DIGITAL GREEN HRM AND EMPLOYEE ECO-WELLBEING: AN OVERLOOKED DUAL PATHWAY TO ORGANIZATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY IN PAKISTAN’S POLLUTING MANUFACTURING CLUSTERS

Abstract

Human resource management (HRM) literature has mainly investigated how environmental HR practices generate green behavior, instead of their impact on employee well-being and their role. The body of research on green human resource management (GHRM) has centered on the influence of environmental HR practices on the generation of employee green behavior, rather than their impact on employee well-being and the role they play. Research on digital delivery remains fragmented. This gap is critical in polluting manufacturing clusters, where employees are both agents of environmental performance and the people most exposed to environmental harm. Drawing on the job demands–resources model and conservation of resources theory, we develop a dual-pathway framework in which digital GHRM advances organizational sustainability through a motivational pathway (employee green behavior) and a health-protection pathway (employee eco-wellbeing), with pollution exposure intensity, workforce digital readiness, and resource commitment as boundary conditions. We then test the GHRM core of the framework with a random-effects meta-analysis of 16 open-access studies (N = 5,374). GHRM was associated with employee green behavior (r = .48) and, to a similar degree, with employee wellbeing (r = .51). In a meta-analytic path model, GHRM retained a direct association with wellbeing (β = .38) after green behavior was controlled, and the indirect association through green behavior was smaller (.13), indicating that wellbeing is a parallel pathway rather than a by-product of green behavior. GHRM was also strongly associated with sustainability performance (r = .68). The GHRM–wellbeing association tended to be weaker in industrial than in service samples, and no included study measured digitally delivered GHRM or environmental dimensions of wellbeing. We discuss the implications for theory, for managers in Pakistan’s textile and leather clusters, and for primary research.