Integrating HRM and ESG Literature: From Triple to Quadruple Bottom Line

According to recent literature, organizations must adhere to sustainability standards and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria to be considered eligible for financial resources. Although human capital plays a pivotal role in this corporate transformation, there seems to be a research gap about how human resource management (HRM) supports organizations to address ESG criteria. To explore how HRM can contribute to ESG strategies, we develop a bibliometric analysis (activity indicators and bibliograph coupling) and systematic literature review (SLR), by scrutinizing 208 documents. The core implication of our review is that the three components of ESG strategies are essential and strongly connected to sustainable HRM, although there is no focused literature on HRM and ESG combined. The governance aspects are important for the effective implementation of the environmental, social, and obviously economic strategies and by extension for the successful achievement of corporate sustainability. Integrating corporate governance into triple bottom-line HRM and shifting to a quadruple bottom line become crucial to obtaining a more comprehensive evaluation of corporate sustainability.