Defining Green and Green Human Resource Management : A Conceptual Study

A systematic study was carried out with regard to defining the terms Green and Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) owing to little research done conceptually, in particular, a gap in the theoretical knowledge of defining "Green‟ and GHRM in a synthesized form and intellectual curiosity. Objectives of the study were (1) to explore the definitions given by the main dictionaries and the New Oxford Thesaurus of English, and the researchers with regard to the term „Green‟ and present them to create a reasonable interpretation of the term; (2) to explore the definitions given by the researchers with regard to the term „GHRM‟ and present them to create a reasonable interpretation of the concept of GHRM; and (3) to identify and present characteristics of GHRM based on the definitions examined under the study. The desk research strategy was applied to achieve the three objectives. Four interpretations could be derived from the dictionary definitions relating to Green. Based on the research papers it was found that the term Green has four spheres of meaning and further the term "Green‟ in management refers to environmental or eco-activities. Six sources of defining GHRM which were examined resulted in seven interpretations. Finally, the examination of the essence of the definitions revealed ten characteristics of GHRM