Dear Colleagues,
Sustainable careers comprise work experiences across one's lifespan and intersect multiple life domains, notably work, social and family. Increasing amounts of research attention have been devoted to the study of these sustainable careers. For instance, the Journal of Vocational Behaviour published in 2020 a Special Issue on the individual and context elements related to sustainable career management. While researchers mention the crucial role of human resource management (HRM) and employer-supported career management in fostering employees' productivity, health, and happiness in their careers, to date, it is has received scant research attention from scholars in the field of (sustainable) HR practices, which reflects the unfortunate state of the literature with respect to career and HRM research in general. Researchers in the field of sustainable HR practices are aligned with the sustainable development goals (SDG) established by the United Nations, and include the needs of the society and environment, in addition to striving for global competitiveness. Sustainable HR practices, also known as green HR practices, can be defined as "the adoption of HRM strategies and practices that enable the achievement of financial, social and ecological goals, with an impact inside and outside of the organization and over a long-term horizon" (p.90). As such, sustainable HR practices extend the long-term perspective advocated from commitment-based HR practices internally in the organization towards broader societal and global implications. Examples of sustainable HR practices are sustainable training, and sustainable compensation. While studies have examined the effect of sustainable HR practices on sustainable employee attitudes and behavior, limited attention has been paid to the effect of sustainable HR practices on employees' careers.
The aim of this Special Issue in Sustainability is to bridge the research fields of sustainable careers and sustainable HR practices so that the two fields can benefit from each other and can contribute to these, so far, mainly isolated strands of research.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Extending sustainable career research by including employees' needs for taking care of environmental and societal issues in different phases of their careers (lifespan).
- The antecedents and consequences of these extended sustainable careers, and how they may change over the lifespan.
- The role of sustainable HR practices on (sustainable) employees' careers.
- A multiple stakeholder view looking into the interplay between employees (e.g., agency) and contextual factors (e.g., sustainable HR practices) for developing sustainable careers.
- The antecedents of the adoption of sustainable HR practices.
- The choices employees make in their (sustainable) careers in relation to the sustainable HR practices of organizations.
- The attractiveness of organizations with sustainable HR practices for specific employees.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
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Karin Sanders
Senior Deputy Dean Research & Enterprise
Professor HRM & Organisational Psychology
UNSW Business School
Sydney NSW
k.sanders@unsw.edu.au------------------------------