Is There a Dark Side to Green Human Resource Management? Evidence from India

The present paper attempts to explain if the outcomes of green human resource managementGreen Human Resource Management (GHRM) are always positive (as suggested by the past studies) or is there a dark side to it? Specifically, we intend to test if GHRM leads to the attribution of different motives on the part of employeesEmployee and if these motives differentially affect their sense of meaningfulnessMeaningfulness. The data collected from 106 employeesEmployee working in varied industries in IndiaIndia and analyzed using SPSS AMOS 24 revealed that employeesEmployee attribute internal and external motives to the GHRM practices of the organizationOrganizations. GHRM was not found to have any direct effect on meaningfulnessMeaningfulness; rather, the influence occurred through employees’Employee attribution of motivesAttribution of intent/motives to observed GHRM practices. Attribution of internal motives contributed to the experience of psychological meaningfulnessMeaningfulness while the attribution of external motives failed to contribute to meaningfulnessMeaningfulness. The study makes a unique contribution to what we know about the phenomenon of GHRM by offering a framework that advances our understandingUnderstanding of how employeesEmployee make sense of GHRM and seek and find meaningfulnessMeaningfulness through it. By establishing that employees’Employee attributions underlie their ensuing attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, our research would carry significant implications for the selectionSelection, design, and communication of GHRM practices and policies.