Sostenibilidad humana de la sociedad y de la empresa: ¿vasos comunicantes?

Vicente Roca Puig

doi:10.51302/rtss.2018.1548

Authors

Vicente Roca Puig Profesor titular del área de Organización de Empresas. Universidad Jaume I (España)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51302/rtss.2018.1548

Keywords:

poverty, income inequality, human resource management, sustainability, firm and society, longitudinal analysis

Abstract

Sustainable human resource management is a new research line that is currently growing at a rapid pace. One of the key premises of this literature is the interdependence of society and firms, with a bidirectional causal relationship between their levels of sustainability. Paradoxically, there is a lack of empirical studies to support this connection. The objective of the present study is to bridge this gap, by analyzing whether poverty and income inequality in a society influence the human resource management strategy of its firms, and vice versa. Results from a longitudinal analysis of a large sample of 1,850 Spanish industrial firms during the period 2010-2014 confirm the presence of a negative bidirectional relationship between poverty and human resource management strategy grounded on organizational commitment with employees. The study also provides evidence of a negative unidirectional causal relationship between this business strategy and income inequality. These results support the active and significant role of firms in achieving sustainable development in society, showing that the more sustainable firms’ human resource management, the more sustainable society will be.

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