Green Human Resource Management and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Mediating Role of Environmental Commitment in Thailand's Private Sector

Abstract

Aim/Purpose: This study investigated how Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) practices shape Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) among employees in Thailand's private sector. Four GHRM dimensions—green recruitment and selection, green training and development, green performance management, and green pay and practices—were tested for their direct effects on extra-role environmental citizenship behavior to see whether environmental commitment mediated the relationship between GHRM practices and in-role behavior, clarifying the psychological mechanisms through which organizational green HR initiatives translate into voluntary employee behaviors.

Introduction/Background: Thailand’s rapid industrialization intensifies tensions between economic development and environmental preservation. Air pollution, inadequate waste management, and ecosystem degradation threaten public health and long-term economic sustainability, compelling organizations to embed environmental responsibility into core practices. GHRM has emerged as a strategic response, integrating environmental objectives across talent acquisition, competency development, performance evaluation, and reward systems. Despite growing global scholarly interest, empirical work remains concentrated in Western and Chinese contexts, leaving Southeast Asian countries like Thailand largely underexplored. Existing research has frequently tested only direct GHRM–behavior relationships, neglecting the intervening psychological processes that may explain them, and has disproportionately studied public sector organizations while the environmentally consequential private sector has received comparatively limited attention. This study addresses these intersecting gaps by examining GHRM’s influence on OCB through the mediating lens of environmental commitment, drawing on social exchange theory and the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework as theoretical anchors.

Methodology: A cross-sectional quantitative survey was administered to 288 full-time private sector employees across manufacturing, services, retail, information technology, and financial services industries in Bangkok. Participants were recruited through HR managers at 10 mid-to-large-sized firms supplemented by professional network channels. Eligibility required full-time employment of at least 35 hours weekly, at least six months' organizational tenure, and age of 18 or older. A priori power analysis confirmed that 288 respondents would provide statistical power exceeding .80 to detect medium effect sizes. Self-administered questionnaires assessed GHRM practices across four validated subscales, environmental commitment using four items adapted from Raineri and Paillé (2016), and OCB through in-role and extra-role subscales adapted from Podsakoff et al. (2000) on 5-point Likert scales. Back-translation procedures ensured semantic equivalence of Thai-language items, and pilot testing confirmed acceptable reliability (Cronbach's α > .70) across all scales. Data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 24.0 with a two-step structural equation modeling approach, and bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) was used to generate bias-corrected confidence intervals for indirect effects.

Findings: Measurement model assessment confirmed strong reliability (composite reliability: .899–.959), convergent validity (AVE: .748–.825), and discriminant validity (all HTMT ratios < .85). The structural model achieved acceptable fit (CFI = .94; TLI = .93; RMSEA = .06; SRMR = .058). Green recruitment and selection (β = .450, p < .001) and green training and development (β = .317, p < .05) significantly predicted environmental OCB, while green performance management (β = .044, p = .738) and green pay and rewards (β = .114, p = .460) produced non-significant results. The same two effective practices also significantly enhanced environmental commitment—green recruitment and selection (β = .412, p < .01) and green training and development (β = .289, p < .05)—whereas performance management and reward practices showed no significant effects. Environmental commitment demonstrated a significant positive relationship with in-role behavior (β = .308, p < .001).

Mediation analysis revealed that environmental commitment significantly mediated the green recruitment and selection–in-role behavior relationship (indirect effect = .127, 90% CI [.068, .186], p = .001) and green training and development–in-role behavior relationship (indirect effect = .089, 90% CI [.026, .152], p = .019). However, environmental commitment did not significantly mediate the green performance management–in-role behavior relationship or the green pay and reward practices–in-role behavior relationship; this suggested that evaluation and reward practices may influence in-role behavior through alternative mechanisms. These differential patterns indicated that upstream GHRM practices emphasizing values alignment and competency development more effectively cultivate citizenship behaviors than downstream evaluation and incentive mechanisms, a finding consistent with Thailand's collectivist cultural orientation, wherein internalized group norms outweigh individually targeted appraisal and monetary incentives.

Contribution/Impact on Society: This research extends social exchange theory and the AMO framework to environmental management in a developing economy, establishing environmental commitment as a critical psychological transmission mechanism linking green HR practices to discretionary employee behavior. By disaggregating GHRM dimensions and situating findings within Thailand’s cultural and institutional context, the study advances sustainable HRM theory and provides managers with actionable, evidence-based guidance for simultaneously strengthening environmental performance and organizational effectiveness.

Recommendations: Organizations should prioritize green recruitment by embedding environmental criteria in hiring procedures and articulating sustainability commitments in job postings. Environmental training should build awareness, competencies, and values through experiential and collaborative methods. Environmental commitment should be cultivated through leadership modeling, transparent communication about environmental performance, and employee participation in green decision-making. Performance management and reward mechanisms require substantive redesign incorporating meaningful, consistently applied environmental criteria. GHRM strategies should reflect both industry-specific requirements and the cultural values prevalent in Thai workplaces.

Research Limitations: Three principal limitations warrant consideration. The cross-sectional design precluded causal inference. Exclusive reliance on self-reported measures raises concerns about common method bias and social desirability effects, despite procedural and statistical mitigation efforts. Convenience sampling concentrated in Bangkok limits generalizability to Thailand’s broader private sector. The exclusive focus on environmental commitment as a mediator also overlooked alternative psychological mechanisms—such as green self-efficacy and organizational identification—that may account for additional explained variance in OCB.

Future Research: Longitudinal designs would strengthen causal claims, while multi-source data incorporating supervisor ratings and objective environmental metrics—such as energy consumption and waste reduction—would reduce method variance. Probability sampling across diverse industries and regions would improve external validity. Multilevel modeling could reveal how organizational climate and leadership moderate GHRM effectiveness. Future studies should test expanded mediator models and conduct cross-cultural comparisons to determine whether findings may be generalized beyond Thailand's specific cultural and institutional context.