Does the Environmental Management System Predict TBL Performance of Manufacturers? The Role of Green HRM Practices and OCBE as Serial Mediators

Abstract

Over the years, Malaysian manufacturers struggled to mitigate the widened gap among the three aspects of TBL performance, e.g., economic, social, and environmental. Although, the economic performance is relatively elevated compared to environmental performance based on environmental performance index (EPI) data reports. Similarly, less than twenty per cent (20%) of manufacturers are ISO14001-certified out of the total registered firms in the 52nd FMM directory. The firms must employ green HRM practices to foster pro-environmental behaviour and support their managers to adopt the environmental management system (EMS) framework to reap the benefits of TBL performance. To resolve these issues, sustainability has become an essential strategy for manufacturers in addressing environmental problems due to consistent ecological awareness among stakeholders that compels firms to adopt EMS and green HRM practices to foster organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment (OCBE) and improve triple bottom line (TBL) performance. This research aimed to investigate the impact of the EMS on TBL performance through green HRM practices and OCBE via a serial mediation approach among ISO14001-certified manufacturing firms. A quantitative methodology was employed based on a positivist paradigm. The sample of 350 respondent firms was randomly targeted via standard questionnaires. Around 248 manufacturers responded with a response rate of 70%, which is sufficient for data analysis. After outliers and normality assessment, the clean data of 216 manufacturers were finally analysed using SmartPLS 4.0. Structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis revealed that EMS is positively related to OCBE, and OCBE is positively associated with TBL. EMS is positively related to green HRM practices, and green HRM practices are positively associated with OCBE. Furthermore, it was confirmed that green HRM practices and OCBE serially mediated the relationship between EMS and TBL performance among ISO14001-certified manufacturing firms. The current study also presents vital organizational and managerial implications.