Sustainability-oriented management: The role of green human resource management and innovation in driving sustainable performance, based on Delphi and Analytic Hierarchy Process

Despite growing scholarly interest in the drivers of human resource management for sustainable performance (SP), there remains a noticeable lack of studies that explore managers’ perspectives and employ a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Based on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) Theory and the Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), this study aims to explore the drivers of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) and green innovation for sustainable performance, ranking the priority levels of these drivers. Data was collected through surveys with managers across two Delphi rounds and one Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) round. The findings reveal that GHRM, and green innovation significantly enhance SP, with the drivers ranked in order of importance as follows: responsible leadership, selection and recruitment, training and development, green process innovation, green product innovation, employee involvement, compensation and rewards, and performance appraisal. A set of 23 sub-drivers was also evaluated for their local and global weights and ranked by relative importance. Additionally, the study provides deeper insights through open-ended responses collected at the end of the questionnaires in the Delphi and AHP rounds. While most previous studies rely on quantitative methods, often examining the topic from employees’ perspectives, this research is among the first to adopt a unique mixed-methods approach and exploring the topic from the perspective of managers.