ES) of the employees. The study has undertaken four major SHRM practices – Training (TR), Flexibility (FL), Employee Participation (EP) and Employee Empowerment (EE) to measure its impact on the ES along with I4Te.

A survey approach method was designed on the identified constructs from existing literature based on SHRM, I4Te and ES. The survey resulted into 198 valid responses. The study used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 25.0 for constructs validation and hypothesis testing.

The current study reveals that all the four SHRM practices (TR, FL, EP and EE) along with I4Te directly influence ES in the organisation. The I4Te along with the SHRM practices may bring enhancement in the skills and competencies of the employees that is the requirement of future organisations.

Considering the results, the SHRM practices aligned with I4Te may directly influence the employee's ES including core skills, IT skills and personal attributes. The SHRM practices in the organisation will enhance the opportunities for the employees and bring long-term association with the employees.

For the development of the economy and the individual, the SHRM practices need to conduct themselves in more socially responsible ways along with the I4Te to enhance the ES of the employees. The individual development will bring sustainable behavioural changes in the employees.

There has been no research conducted on exploring SHRM, I4Te and ES together. This is the pioneer in the HRM fields that explores the interrelationships and influence amongst the five constructs undertaken in the study.

The purpose of this empirical study is to develop an understanding of how human resource (HR) managers employed by organizations with an explicit sustainability agenda view employees as stakeholders, and to explore how such views are operationalized in HR policies and practices.

An interpretive approach using data from 35 semi-structured interviews was adopted for this study. Data were transcribed and analyzed using the Gioia methodology.

Comparison of approaches to sustainable human resource management (HRM) revealed three distinctive conceptualizations of employees with respect to the sustainability agenda – employees as a driving force for sustainability, employees as consumers of HR practices and employees as members of a community. Strong levels of integration between the HRM and sustainability agendas were only evidenced in those organizations where an attempt had been made to address all three roles simultaneously. Findings suggest that engagement with a sustainability agenda widens the remit of the HRM function, underscoring the importance of employees' roles as consumers of HR practices and as members of wider communities.

By addressing the integration of HRM with a sustainability agenda, this article helps practitioners recognize diversity among employees' roles and the varying associated needs. Examples of policy and practice initiatives that effectively address these needs are provided.

HRM has been widely criticized for overemphasizing shareholder value, thereby lacking in attention to the needs of other stakeholders, including employees. Findings from this study suggest the holistic approach advocated by a sustainability agenda can effectively quell these concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of employment systems on productivity performance in Japanese companies from the perspective of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and sustainable human resource management (HRM).

In all, three employment models including employment indicators in addition to financial indicators are examined between 2006 and 2012 with 2,738 listed Japanese companies. This study verifies robustness of the results by testing multiple DEA measurements and conducting industrial analysis.

The results indicate employment systems influence productivity performance in Japanese companies and the characteristics of Japanese employment systems harm productivity performance. In particular, higher liquidity of human resource is essential contrary to the philosophy of long-term employment. Furthermore, new initiatives such as promotion opportunities for women have not been successful up to now.

This study investigates limited aspects of HRM practices and employment systems in Japanese companies due to data availability. This study is designed to investigate mainly organizational outcome considering sustainability. More research is needed to identify comprehensive influence from Japanese employment system not only on corporate performance but also reduction of harm on a variety of stakeholders such as employee, community and government.

These findings suggest that it is necessary for executives in Japanese companies to pay attention to their HRM practices under Japanese employment system, in particular, entry and exit of human resource and support systems for female employees.

There are few studies that investigate the relationship between employment system and productivity performance in Japanese companies. This research provides empirical evidence for potential influence of the Japanese employment system.

Employees need a sustainable career to prolong their working lives. The ability, motivation and opportunity to work form an important basis for sustainable careers across the lifespan. However, over the lifespan of their careers employees are likely to experience several career shocks (e.g. becoming chronically ill or being fired) which might result in unsustainable trajectories. This study aims to contribute to the literature on sustainable careers by unraveling the process through which careers shocks relate to career (un)sustainability and what role perceptions of human resource practices play in the process.

Thirty-three in-depth retrospective interviews with participants of 50 years and older were conducted and analyzed using a template analysis.

Results showed that career shocks influence career sustainability through a process of changes in demands or changes in resources, which in turn, relate to changes in person–job fit. When person-job–fit diminished, the ability, motivation and opportunity to continue working decreased, whereas when person–job fit improved, the ability, motivation and opportunity to continue working improved as well. Organizations appear to be able to diminish the negative consequences of career shocks by offering job resources such as HR practices in response to career shocks.

A limitation of this study is the retrospective nature of the interviews, which could have resulted in recollection bias.

This study gives HRM practitioners insight into the HR practices that are effective in overcoming career shocks.

This study extends existing literature by including career shocks as possible predictors of sustainable careers.

Sustainability is seeking for a new approach to bolster organisational success as it is expected to be mobilised through collaborative efforts of employees and management. The present study aims to examine the moderating role of sustainability practices between self-efficacy and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB).

A total of 527 full-time executives employed in Indian public and private manufacturing industries were surveyed. Harman’s single-factor test was carried out using analysis of moment structures (AMOS 20.0) to test the bias associated because of common method variance (CMV). Moderated regression analysis was used through hierarchical models to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results indicate a positive relationship between self-efficacy and OCB. The significant moderation effect was observed in the interaction graph, as the simple slope analysis indicated relatively high level of sustainability practices and self-efficacy and they were found to be positively associated with OCB.

The cross-sectional sample of executives employed in Indian manufacturing organisations limits the generalisation of the findings. The study has not figured the temporal effects and hence longitudinal studies have also been proposed for the assessment of causality.

Organisations are expected to foster inclusiveness and open channel of communication with their employees to execute best sustainable practices. HR department need to create awareness among their employees and establish an ongoing feedback mechanism to promote such psychological drives.

The proposed model and the subsequent findings of the study extend the literature on the relationship among self-efficacy, OCB and sustainability practices. The outcome of this work can be used by HR functionaries and senior management practitioners while formulating and implementing the sustainability strategies.