Purpose: The environmental sustainability of manufacturing firms may begin with employees' green initiatives. Consequently, there is a need to examine how green human resource management (GHRM) promotes green creativity among manufacturing employees. This study aims to ascertain whether manufacturing employees' environmental-felt responsibility (EFR) and work engagement with eco-initiatives (WEEI) serve as a serial mediation mechanism for the relationship between GHRM and green creativity. Further, the quality of green communication (QGC) moderated the link of GHRM with EFR and WEEI.Design/methodology/approach: The data were garnered from 408 managers in Pakistani manufacturing firms and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.Findings: The findings revealed a significant and positive association of GHRM with green creativity, EFR and WEEI. Similarly, EFR and WEEI demonstrated significant and positive relationships with green creativity. Furthermore, EFR and WEEI mediated the relationship between GHRM and green creativity. Moreover, this relationship was also serially mediated by EFR and WEEI. Additionally, QGC moderated the relationship of GHRM with EFR and WEEI.Originality/value: Anchored on the self-determination theory integrated with a resource-based view, this study provides novel empirical evidence by investigating the mechanisms and boundary conditions between GHRM and green creativity nexus.

This research investigates the antecedents of employee engagement in Pakistan’s banks to conceptualize the idea of employee engagement. For this, the study examines the relationship between transformational leadership (TL), despotic leadership (DL), and the mediation of psychological distress (PD) with an outcome variable, employee engagement (EE). The study focused on first-line bank managers based in Punjab province using a cluster sampling technique. A questionnaire survey was used, and 341 respondents were selected for analysis using PLS-SEM. The study’s findings confirmed that all seven hypotheses tested were statistically significant. The results revealed that the transforming role of transformational leadership is more effective than despotic leadership in promoting employee engagement. The indirect link of psychological distress between transformational leadership, despotic leadership, and employee engagement also acts vice versa. The current study findings have implications for advancing our understanding of the effects of transformational leadership because of their positivity, which can reduce psychological distress and increase employee engagement in the service sector. In contrast, despotic leadership undermines employees’ abilities by increasing psychological distress and disengagement among employees. Our findings will help the banking industry understand how despotic and transformational leadership can negatively and positively affect employee outcomes.

The implementation of green initiatives by hospitality employees can significantly enhance the environmental sustainability of hospitality firms. However, there is a lack of research exploring the mechanisms influencing hospitality employees’ green innovative work behavior (GIWB). Through the mediation paths of green soft talent management (GSTM) and green hard talent management (GHTM), this study seeks to investigate how entrepreneurial leadership promotes GIWB. The data from 366 employees and managers in Pakistan’s hospitality industry were collected through a survey method using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that the effects of entrepreneurial leadership on GIWB, the direct effects of GSTM and GHTM, and the interaction effects between entrepreneurial leadership and GIWB are substantial. Based on the upper echelons theory and the resource-based view concept, this study extends research on the leadership–GIWB macro nexus and increases our understanding of the mechanisms behind employee GIWB, particularly in the hospitality setting.

Purpose: The study advances research on the high-performance work system (HPWS) and innovation performance (IP) linkage by empirically analyzing the serial mediation of human resource flexibility (HRF) and knowledge absorptive capacity (KAC). Previous research on the HPWS–IP linkage underscores the presence of a “black box.” Therefore, the present study aims to unravel the underexplored HPWS–IP relationship through HRF and KAC mediation in the context of the hotel industry. Design/methodology/approach: Survey-based time-lagged data were collected from 303 mid-level managers in the hotel industry. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using Smart-PLS 4 was used to test hypothesized relationships. Findings: The results reveal that HPWS has a significant positive direct relationship with innovation performance, human resource flexibility and knowledge absorptive capacity. Further, both human resource flexibility and knowledge absorptive capacity also serially mediate the HPWS–IP linkage. Practical implications: The results of the study provide useful insights into the hotel industry in Pakistan by offering empirical evidence that building HPWS in the hotel sector can lead to increased human resource flexibility and enhanced knowledge absorptive capacity, ultimately contributing to improved innovation performance. Originality/value: Notably, human resource flexibility and knowledge absorptive capacity together as dynamic capabilities represent a novel contribution rarely discussed in the literature, particularly their role as serial mediators between HPWS–IP relationships within the hotel industry.

Achieving sustainable competitive advantage has become increasingly complex amid intense global environmental pressures. While leadership is widely recognized as an enabler of competitiveness, little is known about how top management's green inclusive leadership fosters sustainable competitive advantage through dynamic organizational capabilities such as green shared vision and green mindfulness. Drawing on the natural resource-based view, we theorize that top management's green inclusive leadership strengthens sustainable competitive advantage in manufacturing firms through these capabilities and that internal corporate social responsibility communication reinforces these effects. Data were collected in two waves from a purposive sample of 215 middle-level managers working in Pakistan's manufacturing sector and analyzed using PROCESS macro models in SPSS. We found that green inclusive leadership directly predicts sustainable competitive advantage, and that green mindfulness, but not green shared vision, mediates this relationship. We also identify a sequential pathway in which green inclusive leadership enhances green shared vision, which subsequently fosters green mindfulness, thereby improving sustainable competitive advantage. Crucially, this sequential mediation is stronger when internal corporate social responsibility communication is high, underscoring the role of communication as a strategic organizational capability. By integrating leadership, vision, mindfulness, and communication, this study advances the natural resource-based view and demonstrates how sustainability messages shared within organizations deepen employee engagement with leadership-driven environmental strategies.