Human resource management for sustainability transitions: Facilitating responsible leadership in incumbent firms.

Abstract

The role of incumbent firms in innovation systems for sustainability transitions has been a rapidly growing topic of the twenty - first century and rightfully announced by countless agencies and, in particular, the United Nations with initiating the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. To contribute to this discussion, this paper focuses on analyzing the gap of research on managerial studies and sustainability transitions, focusing on the internal organizational functions of human resource management (HRM) and responsible leadership (RL). Responsible leadership is a conceptual theory escalating from the stakeholder theory and corresponds to the three pillars of sustainability concerning economic, environmental and social issues. Responsible leaders not only spread economic growth and concerns within the firm but also concentrate on environmental and societal issues to foster sustainability transitions. As acknowledged by Maak and Pless (2006), responsible leadership can be influenced by participating in service - learning and development programs via human resource processes. In order to expand on how internal managerial departments can influence responsible leadership, the research paper aims to analyze how human resource management, through the HR function of organizing training and development programs, facilitates responsible leadership? Furthermore, this paper develops propositions to benefit and potentially guide futher sustainability transition research on how the process of human resource management facilitating responsible leadership can impact innovation systems in which they are embedded.