<p>The need of the hour is to consider the use of green human capital in organizations since there seems to be a growing trend in sustainable development. This research tries to explore how such green human capital can serve as a strategic enabler for organizations in achieving work engagement among employees by focusing on the mediating aspect of psychological ownership. The study utilized stratified random sampling to divide the industries into manufacturing, services, and technology, along with organizational levels for equality among genders, ages, and involvement in sustainability initiatives, totaling 400 due to power analyses. The three sectors were used as a broad classification category to use in sampling, and the finer industry breakdown given in Table <InternalRef RefID="Tab1">1</InternalRef> was the sub-sectors of the three sectors to bring more descriptive clarity to the context of respondents in their organizations. Data was gathered via a structured survey and analyzed using the Python library to investigate green-related human capital, psychological ownership, and work engagement. The study highlights that employees exhibit high work engagement in sustainable practices, with mean scores of 4.13 to 4.27 for energy and pride-related initiatives, and strong alignment with engagement variables (factor scores: 0.879 and 0.854). Green human capital, encompassing environmental knowledge, sustainability skills, and eco-responsibility, demonstrated robust ratings (e.g., GTP5: 4.26 ± 0.89, ER1-ER5: > 4.15), indicating strong employee commitment to sustainability principles.Despite the positive relationship between psychological ownership and work engagement, the latter had a weak direct explanatory power. Nevertheless, psychological ownership contributed to an indirect mediating effect on the relationship between the green human capital and work engagement suggesting the need for enhanced strategies to integrate these factors effectively. This insignificant finding suggests that psychological ownership does not have a very strong direct impact on work engagement when it is considered separately; nevertheless, this does not eliminate the possibility that it may be an indirect or mediating variable in the whole model. The results of the study indicate that investments in green human capital significantly increase psychological ownership (β = .7523, p < .001) and work engagement (β = .4234, p < .001), and hence, psychological ownership mediates the relationship occurring. Employees are drawn into an increased identification with organizational initiatives for sustainability, as a result of green investments in human capital, thus encouraging better engagement towards the company's vision of sustainability.</p>

Green human capital as a catalyst for work engagement in sustainable organisations

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发表日期：

2026年4月28日

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Rashmi Kumari,
Sujata Priyambada Dash,
Rajeshwari Chatterjee

摘要

The need of the hour is to consider the use of green human capital in organizations since there seems to be a growing trend in sustainable development. This research tries to explore how such green human capital can serve as a strategic enabler for organizations in achieving work engagement among employees by focusing on the mediating aspect of psychological ownership. The study utilized stratified random sampling to divide the industries into manufacturing, services, and technology, along with organizational levels for equality among genders, ages, and involvement in sustainability initiatives, totaling 400 due to power analyses. The three sectors were used as a broad classification category to use in sampling, and the finer industry breakdown given in Table 1 was the sub-sectors of the three sectors to bring more descriptive clarity to the context of respondents in their organizations. Data was gathered via a structured survey and analyzed using the Python library to investigate green-related human capital, psychological ownership, and work engagement. The study highlights that employees exhibit high work engagement in sustainable practices, with mean scores of 4.13 to 4.27 for energy and pride-related initiatives, and strong alignment with engagement variables (factor scores: 0.879 and 0.854). Green human capital, encompassing environmental knowledge, sustainability skills, and eco-responsibility, demonstrated robust ratings (e.g., GTP5: 4.26 ± 0.89, ER1-ER5: > 4.15), indicating strong employee commitment to sustainability principles.Despite the positive relationship between psychological ownership and work engagement, the latter had a weak direct explanatory power. Nevertheless, psychological ownership contributed to an indirect mediating effect on the relationship between the green human capital and work engagement suggesting the need for enhanced strategies to integrate these factors effectively. This insignificant finding suggests that psychological ownership does not have a very strong direct impact on work engagement when it is considered separately; nevertheless, this does not eliminate the possibility that it may be an indirect or mediating variable in the whole model. The results of the study indicate that investments in green human capital significantly increase psychological ownership (β = .7523, p < .001) and work engagement (β = .4234, p < .001), and hence, psychological ownership mediates the relationship occurring. Employees are drawn into an increased identification with organizational initiatives for sustainability, as a result of green investments in human capital, thus encouraging better engagement towards the company's vision of sustainability.