The human resource change leadership role for the organizational transformation toward sustainability: Scale development and validation

Background HR professionals shape organizational agility, flexibility, and adaptability to external changes while embedding sustainability values into the company culture. However, almost current studies rely on qualitative methods to explain the HR role in sustainable context and it has not yet had a measurement scale. Objective By combining the institutional theory and resource-based-view theory, this study develops and validates the HR change leadership role scale in sustainable context by empirical evidence. Methods The study employs a mixed method combining qualitative and quantitative research. Two qualitative researches are conducted through in-depth interviews to enhance the value of the scales’ content, and ensure that the items designed are clear, simple, specific, and relevant. Quantitative research is conducted in three studies to test the validity of the item content with 51 experts; evaluate the scale reliability, convergence, and discriminant validity with 263 employees; and validate the scale through the confirmatory composite analysis progress, with 1058 employees working at 24 sustainable firms. Results The result show the HR change leadership role scale consist of five dimensions with 38 items: identifying opportunities, creating a vision, leveraging resources, restructuring the organization and controlling change. Additionally, it explores the adoption of HR change leadership role have a positive impact on organizational commitment. Conclusions The study confirms and expands the HRM institutional entrepreneurship role into an HR change leadership as a new role for HR professionals in a sustainable context by employing a quantitative method, instead of merely explaining it in the literature.