Strategic Green HRM and Corporate Performance in GCC Economies: Integrating Behavioural and Institutional Perspectives
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46977/amt.2026.v07i01.002Keywords:
Corporate Performance, GCC Economies, Green HR Management Practices, Green Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Institutional PressureAbstract
State-led agendas and mounting institutional pressure are increasingly defining sustainability transitions in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies, but little is known about the organizational processes that mediate the relationship between human resource practices and performance outcomes. The paper constructs and empirically validates a multi-level model that attributes the relationship between green human resource management (GHRM) practices and corporate performance to the mediating effect of green organizational citizenship behavior (GOCB) and investigates the existence of institutional pressure as a conditioning factor that defines the relationships. Based on a combination of institutional theory, the research claims that GHRM enhances employees' environmental capability, motivation, and opportunities, which in turn leads to discretionary pro-environmental behaviors that improve the firm's performance. With the help of survey data of the companies that are operating in the GCC countries and structural equation modeling, the results prove that GHRM positively influences corporate performance both directly and indirectly via GOCB, proving the significance of behavioral micro-foundations in sustainability performance. Further, the institutional pressure is also observed to enhance the indirect influence of GHRM on performance through GOCB, meaning that external regulatory and normative pressures enhance the efficacy of internally motivated green practice. This study is important to the body of literature by revealing a conditional indirect pathway and providing context-specific information on organizations that work in an emerging and policy-intensive environment.
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