The role of sustainable hrm in sustainable development

Abstract

Achieving sustainability is becoming a primary agenda for many societies throughout the world. However, we are currently witnessing a surprising stagnation in progress toward this goal. Neoliberal values of individualism, privatization and competitive advantage are proving to be hard to breach. Hence, there is a pressing need for change. Through an extensive literature overview, the present paper identifies existing misconceptions and differences in the comprehension of concepts such as sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and the relationship between strategic human resource management (HRM) and sustainable HRM. It describes and acknowledges the hindrances that sustainable HRM faces in practice, with a particular focus on the predominant schema of strategic HRM and the misconception of corporate social responsibility. The aspiration of the paper is to pose a new model of sustainability by implementing sustainable HRM at the center of sustainable development and corporate accountability. The proposed model is intended as a measurement of the levels of sustainable development in which organizations find themselves and report on, and as a more comprehensive model of sustainable HRM, which has the potential to be applied in practice.