The Effect of Sustainable HR Practices on Sustainable Careers

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable careers comprise work experiences across one’s lifespan and intersect multiple life domains, notably work, social and family [1]. Increasing amounts of research attention have been devoted to the study of these sustainable careers. For instance, the Journal of Vocational Behaviour published in 2020 a Special Issue on the individual and context elements related to sustainable career management [2]. While researchers mention the crucial role of human resource management (HRM) and employer-supported career management in fostering employees’ productivity, health, and happiness in their careers, to date, it is has received scant research attention from scholars in the field of (sustainable) HR practices, which reflects the unfortunate state of the literature with respect to career and HRM research in general. Researchers in the field of sustainable HR practices are aligned with the sustainable development goals (SDG) established by the United Nations, and include the needs of the society and environment, in addition to striving for global competitiveness. Sustainable HR practices, also known as green HR practices, can be defined as “the adoption of HRM strategies and practices that enable the achievement of financial, social and ecological goals, with an impact inside and outside of the organization and over a long-term horizon” (p.90) [3,4]. As such, sustainable HR practices extend the long-term perspective advocated from commitment-based HR practices internally in the organization towards broader societal and global implications. Examples of sustainable HR practices are sustainable training, and sustainable compensation. While studies have examined the effect of sustainable HR practices on sustainable employee attitudes and behaviour, limited attention has been paid to the effect of sustainable HR practices on employees’ careers.

The aim of this Special Issue is to bridge the research fields of sustainable careers and sustainable HR practices so that the two fields can benefit from each other and can contribute to these, so far, mainly isolated strands of research.   

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Extending sustainable career research by including employees’ needs for taking care of environmental and societal issues in different phases of their careers (lifespan).
• The antecedents and consequences of these extended sustainable careers, and how they may change over the lifespan.
• The role of sustainable HR practices on (sustainable) employees’ careers.
• A multiple stakeholder view looking into the interplay between employees (e.g., agency) and contextual factors (e.g., sustainable HR practices) for developing sustainable careers.
• The antecedents of the adoption of sustainable HR practices.
• The choices employees make in their (sustainable) careers in relation to the sustainable HR practices of organizations.
• The attractiveness of organizations with sustainable HR practices for specific employees.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

References

1. Van der Heijden, B.I.J.M.; De Vos, A. Sustainable careers: Introductory chapter. In Handbook of Research on Sustainable Careers; De Vos, A., Van der Heijden, B., Eds.; Edwards Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, UK, 2015, pp. 1–19.
2. Van der Heijden, B.; De Vos, A.; Akkermans, A.; Spurk, D.; Semeijn, J.; Van der Velde, M.; Fugate, M. Sustainable careers across the lifespan: Moving the field forward. J. Vocat. Behav. 2020, 117, 103344.
3. Elias, A.; Sanders, K.; Hu, J. The Sustainable Human Resource Practices and Employee Outcomes Link: An HR Process Lens. Sustainability 2023, 15, 10124.
4. Ehnert, I.; Parsa, S.; Roper, I.; Wagner, M.; Muller-Camen, M. Reporting on Sustainability and HRM: A Comparative Study of Sustainability Reporting Practices by the World’s Largest Companies. Int. J. Hum. Resour. Manag. 2016, 27, 88–108.

Prof. Dr. Karin Sanders
Prof. Dr. Anders Dysvik
Dr. Bryndís Steindórsdóttir
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainable careers
• sustainable HR practices
• health
• happiness
• family
• environmental needs
• societal needs
• performance
• productivity