Seeds of sustainability in organizations: Green HRM and employee engagement as a cultivators of green branding and consumer trust

Businesses are being compelled to implement sustainable strategies to increase their consumers' trust as environmental concerns continue to escalate. The primary objective of this study was to understand the effectiveness as a seed for organizations by investigating the influence of green practices and employee engagement on consumer trust. While green branding has been incorporated as a mediator, corporate sustainability responsibility (CSR) moderated this process. Signaling theory was utilized to explain the relationships, and data was collected using a survey from employees of different companies operating in the consumer goods industry, using a purposive sampling technique. The structural paths were analyzed using Smart PLS 4.0. The findings indicated that green HRM affects consumer trust directly and also through the mediation of green branding. At the same time, the effect of employee engagement was found to be significant through mediation and direct impact on green branding was not supported. Additionally, consumer trust has been strengthened by including CSR as a moderating variable in the relationship between green branding and consumer trust. This research contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating how the efforts of internal stakeholders can send a positive signal to external stakeholders, particularly consumers, and how CSR can enhance the effectiveness of green branding. The research findings are highly beneficial to businesses, human resources professionals, marketing professionals, policymakers, and researchers to incorporate sustainability strategies into branding and increase consumer trust.