The notion of GHRM varies due to its diversified scope and perspective (Al Ketbi and Rice, 2024). GHRM is concerned with various green practices when business entities perform HRM activities (Rana and Arya, 2024). GHRM practices are considered a critical approach to embedding sustainability into various operations and strategies of the business organization (Jabbour and de Sousa Jabbour, 2016). GHRM practices shape employees’ behaviors, skills, and values, which are necessary for supporting organizational green activities and outcomes (Renwick et al., 2013; Jabbour and de Sousa Jabbour, 2016). Based on the review of existing theories and models it is argued that GHRM practices enhance employees’ contribution to the SEP of an organization. These arguments confirm the assumptions of the RBV e.g., and suggest that GHRM practices ensure the development of inimitable and valuable human resources that enable organizations to achieve sustainable objectives. Moreover, GHRM practices support SEP through the efficient use of organization’s existing resources and adoption of circular economy principles (Sahan et al., 2025). GHRM enables organizations to incorporate innovative strategies and develop sustainable green operational processes to respond to environmental change and attain SEP (Shoaib et al., 2025).

GHRM practices can be considered an integral component of strategic decision-making to enhance environmental performance (Correia et al., 2024). GHRM practices promote EP, by integrating green HR practices into operations, thereby facilitating the acquisition of environmental knowledge and the adoption of novel ideas that support SEP (Ojo et al., 2022). According to Nisar et al. (2021) these HRM activities include green hiring, green training, green performance management, and green compensation. Recently, environmental concerns have changed the stakeholders’ views regarding the transformation of traditional HRM activities to GHRM practices (Al-Romeedy and Alharethi, 2025). As a result, new concepts e.g., GHRM have emerged as a planned and strategic approach, mainly concerned with green strategies and business operations that ensure environmental protection (Pooja and Bhavani, 2025). GHRM practices are concerned with the execution of green HR practices that ensure the employees’ participation for the safety of natural resources (Tang et al., 2018).

Hypothesis 1. GHRM practices positively predict SEP.

Due to dynamic environmental challenges, business organizations particularly hospitality and tourism sector cannot ignore the strategic importance of GHRM practices in recent decade (Al-Romeedy and Alharethi, 2025). GHRM practices involve integrating green aspects into HRM processes to improve the natural environment (Mo et al., 2025; Lee and Ahn, 2025). Simply, GHRM practices major concern is to emphasize green and innovative HRM practices that respond to environmental challenges and address stakeholder pressures. Due to stakeholder pressures, emerging polices and environmental laws business organizations are bound to incorporate green strategies as part of their strategic planning (Jiang et al., 2025). Existing literature has significantly recognized the role of GHRM for the execution of green practices that ensure the employees’ stance towards creativity (Ren et al., 2018). Existing literature in the field of innovation management deliberated on the role of GHRM for innovation (Shoaib et al., 2025).

GI refers to practices implemented by organizations to improve the natural environment while achieving the basic objectives and gaining environmental benefits (Al-Ayed, 2024). Existing studies have suggested the role of HRM for the improvement of employees’ creative thinking with acquired knowledge and skills, which promote the innovation process of an organization (Seeck and Diehl, 2017; Zhou et al., 2024). Based on existing literature and theoretical deliberation, we argue that GHRM practices positively influence GI. For instance, green hiring one of the components of GHRM improves the organization’s attractiveness regarding the environmental concerns (Wagner, 2013). Environmental knowledge of employees enables them to create new ideas for the improvement of organizational environmental management, which in turn ensure the GI. GHRM practices like green hiring ensure the active participation of employees in green environmental practices to improve GI (Renwick et al., 2013).

The second component of GHRM i.e., green training and development enables the employees to acquire the knowledge, abilities, and skills necessary for the involvement in creativity and innovation (Chowhan, 2016). Green training provides opportunity to gain insights into the organization’s environmental stance (Longoni et al., 2014), such information and knowledge play an important role in generating novel ideas for green operational processes that enhance the GI (Chen and Chang, 2013). Furthermore, green involvement and development activities promote pro-environmental behavior, ensuring the effective utilization of employees’ green skills and knowledge, thereby improving GI (DuBois and Dubois, 2012). The third GHRM practices i.e., green performance management and rewards ensure the alignment of workforce behavior towards organizational environmental management and goals (Guerci et al., 2016). According to Renwick et al. (2013), green performance management plays an important role in the improvement of employee commitment towards the protection of natural environment, and improves their willingness to participate in GI activities.

Finally, the existing literature on HRM confirms that HRM systems play a positive and significant role in the attainment of innovation activities of an organization (Chowhan, 2016), which suggests that complementary HR practices have a strategic and influential role in the participation of employee’ towards innovation activities of an organization instead of individual HR practices. Therefore, in this study we consider green hiring, training and development, rewards and performance management as three dimensions of GHRM practices as a whole, which in turn facilitate for GI. GHRM practices facilitate for the promotion of workforce motivation, ability and opportunities, thereby improving their unique understanding of GI. Therefore, we formulated that:

Hypothesis 2. GHRM practices positively predicted GI.

Most existing research findings suggest a link between GHRM practices and productivity, competitive performance and innovation of an organization (Lin et al., 2024; Al Ketbi and Rice, 2024), and are regarded as a vital and essential element in the progress of a firm in terms of creativity, performance and getting a competitive edge (Shafaei and Nejati, 2024). Different techniques and technological innovations have played their part in the transformation of traditional way of HRM to GHRM (Shah et al., 2024; Abedin et al., 2024). The development and improvement in GHRM have been significant and contributed significantly towards improvement of the organization’s performance (Correia et al., 2024). However, empirical findings suggest that the competitive edge offered by implementing green practices remains limited and underexplored. One major factor is the lack of understanding at all organizational levels regarding how processes, procedures and operations provide a competitive performance edge and in terms of the procedures by which such investments can be made in GHRM practices. However, one striking fact is that an increasing number of companies are exploring new avenues in green business practices, whereas, research on the fabrication of GHRM in organizations is quite rare and little knowledge is available on which HRM practices of an organization should be strengthened and leveraged to innovate and improve environmental performance (Rana and Arya, 2024). GI is concerned with the practices and operational activities that are novel and beyond the usual processes and supports the safety and sustainability of natural environment (Zhou et al., 2024). In the recent decades, creativity and innovation have played a vital role in the successes of business organizations (Song et al., 2023).

Organizations adopt various GHRM practices that enable the business firms to develop the capabilities of employees for the enhancement of environment and also enhance their green knowledge and abilities that ensure the GI. Existing studies deliberated on the notion of GHRM mechanism of business organizations for the improvement of environmental and GI; however, limited studies explained the indirect effect. Limited studies deliberated on the connection between GHRM practices and EP; however, some researchers e.g., Hameed et al. (2020) and Raza et al. (2022), examined indirect relationship of these constructs. Therefore, the aim of this research was to explain the clear connection between GHRM practices, GI and SEP.

A previous study provided that an organization with continuous and updated green strategic decisions regarding the GHRM increases the formulation of innovation strategies (Song and Yu, 2018). GI mechanism promoted with the implementation of sound green HR activities regarding the green environment. Existing study suggested the role of HRM for the improvement of employees’ creative thinking with acquired knowledge and skills, which promote the innovation process of an organization (Awwad Al-Shammari et al., 2022). GHRM practices are mainly concerned with the improvement of environmental knowledge and sensitivity among organizational members and alignment of existing HR resources to improve the environment and well-being of human beings (Al-Romeedy and Alharethi, 2025). Business organization adopts GHRM practices in order to enhance employee capabilities essential for creativity and GI activities (Zhou et al., 2024).

The existing study in the context of circular economy suggested that GI gains strategic significance for the survival of the organization in today’s dynamic business world (Seman et al., 2019). Reason behind this strategic importance is GHRM practices that ensure the positive contribution of business entities towards the protection of natural resources (Raza and Khan, 2022).

It is obvious that for the achievement of SEP business organization needs GI (Shoaib et al., 2025). The process of GHRM depends on a series of green practices that are necessary for the safety of natural environment (Sahan et al., 2025). Therefore, SEP can be attained with green strategies, i.e., GI, which can be effectively established with the help of GHRM practices (Jiang et al., 2025). With the help of GI organizations are able to enhance the EP (Ojo et al., 2022). GI mechanism is an essential source for the SEP through the execution of GHRM practices (Aftab et al., 2022; Saudi et al., 2019).

Hypothesis 3. GI positively predicted SEP.

Hypothesis 4. GI positively mediated the link between GHRM and SEP.

GI ensures green innovative activities, on the other hand, enviropreneurship is the tendency of top management towards the environmental concerns and social well-being of communities (Thoo et al., 2014). This tendency provides a foundation for the incorporation and execution of innovative green activities (Moghimi and Alambeigi, 2013). Yasir et al. (2020) suggested that management’s environmental stance has a positive role in shaping the green HR strategies in innovative ways. Therefore, enviropreneurship means that management continuously gains updated knowledge regarding the environmental concerns of various stakeholders, which strengthens the GHRM practices and GI link positively (Song et al., 2023). Enviropreneurship is the management capability towards the understanding of various societal and environmental information and awareness (Nassani et al., 2023), which ensures the incorporation of green HR strategies in strategic planning of business concerns (Mukonza and Swarts, 2020). Business entities with enviropreneurship stance are able to participate in GI activities, due to updated information regarding environmental changes. Enviropreneurship ensures the configuration of GHRM practices into GI strategies. Therefore, in this study we assumed that enviropreneurship play a moderating role on the GHRM practices and GI link:

Hypothesis 5: Enviropreneurship positively moderates the link between GHRM practices and GI.

Fig. 1 shows the direct path from GHRM practices to GI and SEP. Also the indirect path from GHRM practices to SEP with mediating role of GI. Furthermore, the moderating role of enviropreneurship is also depicted in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Conceptual model and hypotheses of the research.

The measurement items were based on previous studies relating to the GHRM practices, GI, enviropreneurship and SEP. All the measures were adopted from the work of previous researchers.

GHRM practices are used as a predictor of GI and SEP. The measurement scale was used to record the responses of frontline managers regarding the formulation and coordination regarding green HR practices. We adopted the measures of GHRM practices based on 18 items with their four dimensions developed by Masri and Jaaron (2017) and Jabbour (2011).

SEP is measured with 03 items formulated by Jabbour and de Sousa Jabbour (2016). Respondents were asked about the EP of the organization.

GI was used as a mediating variable in the current study. GI measure consists of two dimensions, with 07 items scale developed by Chen et al. (2006). The enviropreneurship is used as a moderating variable on the connection between GHRM practices and GI. The construct of enviropreneurship is measured using 05 items scale formulated and used by Menguc and Ozanne (2005) for the measurement of enviropreneurship. Table 2 contains the measurement items for the study constructs.

Table 3 presents the results of the CFA model and indicating that it is an appropriate model of research variables. Our research hypothesis 4-factor model was best model and showed keys are $\chi$² = 1056.87, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.93, goodness of fit index (GFI) = 0.92, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.05, showing the overall model capability in Table 3. All values were significant meeting the threshold levels.

In the survey-based data collection procedure, common method bias (CMB) becomes a serious issue. Due to self-reported measures in the current study we conducted Harman’s single factor test using SPSS with exploratory factor analysis to calculate the degree of CMB. These outcomes confirmed that CMB and risk of inflated correlation are not a serious issue for the current study.

For the current study we also test the multicollinearity, to ensure that independent variables are not highly correlated. In the presence of a multicollinearity problem, it becomes difficult to examine the individual prediction of each construct. In the current study multicollinearity is not a serious issue as the coefficients of correlation among independent variables are less than 0.80. Moreover, the variance inflation factor (VIF) values were also calculated for testing the multicollinearity. The values of VIF for study constructs were below the acceptable threshold of 5, which shows no multicollinearity. Finally, collected data were tested for construct validity and reliability. Table 4 shows the findings of reliability and validity test.

Table 5 contained the results of correlation among study variables. The findings revealed that GHRM practice has significant direction towards GI (0.43*), enviropreneurship (0.39*), and SEP (0.41*). Moreover, the correlation statistics also confirmed that GI has a positive direction towards SEP (0.45*).

Before testing the study hypotheses, we confirmed the research model for reverse causality or endogeneity. To draw accurate causal inferences of GHRM practices, we applied a one-period lag of GHRM practices and re-estimated our regression using lagged values of GHRM as a predictor. The outcomes revealed that GHRM (t-1) remained substantial and coefficient of GHRM practices remained significant and positive with a significant value (p 0.001), supporting the study’s causal claim.

The formulated hypotheses of this study were tested with the help of SEM approach. Table 6 shows the statistics relating to the direct paths of the conceptual framework. Study hypotheses 1 to 3 show the direct association among the study constructs. H1 represents the direct path from GHRM practices to SEP. The path coefficients (0.40**) confirmed that GHRM practices significantly predict SEP, hence we accept the H1. The study H2 presented that GHRM practices positively predicted the GI. The path coefficients (0.42**) confirmed that GHRM practices significantly predict GI, hence we accept the H2. Moreover, H3 represents the direct path from GI to SEP. The path coefficients (0.44**) confirmed that GHRM practices significantly predict SEP, hence we accept the H3.

Hypothesis 4 represents the mediation effect of GI on the connection between GHRM practices and SEP. H4 represents that GI positively intervenes between the connection of GHRM practices and SEP. The coefficient shown in Table 7 confirmed the mediation effect of GI, i.e., GHRM practices $\to$ GI $\to$ SEP (0.22), hence we accept H4.

In order to address potential endogeneity among GHRM practices, GI and SEP, we applied Durbin-Wu-Hausman (DWH) test. This robustness test outcomes are reported in Table 8. The statistics of DWH confirmed that GHRM practices are endogenous ($\chi$² = 6.34, p = 0.003), possibly due to some of the firm’s unobserved characteristics that may affect HRM practices and SEP. On the other hand, DWH statistic for GI is insignificant ($\chi$² = 1.90, p = 0.145), suggesting no endogeneity. The findings of DWH justify the application of instrumental variable (IV) estimation for GHRM practices.

After DWH test for assessing the endogeneity of the study constructs’, which indicated endogeneity of GHRM practices, we re-estimated the structural model using IV regression. Regional green policy intensity was selected as an instrument, as it probably affects the adoption of GHRM practices. The findings of IV regression confirmed the robustness of base line outcomes generated for study model. The findings revealed that GHRM practices ($\beta$ = 0.289, p 0.01) and GI ($\beta$ = 0.203, p 0.01) are the significant predictors of SEP. Overall, robustness tests strengthen confidence that the observed effects of GHRM practices and GI on SEP are not driven by endogeneity.

The current study H5 represents the strengthening role of enviropreneurship on the association between GHRM practices and GI. Table 9 presents the findings of hierarchical regression that confirm the moderation of enviropreneurship. We entered control variables in model 1, then added independent and moderating variables in model 2, and finally entered the interaction term, i.e., GHRM practices $\times$ enviropreneurship in model 3. Table 9 shows the statistics for the interaction term, i.e., GHRM practices $\times$ enviropreneurship (0.21*), hence we accept H5.

In addition to hierarchical regression we also conducted slope analysis for testing the moderating effect of enviropreneurship. The outcomes presented in Fig. 2 that confirmed the significant coefficient for the interaction term, i.e., GHRM practices $\times$ enviropreneurship, hence we accept H5.

Fig. 2.

Slope analysis for the interaction of GHRM practices and enviropreneurship.

The current study significantly contributes to the existing literature on GHRM, as we adopted a moderated mediation model. Existing studies have only considered direct and linear associations among GHRM practices, GI and SEP. At first glance results that are derived from the research, suggest that if the tourism industry encourages sustainable green practices like GHRM (including green hiring, green training, green performance management and green compensation) it has a great influence on GI and SEP. The main focus of the research is on the GHRM practices, GI, enviropreneurship and SEP. The findings add to the previous works of the research done from the perspective of direct effect of GHRM practices for GI. This study contributes to existing body of knowledge and theory of GHRM, with the insertion of mediation of GI between GHRM practices and SEP.

Moreover, the current study is one of the few to test GHRM-GI-SEP model in the contexts of second tire cities of China. These selected cities represent rapidly developing and unexplored context regarding the efforts for sustainable green and environmental outcomes. The Chinese government made efforts for the development of hospitality sector based on “two-mountain theory” that certifies the green and environmental transformation (Huang et al., 2024). Two-mountain theory planned by Xi Jinping, offers guidelines for the adoption of green practices for the attainment of environmental sustainability in the context of China’s ecological governance. Furthermore, international sustainability frameworks, e.g., United Nations, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Two Mountains Theory heighten environmental stewardship, but the China’s environmental approach is based on normative governance, centralized formation and integrated with national ideology (Zhang et al., 2021). Existing studies (including the cited works) explored the connection among these constructs contribute to the existing literature as the existing studies such as Azam and Jamil (2024) and Shah and Soomro (2023), focused on manufacturing and SMEs sectors of Middle Eastern and South Asian economies.

The study in hand contributes to the existing body of knowledge as we formulate and test a research model that represents the prediction of GHRM practices for SEP which has enriched the understanding of unexplored consequences of GHRM practices mechanisms from the perspective of Two Mountains Theory. Moreover, the mediation role of GI advances the perception of management to formulate and incorporate green HR activities in their processes to enhance the environmental and innovation performance.

Finally, the findings of this study counterpart the literature on enviropreneurship, as very little work has been done in the past literature. Therefore, this research has projected new ways for enhancing the GHRM practices and GI of tourism industry with the mechanism of GI and enviropreneurship.

The current study suggested various implications for the management of tourism concerns. The findings revealed that management should consider the green HR practices including green hiring, green training, green performance management and green rewards to achieve innovation in green practices and EP. Given value and preferences to these sustainable green practices management should improve SEP. To achieve SEP, management should consider the GHRM practices from the perspective GI and must be made compulsory and environmental-based. Therefore, management of tourism sector must focus on the GHRM practices for developing employees’ understanding regarding the ecological issues.

Management perception and awareness regarding social well-being and protection of natural environment affect the decision making. Management should incorporate necessary green practices adjustments in their strategic HR planning process that is aligned with the improvement of GI. Based on these adjustments management is able to respond to environmental changes and improve SEP. Management should formulate and incorporate eco-friendly practices that ensure the ecological performance as per the demands of various stakeholders in order to promote the green activities that can be made on a high level to derive sustainability in EP.

Although the current study has several contributions to the existing body of knowledge and particularly in the context of tourism concerns, there are some limitations. Previous studies have focused on numerous factors related to SEP, including business networks, organizational learning, and organizational structure. The current study used a single-informant approach, which could mitigate potential problems. However, multiple responses from a single enterprise are essential for the validity of results. In the study, we examined GHRM practices by exploring its four sub-dimensions, which could be further enhanced in the future. The data taken for this study were cross-sectional, and they may be analyzed longitudinally in the future. Additional avenues for future research based on this study include exploring the developmental process of GHRM practices by examining all dimensions. In the future, other outcomes of GHRM practices should be analyzed, such as social responsibility and digital environmental performance. In the digitalization, in fact, exploring and integrating environmental performance and social responsibility are essential for fostering innovation, maintaining competitive advantage, and ensuring sustainable protection of natural environment. Organizations that effectively manage these elements are better positioned to adapt to changes, seize new opportunities, and drive long-term success and SEP. Finally, this study also showed age and sample representativeness limitations. These demographic variations could potentially influence the generalization of the study findings and external validity of the observed associations. Therefore, future studies should consider the diverse demographic characteristics across age groups, gender and industries to ensure validity and broader application of the conclusions.