Navigating the green spectrum: an inquiry into low-carbon HRM practices and the influence of perceived supervisor support on employee sustainability in China

Employees’ environmental innovation is critical in enterprises’ low-carbon and economic performance. However, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the extent to which human resource management shapes employees’ low-carbon behaviors in prior studies. In the light of the foregoing, this study aims to construct a double intermediary model to demonstrate the impact of low-carbon human resource management on employees’ low-carbon behaviors, and further explore the regulatory role of perceived supervisor support. To achieve this, a total of 438 participants were sampled from the Chinese industrial milieu. Moreover, the study used hierarchical regression to analyze the data after applying a series of data preprocessing techniques. The findings of the study show that low-carbon human resource management positively correlate with employees’ low-carbon behaviors. Furthermore, employees’ environmental passion was found to partially mediate the relationship between low-carbon human resource management and employees’ low-carbon behaviors. Additionally, the study found that employees’ environmental commitment partially mediates the relationship between low-carbon human resource management and employees’ low-carbon behaviors. And perceived supervisors’ support was found to positively regulate the mediation role of employees’ environmental passion and the commitment between low-carbon human resource management and employees’ low-carbon behaviors. The study provides in-depth materials on how to stimulate employees’ low-carbon behavior within the framework of low-carbon human resource management.