GHRM enablers and HR managers' perceived competitive advantage: a path analysis of Ghana's package printing firms

Purpose The package printing industry poses significant environmental challenges. Green human resource management (GHRM) has been proposed as a mechanism for mitigating these impacts, but its drivers remain poorly understood in emerging-economy contexts. This study examines how HR managers' education, GHRM awareness, institutional pressures and formal HR policies shape perceptions of GHRM's contribution to competitive advantage in Ghana's package printing industry. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-method design combined survey data and interviews with HR managers selected through purposive and snowball sampling. A path model grounded in the resource-based view (RBV) and institutional theory was tested using AMOS version 26, while qualitative findings contextualized the quantitative results. Findings The results show that four hypothesized relationships were supported. Institutional pressures significantly influence both GHRM awareness and the integration of GHRM practices, while HR managers' awareness significantly predicts perceived competitive advantage. In contrast, academic qualifications and formal HR policies do not exhibit significant effects. Qualitative evidence suggests that GHRM adoption is driven primarily by external regulatory, market, and normative pressures rather than internal HR structures. Research limitations/implications The current work relied on self-reported measures of GHRM practices and competitive advantage, which may introduce perceptual bias. However, such measures are appropriate for constructs involving managerial interpretation. Future research could supplement perception-based measures with objective and verifiable indicators such as energy consumption records, waste management logs, environmental audit reports or customer retention data. While the sample size was small, it reflected the accessible population of HR managers in the sector and was appropriate for the exploratory, theory-extending objectives of the study. Practical implications The findings provide several context-specific and actionable implications for managers, industry associations, and policymakers. First, the strong effect of institutional pressures suggests that industry-wide environmental standards, certification schemes and regulatory signalling are effective levers for promoting GHRM. Second, the importance of awareness highlights the value of short, practice-oriented capacity-building programmes tailored to SME realities rather than generic sustainability training. Third, the weak role of formal HR policies implies that shared HR toolkits or policy templates developed by industry associations could help firms institutionalize GHRM without extensive internal expertise. Fourth, customer environmental expectations emerged as a powerful market mechanism; firms can leverage this by communicating environmental performance and targeting procurement opportunities with sustainability requirements. Finally, addressing gender imbalance in HR leadership may introduce diverse perspectives that support the long-term institutionalization of GHRM practices. Originality/value This study extends GHRM scholarship by demonstrating the limits of resource-based explanations in weakly institutionalized, SME-dominated industries and showing how institutional pressures and managerial awareness jointly shape GHRM outcomes. The findings challenge the assumption that formal HR systems are necessary for sustainability-oriented HRM and show that external institutional forces can compensate for weak internal HR structures. By integrating RBV and Institutional Theory, the study provides context-sensitive insights into GHRM adoption and sustainable HR practices in resource-constrained environments.