Purpose: Green or environmental human resource management (HRM) has in recent years attracted much attention from academia and practitioners all over the world. However, a thorough analysis of green or environmental HRM has not been made so far. To address this gap, the present study provides a systematic and comprehensive literature review. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to review Green HRM literature of various scopes, approaches and contexts; to identify different focus areas in the Green HRM literature; and to propose areas for future research. Design/methodology/approach: The paper follows a systematic literature review approach. The selected journal articles are categorized on the basis of five focus areas in the Green HRM derived from the extant literature. Findings: Research has grown significantly over the past 12 years that has focused on Green HRM. A total of 70 articles were reviewed and most of these articles employed quantitative method and were carried out in developing countries. Based on the five focus areas identified in this literature review, the performance outcome of Green HRM at both the organizational level and individual level received the greatest attention from the researchers. Research limitations/implications: This paper is limited to a review of academic articles obtainable from online databases, containing the words “Green human resource management”, “Green HRM”, “Green human resource”, “Environmental HRM”, “Green training” and “Environmental training” in the title. Additionally, only papers from high quality, peer-reviewed journals were evaluated. Other academic sources such as books and conference papers were not included in this study. Originality/value: The paper presents a structural overview of 70 peer-reviewed articles published in leading academic journals from 2007 until early 2019. This review provides an increased understanding of the existing state of current research, trends and future research directions in the Green HRM discipline.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between top management commitment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and green human resource management (GHRM).Design/methodology/approach: A self-administered questionnaire was adopted to perform a systematic collection of data from manufacturing and service organisations in Malaysia. The partial least squares method was used for the conceptual framework of the study.Findings: The observed findings indicate a significant positive relationship between top management commitment and CSR, as well all dimensions of GHRM. However, counterintuitively, the relationship between CSR and GHRM was found not to be as significant as expected (except for CSR and green analysis/job description), which can be explained through the emerging perspective that CSR and HRM should be linked.Research limitations/implications: The findings provide insights as to the nature of GHRM and how it is affected by CSR and top management commitment in an emerging economy – in this particular study, Malaysia. Moreover, the observed results highlight the crucial importance of top management commitment in implementing GHRM practices and CSR efficiently in order to create positive environmental performance.Originality/value: The authors believe that, to date, no study has explored the links between top management commitment, CSR and GHRM using empirical data from Malaysia, as well as that this research is an important emerging topic for researchers, academicians and practitioners.