Sustainable Business Strategies: An HR-Focused Framework for Resilience and Sustainable Development

Abstract

In today's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) business environment, sustainability and resilience have become important imperatives for long term organisational success. While existing studies focus mainly on technological and operational solutions, this paper brings to the forefront the strategic role of Human Resource Management (HRM) as one of the important drivers of sustainable and resilient business strategies. Drawing from rich literatures of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Triple Bottom Line (TBL), sustainable HRM, and organisational resilience, we propose a conceptual framework linking sustainability-oriented practices that are the recruitment related to green values, capability building that is ongoing, performance incentives relating to sustainable results, and employee empowerment, to workforce agility and organisational adaptability. Our framework describes how these HR practices are the levers needed to develop a workforce that is capable of innovating, being resilient, and ethically mindful, in order to help firms thrive during times of complexity and uncertainty. The paper concludes with managerial insights and research propositions that call for empirical validation and exploration of digital HR technologies that underpin sustainable HRM.