Green Human Resources Management in the Hotel Industry: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Green human resources management (GHRM) has proven its efficiency in many industries and services, including the hospitality and hostel industries. Additionally, applying green human resources management practices reflects an organization’s environmental awareness and responsibilities. Given that the adoption of these practices cannot be accomplished without the appropriate support from decision makers, the aim of this paper is to analyze the relationships between green human resources management and the hotel industry, identify the possible barriers they may face and provide decision makers with the ability to choose the appropriate combination of GHRM practices based on an understanding the full picture presented in this study. This study depended on a systematic review technique to analyze the scientific production in this area. A total of 59 GHRM articles were extracted from Scopus and WoS and analyzed using three primary levels of analysis. This study revealed that: (i) Green human resources management practices can be summarized into four main categories (employees, marketing systems and corporate social responsibility, leadership and management, and organizational behavior and culture); (ii) the importance of green human resources management goes beyond environmental objectives; and (iii) there are significant barriers that should be taken into consideration when applying GHRM practices in the hotel industry.

1. Introduction

Over the past few decades, environmental impacts and repercussions have become a major concern for governments, organizations, individuals, stakeholders, customers/consumers and society [1,2]. This, in turn, led to an increase in social and legal pressures to protect various environmental ecosystems. Additionally, owing to the growing awareness of environmental crises, many regulations and laws have emerged with the aim of reducing harmful impacts on the environment. This concern has become a wakeup call to various organizations to apply more effective environmental practices and increase their awareness and experience in dealing with various environmental issues [3].

In the same context, various multinational companies, such as Microsoft, Alibaba, Amazon, Virgin Group and others, started adopting plans to develop environmental technologies that produce clean energy to combat climate change. A recent study showed that in 2012, approximately 71% of TripAdvisor members, one of the largest travel websites, were making environmentally and ecofriendly choices when travelling [4].

The hotel industry is considered one of the largest global industries, which began to pay attention to environmental issues at the end of the last century [5]. This attention was a result of the significant increase in the number of tourists around the world in the past two decades. Accordingly, hotels have been subjected to critical and different pressures to take responsibility and adopt environmentally friendly practices in their various sectors, such as water and energy consumption and waste production [6]. This growing awareness of environmental practices was driven by several factors, the most important of which is that adopting environmental trends provides organizations with a competitive advantage, affects the performance of employees, spreads green culture and improves customer satisfaction, in addition to improving the financial performance of organizations (e.g., hotels) as a result of reducing waste of resources and energy [7].

Given that the hotel industry high-resource-consumption industry (e.g., energy and water), it also produces a large amount of waste, especially in the food and beverage sector [8]. Consequently, adopting environmentally friendly practices became a core pillar in many hotels to deal with operational issues and expected environmental degradation (in some cases). For example, the Hilton Worldwide chain provided an effective strategic plan with the aim of reducing its environmental footprint by half by adopting responsible supply policies and reducing energy use, water consumption, waste production and carbon emissions by 2030 [9]. Another example is the Marriott global chain, which adopted environmental policies and programs to protect the environment, resulting in a reduction in its water and energy consumption by up to 14% [10].

Green human recourses management (GHRM) is considered one of the most important indicators of an organization’s adoption of environmentally friendly trends. It is an essential part of the overall greening process, as it affects all parts of the organization, such as supply chains, production, strategies, values, culture, employee behavior, etc. [11]. GHRM is also one of the main directions adopted by hotels to mitigate the negative environmental impacts that they may cause, as it facilitates the implementation of green policies and strategies through its various practices that affect the environmental performance of the organization as a whole [12]. GHRM has a multidimensional result, including reducing resource waste, energy consumption and waste generation, as well as educating employees and customers about the importance of environmental conservation. In other words, the benefit of applying GHRM practices in hotels goes beyond the classic goal of profit to include protecting the environment and increasing green human capital [13]. It also influences employee behavior and achieves emotional organizational commitment, which increases employee loyalty to the organization and positive perceptions, encouraging them to perform their work in an excellent manner beyond their duties [14]. Additionally, GHRM practices enhance organizational commitment and improve the problem-solving skills of employees, catalyzing a cooperative spirit, as well as increasing the organization’s financial performance, service quality and customer satisfaction [15]. In summary, GHRM can be considered one of the most successful organizational tools to improve environmental performance and maintain a competitive advantage [5,7].

The role of GHRM in achieving organizational goals and supporting the strategic vision of an organization is a pivotal [16]. Thus, GHRM is defined as the set of policies, methods and strategies that motivate company employees to perform green behavior and create an environmentally compatible, resource-efficient and socially responsible work environment [17]. The importance of GHRM arises as a decision that an organization takes to transform its employees into a green form by increasing their awareness of environmental issues and inspiring them to perform environmentally conscious actions [18]. The core of the GHRM concept the development of skills and knowledge related to human capital, increasing environmental awareness and improving environmental behavior and commitment [19,20]. As human capital (employees) is the main reason for progress or decline in any organization, investing in employees, educating them and preparing them for environmental practices will eventually lead to success in implementing the desired environmental management [21].

In this context, in this study, we attempt to present a comprehensive picture of GHRM practices in the hotel industry. Additionally, we highlight the complexity of GHRM practices in terms of their relationship to the hotel industry, in addition to correcting the idea that GHRM practices are useless, costly and without added value. Furthermore, this study helps to identify how decision makers can assemble a convenient combination of practices to overcome obstacles and gain added value.

This study concept can be achieved by answering the following research questions (RQs):

• RQ1: What is the current state of publication of GHRM in the hotel industry?
• RQ2: What are the relationships between GHRM and the various hotel industry subsectors?
• RQ3: To what extent can GHRM practices be described as an indispensable objective in the hotel industry?
• RQ4: What are the main barriers/obstacles to applying GHRM practices in the hotel industry?

As a systematic review, this study starts with the Introduction section, which focuses on presenting a comprehensive view of GHRM, including a definition, its importance, objectives and threats. Then, in the Materials and Methods section, we describe the way in which data were collected, as well as the different levels of analysis used in this study. In the Results section, we focus on presenting clear findings of the different analytical levels and units, as well as presenting the main justifications for conducting these analyses. In the final section, present a deep discussion of the results and a the relationships between GHRM and the hotel industry, followed by the conclusions, implications and limitations of this study.

2. Materials and Methods

In this systematic review, we started by collecting data using the PRISMA model. The PRISMA model is considered one of the most effective ways to collect data in order to create a coherent review of the scientific literature [22]. We then conducted analysis at multiple levels to present a comprehensive systematic literature review and enhance the findings by presenting visualizations, including bibliographic shapes and figures [23].

2.1. Data Collection

The first step in the systematic review process is data collection, which involves identification of the various records/articles to be studied and investigated. The first task in this data collection stage was to determine the time frame of the search process. Accordingly, a brief definition of the term GHRM is presented below.

The concept of GHRM is a relatively recent concept. At the end of the 1990s, specifically in 1996, the relationship between human resource management and environmental management was discussed for the first time. However, the concept of GHRM as we know it today was not mentioned directly until 2008 [24]. Thereafter, the GHRM concept began gaining relative importance for researchers and academics at the beginning of 2016 [25]. Accordingly, the time frame of the search process in this study was set from 2008 (when GHRM practices were linked to the hotel industry for the first time) until the end of September 2022.

Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) are the two databases selected to search for GHRM literature. These two databases have a clear search mechanism based on an algorithm that allows for effective professional searching of the databases [26]. Scopus and WoS are the largest trustworthy literature libraries and include all details of records with an easy and distinctive search interface. Finally, these two databases are considered the most targeted databases in both systematic and meta-analysis literature review articles in various scientific fields, including tourism.

The search process required a clear search query in order to identify the relevant records that link GHRM with the hotel industry. Therefore, the following search queries were used to collect articles from the Scopus and WoS databases:

• “green” and (“HRM” or (“human” and “resource*” and “management”)) and “hotel*”
• “GHRM” OR “green human resource management” AND “hotel*”

These search queries were adapted to the “Title, Abstract and Keywords” search field in order to ensure that the collected articles are directly related to GHRM and its practices in hotels. A total of 708 research articles was collected (Scopus = 539 & WoS = 169). These 708 collected records were subjected to two refinement stages and one organization stage. Starting with the two refinement stages, named “data screening-1 & data screening-2”, duplicate articles were removed, and articles were identified based on their relevance to this study’s purpose and objectives. Regarding the organization stage, the identified articles were classified into four categories based on the relationship between GHRM and hotel industry subsectors: employees, marketing systems, leadership and management, and organizational behavior and culture.

Table 1. Summary of the criteria used in refining and organizing the systematic literature review records.

Stage	Steps	Description	Records No.
Collection	Data collection	Scopus database (169) + WoS database (539)	708
Refinement	Data screening-1	Extract articles and remove duplications	218
	Data screening-2	Categorize articles based on their relevance to the study purpose and objectives	59
Organization	Extract, organize and categorize	Classify articles into four main categories	59

details these refinement and organization stages.

2.2. Analysis Levels

The extracted data were subjected to three main analysis levels, namely basic information, basic content and deep content analysis (see

Table 2. Systematic review levels of analysis and units of analysis.

Level of Analysis	Unit of Analysis
Basic Information Analysis	Scientific Production Analysis
	Source Analysis
	Record-Type Analysis
	Field-of-Study Analysis
Basic Content Analysis	Study Sample Level/Type Analysis
	Country Case Studies
	Keyword Analysis
Deep Content Analysis	GHRMp and Hotel Industry Relationships

). First, the basic information analysis level focused on answering the first previously mentioned research question (RQ1) by identifying the state of publication with respect to GHRM and the hotel industry. This analysis level includes five main analysis units: scientific production analysis, source analysis, record-type analysis and field-of-study analysis. Secondly, basic content analysis focused on answering the first and second research questions (RQ1 and RQ2) by identifying the main concepts of publications, as well as determining the relationships that structure this research area (GHRM and the hotel industry). The basic content analysis level consisted of three main analysis units: study sample level/type analysis, case study country analyses and keyword analysis. Thirdly, the deep content analysis level focused on answering the second, third and fourth research questions (RQ2, RQ3 and RQ4) by investigating the relationship between GHRM and the hotel industry and structuring it into four main categories. Additionally, at this analytical level, the barriers to applying GHRM practices in the hotel industry were identified. This deep content analysis level consisted of only one analytical unit, i.e., GHRM practices (GHRMp) and hotel industry relationships. Table 2 illustrates the various levels of analysis used in this study.

3. Results

Figure 1 shows the PRISMA diagram (Preferred Reporting Items for Systemic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) for the data collection process [27], starting with data extraction from Scopus and WoS and ending with the final dataset after multiple screening and refinement steps. A total of 59 documents were analyzed in this study.

3.1. The Basic Information Analysis Level

The basic information analysis level introduces general information about the selected records, such as annual scientific production, source analysis, article-type analysis and field-of-study analysis.

3.1.1. Scientific Production Analysis

The quantity of academic publications over the last five years shows how GHRM practices in the hotel industry have evolved and attracted attention over time. This, in turn, reflects the importance of GHRM in the hotel industry (see Figure 2). According to Figure 2, generally, the trend of GHRN practices in hotels has grown in the past four years. The number of publications (NP) discussing the use of GHRM in hotels increased significantly from 2019 (NP = 6) to 2020 (NP = 17), with a 183% growth rate. Additionally, the number of publications (NP) reached its peak in 2022, with 19 published articles.

3.1.2. Source Analysis

In general, the total selected articles were published in 36 different journals/sources, which reflects the association of this scientific trend with a wide number of fields and specializations. By analyzing the top 10 sources presented in

Table 3. Top 10 scientific journals publishing on GHRM in the hotel industry.

Source/Journal	NP
International Journal of Hospitality Management	6
Sustainability	6
Journal of Sustainable Tourism	4
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management	3
Journal of Cleaner Production	3
Tourism Management	3
Business Strategy and the Environment	2
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management	2
Global Business Review	2
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management	2

, we can see that only two journals published more than five articles: the International Journal of Hospitality Management and Sustainability, with six articles each. The remaining journals published only between two and four articles each. It is worth mentioning that all the journals in this list are focused on tourism, management or business (except for the Sustainability journal), which reflects the importance of applying GHRM practices in these scientific areas.

3.1.3. Record-Type Analysis

Based on Figure 3, almost all the collected articles were original articles that focused on case studies (N = 53), whereas there were only six articles that focused on the theoretical aspect of the relationship between GHRM and the hotel industry. This reflects the importance of conceptualizing GHRM practices with respect to the spatial locations of the various case studies in published articles (e.g., cities, villages, regions, countries, hotel chains, etc.). Additionally, the fact that 90% of published articles on GHRM and the hotel industry were original articles, reflecting the importance of our study as a review article with the aim of covering the shortage of theoretical literature in this academic search field.

3.1.4. Field-of-Study Analysis

Figure 4 shows that the literature on GHRM in the hotel industry is related to various fields of science [28]. For example, GHRM in the hotel industry has been discussed not only from management and administration perspectives but also in relation to various fields, such as tourism development, marketing, economy, business, innovation, environmental science, psychology and public administration. This finding highlights the different academic perspectives on how GHRM contributes to the hotel industry, providing a glimpse of the future direction of scientific research in this field.

3.2. The Basic Content Analysis Level

The results of the basic content analysis present further detailed information about the selected articles, such as the study sample level of analysis, country analysis and keyword analysis.

3.2.1. Study Sample Level/Type Analysis

The aim of this analysis is to answer the following question: what are the main groups in the hotel industry on which the GHRM literature is focused? The findings prove that GHRM practices in the hotel industry are related to all organization parties. A proportion of 15% of articles discuss GHRM in the various sectors of the hotel industry (i.e., employees, HRM, managers and owners). The largest proportion of articles discusses GHRM relationships with hotel employees, with 45% of published articles in this academic field, followed by managers, HRM and owners, discussed in 12%, 6% and 1% of published articles, respectively. Figure 5 illustrates the percentages scientific literature focusing on the various groups in the hotel industry with respect to GHRM.

3.2.2. Country Case Study Analysis

This analysis is focused on investigating the location [22] of various case studies used in the published literature on GHRM in the hotel industry. It is a very important analytical technique, especially for future researchers in this scientific area, as they can explore what has been already done and how can they use previous findings and apply them in different cities, regions, nations or territories. Ab interesting outputs of this analysis is that the list of top case studies does not include any European country, except Spain and Austria. Additionally, Asian countries are at the forefront, with case studies regarding the subject of GHRM in the hotel industry in locations such as Malaysia (15%), Vietnam (15%), Pakistan (13%), Turkey (11%), Thailand (6%) and Taiwan (4%). This, in turn, reflects the recentness of this scientific field and proves that the research path in this field is still in its infancy, having not addressed many tourist destinations worldwide. Figure 6 presents the distribution of published articles on GHRM in the hotel industry based on the location of the various case studies.

3.2.3. Keywords Analysis

Keywords analysis is considered the backbone of any literature review study, especially systematic reviews and meta-analyses [23]. Various visualization techniques can be used for keywords analyses, such as keywords frequency, word clouds, and centrality and density (keywords thematic map). In this study, we present two of these visualization techniques, i.e., a word cloud and a keyword thematic map.

Figure 7 presents a word cloud map depicting the most frequent keywords in the collected literature discussing GHRM in the hotel industry; larger keywords occurred most frequently and vice versa. The most frequented keywords were hotel, GHRM, GHRMp, employees, hotel industry, performance, leadership and management, sustainability, environmental performance and environmental awareness. All these words are directly related to green human resources practices in the hotel industry and their impact, for example, words that reflect the importance/impact of applying GHRM in the hotel industry, such as environmental performance, job satisfaction, green behavior and green self-efficacy (GSE).

In addition to the word cloud, Figure 8 presents a thematic map of keywords in the literature on GHRM in the hotel industry. According to Aria and Cuccurullo, a thematic map is a visualization of the cooccurrence of a keyword network based on two main dimensions: development degree (density) and relevance degree (centrality) [29]. The thematic map categorizes keywords into four main groups, namely emerging/declining themes, basic themes, niche themes and motor themes.

Emerging/declining themes, i.e., keyword themes in the lower-left quarter, have both low density and low centrality. This quarter includes keywords that are either emerging or disappearing, such as green recovery performance, green personal values, green creativity, psychological green climate and environment. Basic themes, also known as transversal themes, i.e., the keywords in the lower-right quarter, have low density and high centrality. This quarter includes keywords that are important for the research field but not for development and represent basic or general themes, such as human resources management, GHRM practices, organizational commitment, hospitality and job satisfaction.

Thirdly, niche themes are located in the upper-left position in the thematic map, with high density and low centrality. This quarter includes keyword themes that have improved from internal ties and unimportant external ties. These themes are known as highly developed and isolated themes, such as social exchange theory, green innovation, green hotel, GSE, OCBE, green culture and luxury hotel. Fourthly and finally, motor theme keywords, located in the upper-right of the thematic map, have bot high density and high centrality degrees. This quarter includes keywords that are both well-developed and important for the structure of the literature on GHRM in the hotel industry, such as GHRM, employees, leadership, hotel industry, performance, GHRMp, environmental awareness, AMO theory and sustainability.

3.3. The Deep Content Analysis Level

The deep content analysis level focus on categorizing the relationships between GHRMp and the hotel industry into four main categories (employees, marketing systems, organizational leadership and organizational behavior).

GHRMp and Hotel Industry Relation Theme Analysis

This analysis level and unit are considered the core finding of this study, as they identify the relationship between green human resource management practices (GHRMp) and the hotel industry from the collected published scientific articles. Based on the deep content analysis of the literature, including text mining, the relationship between GHRMp and the hotel industry can be classified into four main themes, as follow:

• The relationship between GHRMp and employees (creativity, motivation, green behavior, performance, etc.);
• The relationship between GHRMp and marketing systems (MS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR);
• The relationship between GHRMp and organization leadership and management (LM);
• The relationship between GHRMp and organizational behavior and culture (OBC).

Table 4. The relationships between GHRM and the hotel industry in the collected literature.

Author/Article	Year	LM *	OBC *	E *	MS&CSR *	GHRMp **
Pham et al. [30]	2018		x			GWE
Pham et al. [31]	2018		x	x		GHRMp
Angelina S and Viachaslau F [32]	2018			x		GHRMp
Fongtanakit R and Suteerachai B [33]	2019	x				GHRMp
Pham et al. [34]	2019		x			GT
Pham et al. [35]	2019		x			GSD, GI, GM
Yusoff, Yusmani Mohd [36]	2019		x	x		GHRMp
Yong Kim et al. [21]	2019		x	x		GHRMp
Anugamini S and Sonal S [37]	2019				x	GI, GRM
Md Asadul Islam et al. [38]	2020		x	x		GP, GT, GI, GRS
Azadeh Shafaei et al. [39]	2020		x	x		GT, GP, GRM, GI
Muh Islam et al. [40]	2020			x		GT, GRS, GP
Pham et al. [41]	2020		x	x		GT, GDM
Waheed U et al. [42]	2020		x	x		GT
María D et al. [43]	2020	x				GP, GRM
Huseyin A et al. [44]	2020		x	x		GT, GP, GI
Osman M.Karatepe et al. [45]	2020			x		GHRMp
Pham et al. [46]	2020		x	x		GT, GP, GE
Serdar Cop et al. [47]	2020		x			GHRMp
Feng Zeng Xu et al. [48]	2020	x				GHRMp
Pham et al. [49]	2020		x	x		GHRMp
Ling Xiang and Yi-Chun Yang [50]	2020		x			GT, GR, GE, GWE
Yusmani Y et al. [51]	2020			x		GHRMp
Engin Ari et al. [52]	2020			x		GHRMp
Emmanuel A et al. [53]	2020			x	x	GHRMp
Anil Kumar et al. [54]	2020	x	x	x		GHRMp
Hujjatullah F et al. [25]	2021		x	x	x	GHRMp
Serdar Çop et al. [55]	2021	x				GHRMp
Jie He et al. [56]	2021	x		x	x	GT
Muhammad M et al. [57]	2021	x				GHRMp
Mansoora Ahmed et al. [58]	2021		x	x		GHRMp
Uahiranyanon Boonthong et al. [59]	2021		x	x		GWE
Qasim N et al. [6]	2021		x	x		GHRMp
Moh H et al. [60]	2021		x	x		GHRMp
Omar Ababneh [61]	2021			x		GHRMp
Umer I et al. [62]	2021	x	x	x		GM
Ibrahim Elshaer et al. [63]	2021			x		GT, GI, GP
Aboul-Dahab A and Saied B [64]	2021			x		GHRMp
Umair Ahmed et al. [65]	2021		x	x		GHRMp
Emmanuel A et al. [66]	2021			x		GI, GT, GRM
Mercedes, Ú.G. et al. [67]	2021			x	x	GHRMp
Sasmita M. et al. [68]	2021			x	x	GRM, GI
Mercedes, Ú, G. et al. [69]	2021			x		GHRMp
Sidra Munawar et al. [70]	2022	x	x	x		GHRMp
Mahlagha D. and Levent A. [71]	2022	x	x	x		GHRMp
Uju V. Alola et al. [72]	2022		x	x		GT, GI
Qasim N et al. [73]	2022			x		GHRMp
Syed, R. and Komal, K. [74]	2022		x	x		GHRMp
Murat Yeşiltaş et al. [75]	2022		x			GRS, GT, GRM
Luu TrongTuan [76]	2022	x				GRS, GT
Osman M. Karatepe et al. [10]	2022	x		x		GT, GP, GRM
Kavitha H et al. [77]	2022	x	x	x		GHRMp
Wagih Salama et al. [78]	2022	x		x	x	GHRMp
Syed Usman Qadri et al. [79]	2022			x		GHRMp
Ramsha Farooq et al. [80]	2022			x		GHRMp
Golnaz Darban et al. [81]	2022			x		GHRMp
Md Islam et al. [82]	2022			x		GHRMp
Paul M et al. [83]	2022			x		GHRMp
Qasim N et al. [84]	2022			x		GHRMp

* LM: leadership and management; OBC: organizational behavior and culture; E: employees; MS: marketing systems; CSR: corporate social responsibility. ** GHRMp: green human resource management practices; GT: green training and development; GP: green performance management; GRS: green recruitment and selection; GRM: green rewards management; GI: green involvement; GWE: green work engagement; GE: green empowerment; GM: green motivation; GSD: green skills development; GDM: green discipline management.

shows the analysis of 59 collected articles with respect to the relationship between GHRM and the four hotel industry subsectors, i.e., employees (E), marketing systems (MS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR), leadership and management (LM) and organizational behavior and culture (OBC).

4. Discussion

GHRM is a type of integrated management that combines environmental and human resource policies [85]. GHRM policies and processes are known to be correlated with the objectives of sustainability and solutions to environmental issues that are provided by the government [24,86]. Practically, GHRM practices utilize human resources in the process of applying innovation to achieve environmental performance, waste reduction, a competitive advantage and social responsibility through continuous development and learning and by embracing environmental objectives and strategies that are integrated with the objectives and strategies of the organization [87].

According to [41], GHRM practices are essential for company management because they bring environmental benefits, in addition to improving a company’s image. Moreover, GHRM practices help companies to create a green workforce that is able to understand and appreciate green initiatives. GHRM has also been known to have made a long-term contribution to companies [88], as its practices are aligned with the concept of “triple bottom line”, or the three sustainability pillars of environmental, social and economic balance [89].

According to the outputs of the systematic literature review of GHRM practices in the hotel industry, GRHM practices affect the following four subsectors of the hotel industry:

4.1. Theme 1: GHRM Practices and Employees

GHRM practices have a considerable impact on hotel employees. Increasing employee awareness and commitment to the problems of environmental management is one of the key benefits of applying GHRM in the hotel industry. Moreover, GHRM practices increase employee characteristics, such as competency and motivation, which can improve the financial performance of the company [90]. According to [91], organizations that create a more sustainable corporate culture are able to increase their efficiency and reduce their costs, in addition to increasing employee satisfaction and retention [39,59,92]. Additionally, GHRM practices can improve employees’ sense of social responsibility and improve the ability of companies to recruit and retain talent [93]. Moreover, employee social responsibility, leads to several other benefits, such as customer satisfaction, improved innovation, excellence in staff recruitment and other factors that are related to the company’s social performance [21,64,70,94]. Additionally, analysis of the dataset shows that companies that make investments in social programs reinforce GHRM practices that contribute to environmental protection, in addition to protecting employee health and welfare [60,87].

GHRM implies the application of environmental management principles in different activities of HRM, starting with recruitment, through performance management and appraisal, training and development, employment relations, pay and rewards and exit [32,95].

As an initial process, green recruitment has been acknowledged as an important aspect of GHRM practices [96]. Through this process, a company can attract and choose candidates who will commit to the company’s environmental awareness [88,89]. Green recruitment and selection can be summarized into three aspects of green awareness of candidates, green employer branding and green criteria to attract candidates. First, green awareness of candidates is the basic aspect of green recruitment and selection that enables an organization to achieve environmental goals that involve personality factors, such as green consciousness, conscientiousness and candidates’ agreeableness. Employees who are of environmental value actively increase their environmental knowledge in the operational process, which, in turn, increases the environmental performance of their companies [97,98]. Therefore, companies should attract and select candidates with green awareness utilizing a set of tests to ensure that all employees are concerned about environmental problems. Green employer branding refers to companies’ image and reputation related to environmental management, which can be formed through GHRM practices [24]. Through green employer branding, job seekers can perceive a good fit between their own values and those of a company. A company with a great environmental reputation may contribute to the sense of pride felt by job seekers. Moreover, job seekers can be attracted to companies that are concerned about green signals. They tend to use information about companies’ environmental performance and descriptions as criteria to judge how companies treat their employees [86]. Therefore, green employer branding is an effective method of attracting and selecting potential employees who are concerned about environmental image and issues. Third, green criteria can be used as a basic reference to evaluate and select new candidates. For instance, recruiting companies can emphasize environmental aspects in employees specifications and job descriptions. Questions related to environmental knowledge, beliefs and values can be asked, and those candidates who have better environmental aspects can be selected [12].

The next stages is green training and development, which refers to a system of activities that encourages employees to learn environment protection skills and pay attention to environmental issues, which is essential for achieving environmental goals [86]. It is known that training can increase employee knowledge, skills and awareness of environmental activities [99]. Therefore, green training should be provided, along with education programs, to all members of the company, not only those working in environmental departments. As mentioned in [100], a green training program can help employees become knowledgeable about the importance of environmental protection, which raises their concern for environmental control and/or prevention processes, such as identifying pollution sources and collecting data on waste. Moreover, these activities, can increase employees’ environmental expertise, capabilities and self-efficacy to address environmental issues in an effective manner and engage in pro-environmental behavior or actions [101]. In order to create an environmental work climate the authors of [12] suggested integrating training programs with performance and appraisal management systems.

Green performance and appraisal is a system used to evaluate the performance of employee activities in the process of environmental management [102]. According to [87], Companies are required to identify a systematic method to implement green performance management because different companies have different structural attributes. The function of green performance management in this study is to create green performance indicators to establish a set of green criteria for all members of a company in performance appraisals, including topics such as environmental incidents, environmental responsibilities, carbon emission reduction and communicating environmental policies and concerns [103].

It is known that for both employees and managers, the most important aspect of green performance management is performance appraisals; therefore, clear green performance indicators are crucial in performance management systems. It is also important to evaluate managers’ green outcomes to motivate them to enhance their role in environmental management, which can increase their responsibility for environmental management performance. However, [24] argued that there is another way to measure green performance, i.e., dealing with employees’ green performance outcomes that do not meet environmental management indicators or do not align with green objectives. Using these negative measures may encourage employees to be more engaged in environmental actions and strive for green objectives in their future work. The entire set of performance appraisals thus affects the process and effectiveness of subsequent compensation and rewards.

The final stage is green rewards and compensation, which is known as a system of financial and non-financial rewards aimed at attracting, retaining and motivating employees to contribute to environmental objectives [103]. It is known that non-financial rewards through green pay and rewards such as praise and recognition may lead to greater motivation felt by employees [24,102]. Rewards and incentives may be more effective than other HRM practices in aligning employees’ performance with the company’s objectives. However, it is acknowledged that increasing employees’ motivation can be more easily achieved by combining monetary and non-monetary rewards [103]. Non-monetary rewards should be offered, along with the financial incentives, in the form of green travel benefits, green recognition and green tax. Green travel is related to rewards for employee transport and travel so that employees can reduce their carbon footprints in order to increase environmental protection [104]. Green tax incentives include exemptions to promote a less-polluting car fleet and the use of bicycles. Green recognition includes a system of non-monetary rewards for employees, such as paid vacations, gift certificates or company-wide public recognition. These green recognition rewards build the feelings of pride among employees, in turn, effectively motivating them to practice pro-environmental behaviors [105].

4.2. Theme 2: GHRM Practices, Marketing Sytsems and Coporate Social Responsibility

It is obvious that many organizations have recently increased their focus on social responsibility, owing to its important role in improving the organization’s performance and image in front of clients [106]. This is clearly reflected through the commitment of the largest hotels, such as Marriott International, Extended Stay Hotels, Accor, InterContinental Hotels Group, Tharaldson Enterprises, Global Hyatt Corp., Interstate Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Lourve Hotels, and Hilton Hotels Corp [107], in working towards social responsibility, in addition to publicizing their efforts.

Many studies have discussed the forms of the relationship between GHRM practices and how they interact positively with CSR to achieve an organization’s environmental goals [106,108,109,110,111]. In the hotels industry, there are many types of relationships whereby GHRM has affected CSR [56] and vice versa [67], with an interactive relationship between the two [67,78].

GHRM affect the image of hotels in a positive way and reinforces the competitive position of a hotel according to the studies included in this review.

GHRMp positively affects the competitiveness of organizations and secures a strong competitive position [6,31,72,112]. First, jobs can be designed in an environmental or sustainable manner. GHRM can contribute to optimal job design and distribution of tasks in an appropriate and most feasible manner, ensuring the achievement of an organization’s environmental goals and supporting employee satisfaction with what they are doing, in addition to enhancing the organization’s capabilities [113].

This is followed by the function of green selection and recruitment, whereby people with experience, skills and environmental orientations that are optimally matched with the criteria for available jobs and duties [12] are searched for and recruited. It must be noted that an organization with the best social responsibility image is more able to attract talent and competencies [114], and an organization’s adoption of social responsibility motivates it to work on developing the skills of its existing employees, providing them with appropriate training to fill vacancies and hire for positions [31].

Many studies have explained the pivotal role played by the function of With green training and development [6,31,46,72]. It is the basis for changing and developing the attitudes and behavior of employees to the appropriate green form to achieve a hotel’s environmental goals [46]. The impact of this goes beyond enhancing employees’ confidence in their abilities and motivating them to voluntarily participate in environmental work [115]. It also involves providing employees with appropriate skills in a thoughtful, systematic and serious manner [73] to achieve more efficient environmental performance and to present new ideas and innovations [115], which is reflected in the level and quality of achievement of environmental in an effective manner, thus strengthening and enhancing the competitive position of the organization [6,72].

The objective of the practice of green performance evaluation and appraisal [41,62,69,82] is not only to measure the environmental performance of employees [69] but to work on identifying gaps, if they exist, correcting errors and compensating for shortfalls by modifying green training programs in the future [41]. Environmental performance is based on criteria and indicators that guarantee a certain level of performance, ensuring a competitive advantage for the organization [78].

Many studies [38,49,79,116] have referred to the important role of the green rewards and promotion function, which is the main motivator for employees and is associated different types of motivation, whether tangible or non-tangible [49]. Employees obtain promotions and rewards that are commensurate with the work they have accomplished, enhancing their confidence in the organization in which they work and pushing them to do more and motivating them to raise the level of their environmental performance, develop their skills and increase their loyalty [79], which is reflected in the organization as a whole and enhances its competitiveness [78].

4.3. Theme 3: GHRM Practictes of Leadership and Management

Responsible leadership has the ability to understand and appreciate the importance of achieving environmental goals [56,117,118], with an indirect impact on employee behavior through informal relationships with employees [119], as leaders are considered role models for employees in lower job ranks [119]. In addition to their supervisory authority, which is necessary to influence and encourage employees directly to carry out environmental tasks [118], responsible leadership works to support and enhance the efforts of GHRM [56]. The role also goes beyond that, as responsible leadership plays a key role in the formulation and implementation of a company’s master plans [37], with orientated accordingly [120]. On the other hand, GHRM plays an influencing role on responsible leadership [76]. GHRM works to form responsible leadership, direct its work, define its tasks and train it appropriately until it is able to perform its tasks appropriately [76].

Servant leadership is a leadership styles that makes the leader a servant to his employees [71], which means that one of his duties is to work on developing the skills and capabilities of employees, improving their behavior, increasing their job satisfaction and increasing their creativity [120]. Thus, servant leadership plays an important role in enhancing the impact of GHRMp in an organization by encouraging, persuading and influencing the green behavior of employees [121] to reach a higher level of performance in environmental tasks and raise environmental awareness among employees [71].

Transformational leadership moderates the relationship between the environmental commitment of employees and GHRM practices (recruitment, evaluation and green training) [57,62]. Transformational leadership aims to transform employees to a better position, achieve better performance and encourage them to produce and present new ideas [122]. This is achieved through the impact of transformational leadership on GHRM practices and work to direct them [62]. GHRMp are indirectly affected by transformational leadership in influencing employee job satisfaction [57].

GSCM is directly affected by the main GHRM practices [33], as employee access to appropriate green training leads to the enhancement and integration of their knowledge in areas of supply chain management such as green purchasing [123]. Green recruitment according to the needs of the management supply chains within the green form creates a competitive advantage for the organization and improves environmental performance [12]. Compensation of various types based on the evaluation of green performance enhances employee morale and drives them to improve internal green procurement related to green supply chain management practices within the organization [33,124,125].

GHRMp directly affect perceived organizational support for the environment [10], starting with the use of strict criteria in green employee selection [126] and through all GHRMp. This is reflected in employees by fact that there is organizational support for environmental goals [126], which, in turn, affects employees’ loyalty to the company, their willingness to not resign, their environmental behavior in the performance of their tasks and duties and their participation and involvement in environmental work [10]. Perceived organizational support for the environment is a demonstration of support by management for environmental efforts by employees [127].

The success of any organization in achieving environmental objectives or environmental initiatives [128] depends on the green commitment of top management [77,129] and managerial environmental concern [70], as well as the appropriate implementation of any environmental practice. GHRMp depend on the decisions and directives of senior management, supporting procedures necessary to succeed [130]. GHRMp play an important role in translating the orientations of upper management and its commitment towards the environment and vice versa [77].

The environmental strategy adopted by an organization reflects its vision and objectives [131]. GHRMp are practices that support the achievement of the strategic environmental goals of an organization [78], indicates the organization’s environmental orientations and the level of their necessity, which is ultimately reflected in the achieved environmental performance [131].

Environmental management practices create a competitive advantage for organizations in several dimensions [43], such as the financial dimension [132], improving the image in front of customers [133], as well as improving the working environment [43]. This cannot be achieved without the support of HRM through GHRMp [32] because it provides the tools to develop the human factor in order to achieve those targets [43].

4.4. Theme 4: GHRM Practices of Organizational Behavior and Culture

OCBE is an important element to achieve the environmental goals of an organization, as it represents the informal dimension in the organization according to [50]. This element is reinforced through GHRM, which involves the implementation of appropriate practices to target the human factor in order to increase the organization’s capabilities to achieve environmental goals as reported in [36,50]. That is why many studies have analyzed the relationship between GHRM and OCBE in the hotel industry [30,35,36,41,47,49,50,72]. OCBE is positively affected by appropriate green training [72], which enhances green motives among employees [35], in addition to motive them to participate in environmental initiatives and understand the role they can play [134]. On the other hand, a direct effect of green perceived behavioral control is how this would enhance environmental commitment, resulting in OCBE [47,134].

OCBE is directly affected by green performance management [35,41], which shows employees how their performance is evaluated [12,41], directing their environmental behavior and improving their environmental performance, supporting the achievement of the environmental goals of the organization [135] and enhancing OCBE [35]. A, OCBE is affected directly and indirectly by green reward systems [49], whereby rewards, as one of the most important motivators, push employees to adopt environmental behavior and initiate green practices [12].

Green organizational culture was defined by Schen [136] as the sum of the behavior, values and beliefs of employees in an organization. It is one of the pillars upon which GHRMp are built and planned [21,59], as the goal of GHRMp is to achieve the organization’s environmental goals by influencing its employees [39]. Therefore, the better the green organizational culture is understood and the higher its quality and level, the faster and easier the achievement of environmental goals [75]. Green organizational culture also positively affects green training [30,137], which, in turn, moderates the relationship between green training and OCBE [138]. Green organizational culture also interacts with GHRMp in influencing the environmental commitment of employees [34].

According to the definition of green organizational culture [136], environmental performance and green values are part of the green organizational culture, whereby green culture affects the relationship between GHRM and environmental performance. Similarly [65], green values directly affect green creativity, with a moderating role played by GHRM [138].

Environmental responsibility [65], concerns [42] and awareness [71] provide positive support for GHRM practices to achieve environmental targets in hotels as a result of the level of employee understanding and consciousness of environmental problems, in combination with the appropriate green training, with a positive impact on environmental commitment [47]. On the other hand, environmental responsibility, concerns and awareness cannot be created without an appropriate understanding of environmental systems and environmental problems [87]. The main role of GHRM in this context is to provide employees with the necessary information and training to create the required level of environmental education [87,139].

Green intellectual capital directly affects GHRM [77,129], as employees have environmental knowledge and experience in advance, contributing to the formation of GHRM [140]. From another point of view, green intellectual capital is directly affected by both green training and green recruitment [6], as these two functions increase the value of green intellectual capital [140] through appropriate training and an increase in green-oriented employees [141].

GHRM plays a key role in the formation of green human capital [70] through the various practices, such as recruitment and training, as well as performance appraisal and green rewards [142], leading to the development of green human capital. Furthermore, GHRMp enhance environmental knowledge among employees [74].

To ensure the achievement of green targets, some studies highlight necessary elements, such as green extrinsic motivation [58], a green work environment [38] and organizational identification [50]. These are key element with respect to increasing employees’ level of performance and increasing their belonging and loyalty to the organization, which lead to the achievement of green hotel targets. GHRM works directly to create and provide employees with the necessary elements through the application of sits various practices.

4.5. Barriers to Applying GHRM Practices in the Hotel Industry

There are many obstacles and difficulties for the application of human resource management practices in organizations of all kinds [143]. Renwick [12] mentioned a number of the most important of these obstacles, as a green incentive and reward system should be aimed at stimulating environmental action, although a number of managers in higher positions seek to achieve environmental goals only to obtain personal rewards and not to protect the environment, which results in undesirable and possibly illusory results [142] in addition to discouraging the level of performance of employees at lower levels. Environmental education is also important, but it must be studied and proportionate to the activities carried out by the organization in order to translate into positive practical results and prevent a negative impact [144]. This includes enabling and empowering employees to be able to identify sources of pollution, deal with emergencies and provide developed solutions [115]. The clarity of the method of evaluating the environmental performance of employees and measuring results is an important factor to motivate employees to implement green practices [145]. A negative motivation system that includes penalties and warnings in order to motivate and push employees to engage in environmental activities can lead to counterproductive and illusory results, as employees will work to hide problems and errors to avoid negative management reactions [146].

According to [147] several challenges exist, such as differences in employee motivation and the difficulty of evaluating performance and establishing an environmentally friendly work structure, in addition to spreading, developing and maintaining green culture and providing appropriate training. These results are consistent with the factors highlighted in [12], which also noted the significant costs of implementing green practices and the considerable amount of time required to turn employees green and hire a new workforce.

In another study, the most important challenge facing GHRM was reported to be the acceptance of employees and their resistance to adopting green practices [148], as well as the ability to modify the work system in the organization to accommodate green goals, in addition to sufficient planning and clarity of green values [149]. Enhancing employee confidence in the environmental work system and fully explaining the benefits of its application to them is also important [149]. In addition to the fact that a lack of technological support for GHRM, the organization and the complexity of new technology is an obstacle to the application GHRM practices [148].

With respect to the hotel industry sector in particular, a number of studies have dealt with the difficulties and obstacles of applying GHRMp, given the considerable agreement between the practices applied in general according to the studies mentioned previously. The authors of [150] indicated that positive awareness of GHRM is not sufficient to spread green practices in an organization as long as practices are not completely implemented. All GHRMp must be sufficiently and appropriately implemented to ensure that employees and the work environment are brought into compliance with green goals.

In several interviews that were conducted with the managers of several hotels in Macau [151], interviewees revealed some obstacles, the most important of which is the lack of adequate human resources to implement green practices. As the hotel industry suffers from a lack of and difficulty in securing appropriate human capital and environmental skills [152,153] delays and slowness are encountered in implementing green practices [4], in addition to complicated recruitment and training procedures for new employees [154].

In another study that included several hotels in Malaysia [155], the lack of support from hotel owners and hotel management was reported to hinder the implementation of green practices, and a lack of adequate training [147] for employees or their actual involvement plays a negative role, representing obstacle to the application of green practices [79]. In addition to a lack of knowledge and experience inadequate professional advice and consultations impede the implementation of green practices [156], as employees lack a full understanding of environmental objectives and a logical explanation thereof, causing them to think that they detract from the quality of the service provided, so they refrain from applying green practices [157].

The development of a culture of GHRM in an organization is a long and complex process, and measuring the effectiveness of its performance is not easy, as it is reflected in the environmental behavior of employees [154], as well as the absence of green values [158] and an lack of environmental awareness at all levels of the organization [151] representing an obstacle to the implementation of GHRMp in the appropriate form.

The absence of a comprehensive and unified concept of the application of GHRM increases the complexity of the situation [158]. Furthermore, the lack of enthusiasm of employees to implement green practices stands as a barrier to the success of GHRM in achieving its goals [155]. Moreover, high investment costs are associated with applying human resource management practices in the beginning of the process, with a need for a long period of time to achieve a return that covers the costs and achieves the desired results [159].

5. Conclusions

In this systematic review paper, we highlighted and defined the importance and multiplicity of relationships among GHRM and its practices in the hotel industry. These relationships include not only the influence of hotel employees but also extend to other sectors of the hotel industry, such as marketing systems, corporate social responsibility, leadership and management, and organizational behavior and culture. Additionally, GHRM practices play a significant role in the development of all actors responsible for the hotel industry, including owners, managers, suppliers, customers and various stakeholders. Although there are several obstacles and difficulties that may face inhibit the appropriate application of GHRMp, their benefits cannot be denied. Achieving the main objectives of GHRM in the hotel industry will not only lead to the achievement of the environmental goals of the organization as a core goal but will also provide the organization with a competitive advantage in many areas and a strong competitive position. Furthermore, GHRM can improve the operational performance and finances, as well as raising the level and quality of the work atmosphere, within a hotel. It is also worth mentioning that the influence of GHRM practices in the hotel industry creates not only formal relationships and channels but also informal ones, increasing the importance of this research with respect to the study and analysis the different types of relationships associated with the application of GHRM practices in the hotel industry.

6. Limitations and Future Research Agenda

The limitations of this research study can be divided into two main types: (a) limitations related to the analysis method (systematic literature review) and (b) limitations related to the process of conducting the literature review. In terms of the limitations related to the analysis method, we found that the choice of eligibility criteria to select the dataset, such as language, may vary from one researcher to another, which may result in different outputs. Additionally, focusing on a specific time period in this study from 2018 to 2022 may be considered another limitation, and future researchers can change this time period to obtain different results matching their research concept. It is worth mentioning that the selection of the eligibility criteria in this study or a specific period of time was based on scientific justifications commensurate with the research purpose and objectives (which were previously mentioned in the study). Regarding the limitations related to the process of conducting the literature review, presenting four relationships linking GHRM to the hotel industry may be considered a limitation of this study. In the future, researchers can divide these four relationships into more detailed subrelationships in order to obtain more detailed findings and explain each of the four relationships separately. For example, in the future, the relationship between GHRM and employees can be enhanced by dividing it into subrelationships, such as employee motivation, employee performance, employee satisfaction, employee creativity and employee behavior. In conclusion, the future research agenda should focus on the relationships between GHRMp and various hotel industry elements obtain an improved understanding of these relationships. In addition, the findings of this study represent outstanding contributions with respect to some theories that affect the relationship between GHRMp and the hotel industry, such as ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) theory, social exchange theory and resource-based view theory. Understanding these theories in detail and using them to explain the relationships between GHRMp and the hotel industry could represent a future research direction.

7. Implications

In this systematic review study, we presented a general overview of the relationship between GHRMp and the hotel industry with the aim of helping decision makers to understand the whole picture and to enable them to make better decisions based on an accurate and scientific understanding of the current situation. The findings of this study reflect on the hospitality industry in general. For example, helping decision makers improve hotels not only economically or environmentally but also in terms of the work environment and atmosphere reflects on service levels and customer satisfaction. Additionally, the general understanding of the relationship between GHRMp and the hotel industry presented in this study can help to boost the hospitality industry, as hotels are one of the main pillars of the industry.