Sustainable Development and Its Link with Human Resource Management in the Digital Era

Sustainable Development is an important area in management research. However, its link with Human Resource Management (HRM) has only recently been widely established in the literature. Lately great emphasis has been placed on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the dimensions of the Environment, Society and Governance (ESG) which form the criteria for documenting and reporting relevant practices implemented by business firms (United Nations. Transforming our world: the 2010 agenda for sustainable development (2015)). Therefore, HRM is facing the challenge of active involvement in sustainability. Given the quest for HR to actively participate in sustainability efforts with an emphasis on social criteria, this paper will try to explore the degree to which digitalization can assist in meeting sustainability through careful examination of HR sustainable practices implemented by Greek firms over a 10-year period and in-depth interviews with HR managers to examine the role of digitalization in applying sustainability. The main conclusions from our research are that there is room for a wide range of policies and practices which can add to sustainability. HR digitalization can prove of great help to sustainability provided certain aspects affecting ethical issues are taken into consideration. Companies can use sustainable HR to enhance their corporate sustainability and enjoy the benefits of a higher reputation and an enhanced ethical profile.