Environmentally specific transformational leadership and green product development performance: the role of a green HRM system

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-05-2020-0223
• Published date: 28 July 2021
• Date: 28 July 2021
• Pages: 639-659
• Subject Matter: Economics,Labour economics
• Author: Jiaqi Yan,Wenan Hu

Environmentally specific

transformational leadership and

green product development

performance: the role of a green

HRM system

Jiaqi Yan

School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China, and

Wenan Hu

Shandong Institute of Talent Development Strategy, Shandong University,

Jinan, China

Abstract

Purpose –Green product development is a pivotal way to achieve environmental sustainability.The purpose

of this paper is to theorize and empirically test how environmentally specific leadership enhances the green

product development performance from the perspective of the HRM system. In this regard, the authors

investigate the mediating role of the strength of the HRM system to change with regard to the relationship

between environmentally specific leadership and green product development performance. For a substantial

explanation of the boundary condition, the authors investigate the moderating role of the green HRM on the

relationship between environmentally specific transformational leadership and the strength of the HRM

system.

Design/methodology/approach –Based on climate strength theory, the authors use the three-wave survey

data from 362 top or middle managers in the new energy industry of China. This study uses hierarchicallinear

regression and bootstrapping method to analyze the mediated moderation effect.

Findings –Results confirm a positive effect of environmentally specific leadership and the strength of the

HRM system on green product development performance. The authors also found the mediation effect of the

strength of the HRM system and the moderation effect of green HRM are all significant.

Originality/value–This study integrates the perspectives of both content-focused HRM and process-focused

HRM and demonstrates why leadershipand the HRM system could jointly enhance green product development

performance in Asia.

Keywords Green product development performance, Environmentally specific transformational leadership,

Green HRM, Strength of the HRM system, Asia

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Resource constraints and environmental challenges have become severe limits on economic

development for many Asian countries (Ren et al., 2017). Environmental sustainability

management is now a desirable method to help Asian countries reform green models of

economic growth (Shioji et al., 2021). In the last decade, Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation

(APEC) has been leading green development and calling for environmentally friendly growth.

APEC member states have also been taking coordinated actions, such as adopting green

technologies, reducing tariffs on green production, and encouraging green trade, to react to

climate change, economic constraints and resource constraints. Green products play a critical

Green HRM

system

639

Fundings: This research was supported by grants from Natural Science Foundation of China [72002154],

The China Ministry of Education Fund Project of Humanities and Social Sciences [20YJC630042,

19YJA630125], and 2021 Postdoctoral Foundation of Northeastern University [20210311].

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0143-7720.htm

Received 16 May 2020

Revised 12 November 2020

27 March 2021

Accepted 13 June 2021

International Journal of Manpower

Vol. 43 No. 3, 2022

pp. 639-659

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0143-7720

DOI 10.1108/IJM-05-2020-0223

role in environmental sustainability management. Referring to Li et al. (2021), a green product

is a product with environmentally friendly characteristics, such as being formed or part-

formed from recycled components, having less packaging, and being manufactured in an

energy-conserving way. Accordingly, green product development performance refers to

organizational performance in developing green products. More and more enterprises are

willing to enhance green product development performance to improve environmental

sustainability (Chen et al., 2020). Improving green product development performance can help

firms achieve competitiveness, long-term success and environmental sustainability (Zhang

et al., 2020).

Prior studies found green innovation and environmentally specific transformational

leadershipcontribute to green product development performance(Chen et al.,2016;Zhou et al.,

2018).Environmentally specifictransformationalleadership, a type of environmentallyspecific

leadership, refers to a series of environment-oriented transformational leadership behaviors

that motivate subordinates to engage in environmental behaviorsand enhance environmental

performance (Robertson, 2018). To be specific, environmentally specific transformational

leadership has been found to influence green product development performance through

employees’creativity and the psychological climate (Chen et al.,2013;Zhou et al., 2018).

However,no study has explored the relationshipfrom the perspective ofthe HRM system. The

HRM system contributes to implementing environmental sustainability (Zhang et al., 2020).

Therefore, the HRM system might play a key role in the process by which environmentally

specific transformational leadership enhances green product development performance.

In the context of environmental management, green HRM focuses on enterprises’pollution

prevention (Muisyo and Qin, 2021), by delivering green selection, green performance

evaluation and green training (Tang et al., 2018). Green HRM contributes to developing green

HRM practices (Naz et al., 2021). Leaders who focused on creating and shaping corporate

environmental responsibility tend to set green development goals and motivate all the

organizational members to achieve these goal (Peng et al., 2020). Both of them lead to shared

green values across the whole organization. Ostroff and Bowen (2016) call for an integration

perspective of the HRM system and leadership as they can jointly develop a perception of

strong climate. Thus, we posit green HRM and environmentally specific transformational

leadership interactively enhance green product development performance.

Green HRM and environmentally specific transformational leadership specify what

organizational practices are sustainable and environmentally friendly (Dumont et al., 2017).

Yet, the process through which they function remains unknown. In this relationship, we posit

that both the content of organizational practices and the process of the practices are

important. Bowen and Ostroff (2004) posit that both content-focused HRM and process-

focused HRM are similarly critical. Yan et al. (2019) also support an integrated perspective of

content-focused HRM and process-focused HRM by investigating the interaction effect of

high commitment organizations and the strength of the HRM system. Content-focused HRM

focuses on the specific set of HRM practices necessary for achieving an organizational goal,

while process-focused HRM focuses on how HRM practices help organizational members

form a collective sense of what is expected. Given a strong climate perception can be jointly

developed by green HRM and environmentally specific transformational leadership, we posit

the strength of the HRM system could reflect the perception of the HRM climate with the

features of distinctiveness, consistency and consensus. This is because organizational

climate can provide a strong context when organizational members develop a shared

interpretation of organizational practices. High strength of the HRM system could form a

collective perception of what behaviors are expected and rewarded by the organization

(Bowen and Ostroff, 2004;Jia et al., 2018). Thus, we integrate content-focused HRM and

process-focused HRM to explore how environmentally specific transformational leadership

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