Human Resource Creativity at The University of Business and Technology A Case Study

The Effect of Green Human Resource Management Practice on Human Resource Creativity at The University of Business and Technology: A Case Study

Abstract

Protection of the environment has in the recent past risen to be one of the major concerns for decision and policymakers in both public and private sectors. For organizations and managers, this has resulted in an urgent need for green human resource practices to protect the environment and natural resources and minimize or eliminate practices that have negative and harmful effects on the environment. Therefore, this study sought to determine the effect of green human resource management practices in the green training axis on the creativity of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company. The research questions sought to establish human resource management practices in the green training axis and the creativity level of human resources at the University of Business and Technology. A case study research method was used, targeting the University of Business and Technology Company employees, and an electronic questionnaire was used as the data collection tool. Questionnaires were emailed to all the 524 employees of the University of Business and Technology Company, and only 467 were returned, a return rate of 89.12%. Study findings showed that the level of creativity of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company had a high evaluation of the general level. The company paid more attention to human resources' creativity, which showed an increase in the level of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company. Based on these findings, it is concluded that there was a statistically significant effect of green human resource management practices on the creativity of the human resource in the University of Business and Technology Company.

Introduction

In recent years, environmental protection issues have emerged as one of the most important issues in the world, as preserving the natural ecosystem is an important issue for future generations and an important priority on the agenda of managers and decision-makers (Vogel, 2011). This issue resulted in more pressure on organizations, which motivated organizations to prepare, develop and apply green management approaches based on environmentally friendly practices and procedures (Sarkis, Gonzalez-Torre, & Adenso-Diaz, 2010). The urgent need for green human resource practices has emerged in response to the initiatives of international business organizations that take care of the environment and its resources due to the expansion and spread of the field of business worldwide and the negative effects and practices of these businesses and industries on the environment (Butzer, 2012). Nevertheless, the issue of achieving sustainability for the organization through green management is still the focus of discussion among management scholars, which provides the opportunity to do more research on how organizations can practice green management that is competitive, which requires a high level of technical and administrative skills among employees to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for the organizations (Matthews & Shulman, 2005).

Although there are many studies that have dealt with the issue of green human resource management, there is still a barrier associated with the effective implementation of green human resource management policies. Because of the birth of this concept and the global interest in it, this led to an increase in awareness within organizations of the importance of environmental issues and forced them to adopt environmentally friendly practices (Gadenne, Kennedy, & McKeiver, 2009), represented by managing green human resources, which resulted in increased efficiency in organizations (Masri & Jaaron, 2017), reduced costs (Sheikh, Islam, & Rahman, 2019), attracted green competencies (Amrutha & Geetha, 2020), and improved productivity (Astuti & Wahyuni, 2020). Likewise, private Saudi companies can get a competitive advantage when they have a highly responsible green human resources department, especially considering the intense competition that distinguishes many companies. The green responsibility of Saudi companies is viewed in the context of human resources through its impact on employee retention (Likhitkar & Verma, 2017), creating a worthy cause for them (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), and increasing their environmental awareness (Saeed, et al., 2019).

This interest has been an incentive for the researcher to study green human resource practices and try to apply them to Saudi companies, especially in the field of education, since education companies are directly linked with environmental awareness and are highly vulnerable to influencing their surroundings. Therefore, the researcher studied this problem in the University of Business and Technology Company. The study questions consisted of a basic question, from which the main questions were divided as follows:

1) What is the effect of green human resource management practices in the green training axis on the creativity of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company?

a. What is the level of human resource management practices in the green training axis at the University of Business and Technology?

b. What is the creativity level of human resources at the University of Business and Technology?

The study presents the practical and theoretical concept of green human resource management practices as a means of achieving environmental friendliness. The study is considered a new scientific addition to the researches that have been written in this field and works to increase the scientific stream as it opens new horizons for researchers within this framework. The study sheds light on green human resource management practices at the University of Business and Technology, which is the first study of its kind at the university. This study also worked to clarify the importance of green management for human resources, and thus it provides decision-makers with scientific findings and recommendations, as they can be taken in the future to develop and improve the work that human resources do in the company in a way that preserves the environment. Most of the studies related to green HRM practices have focused on western and non-Arab foreign environments. While this study was applied to the Arab environment, specifically Saudi Arabia, where the researcher selected one of the major and important companies in the private sector, the University of Business and Technology, which seeks to implement green human resource management practices.

Based on the questions of the study problem and considering the objectives that the study is trying to achieve, the following hypotheses were formulated: There is no statistically significant effect of green training on the creativity of human resources at the University of Business and Technology

Green Human Resource Management Practices

The increasing interest in environmental issues in recent years on the part of organizations has made the concept of green orientation a focus of attention, making organizations take many green initiatives (Victor, 2001) such as green management (McDonagh & Prothero, 1997), green marketing (Peattie, 1992), and green supply chain (Khan, 2018). Among those green initiatives, green human resource management has gained increasing attention, as the move towards green practices in any organization requires human resource support (Tang, Chen, Jiang, Paillé, & Jia, 2017). Many organizations nowadays practice green human resource management in the global context, where the green human resource practice greatly contributes to the performance of human resource management at the scientific and practical levels (Arulrajah, Opatha, & Nawaratne, 2015). Some organizations also rely on the concept of green orientation as a strategy adopted as part of their social responsibility initiatives, as organizations embrace it to achieve competitive advantage and create their own brand (Freitas, Caldeira-Oliveira, Teixeira, Stefanelli, & Borges, 2020).

The Green Human Resources Department is responsible for finding a balance between work and the environment and preserving the green employee and organizations have become aware of the behavior of green employees who are difficult to find and maintain (Sakhawalkar & Thadani, 2015). Green human resources management plays a vital role in environmental management issues and achieving the sustainability of its employees, as the application of innovative technology and the search for alternative energy contribute to limiting the use of limited natural resources, which in turn reduces environmental degradation (Hosain & Rahman, 2016). Therefore, organizations must do more to search for technology that reduces the effects of environmental destruction by finding non-toxic products that do not cause harm to the environment.

Hence, it can be said that green human resources consist of two basic elements: 1) environmentally friendly human resource management practices and 2) attracting and preserving human capital. Human resources and their systems are the basic pillar in any business, whether in terms of financial business or sustainable business, and these two elements are responsible for planning and implementing those environmentally friendly policies (Ahmad, 2015).

The concept of green human resource management (GHRM) is one of the modern concepts of management thinking, which is linked between human resource management activities and environmental management. This term is often used to refer to the contribution of human resource management policies and practices towards the environmental agenda of organizations in protecting and preserving natural resources (Aykan, 2017). According to Opatha & Arulrajah (2014), the Green Human Resources Department refers to the activities, policies, practices and systems that include the development, implementation, and continuous maintenance of systems with the aim of creating a green organization and converting regular employees into employees who adopt the green approach to achieve the organization’s environmental goals. The term green human resource management also represents the activities and practices of human resource management that work to promote positive environmental outcomes by spreading the culture of environmental sustainability and obligating employees to it (Shen, Dumont, & Deng, 2016). The researcher believes that despite the diversity and difference in clarifying the concept of green human resource management, all these concepts agree that green human resource management must be characterized by a green approach, which in turn leads to the environmental sustainability of organizations and maintains the survival and continuity of organizations.

Understanding GHRM starts from the employee’s entry to work in the organization until the point of exit from the job as it is necessary to observe the green activities of human resources represented in the analysis and design of green work such as teleconferences, virtual interviews, flexible work, online training, recycling, and minimization printing paper to reduce carbon footprints by employees (Bangwal & Tiwari, 2015). Green human resource management plays an important role in environmentally friendly activities by involving individuals as part of green initiatives to change existing processes as adopting knowledge management practices, employee participation, recruitment, selection, training, diversity promotion, and leadership are all integrated together to improve the organization’s environment (Mishra, Sarkar, & Janaswamy, 2014). Green human resource management practices play a vital role in enhancing employee morale, which may help in reaching a great deal of benefit for both the organization and the employees (Cherian & Jacob, 2012).

Although in the beginning it may be difficult to initiate and implement green human resource management practices, it can achieve the main goals of the organization such as controlling costs, ensuring social responsibility of organizations, acquiring talent, and gaining a competitive advantage over competitors through environmental awareness and moral values (Hosain & Rahman, 2016). Despite the great importance of green human resource practices for organizations and the positive consequences that result from them, which benefit them and society as well, they face many challenges at the same time. Recruiting and training employees for green practices may encounter resistance from some employees for their lack of acceptance of these new practices and their adherence to traditional human resources practices (Obaid & Alias, 2015). In addition, implementing human resource practices requires a high investment and may achieve a low return initially (Li, et al., 2021). Also, one of the most important challenges that the competent departments face in human resources management is to create a green work structure in addition to preparing green operations, providing green tools, and creating green thinking for employees (Islam, Hunt, Jantan, & Hashim, 2019). It must be noted that green human resource management is still in its early stages and there are many studies in this field within the theoretical framework but still need applied research (Jabbour & Santos, 2008).

Human Resources Creativity

Our current era is characterized by the rapid changes and explosion of knowledge and technology, which has led to many of the problems facing contemporary organizations (Benamati & Lederer, 2000). Solving these problems requires the use of new creative methods and means, as well as the abandonment of traditional methods and means (Jackson, 1991). This can only be accomplished with the presence of creative people who have the appropriate means to help them find quick management solutions and new methods (Awad, 2013). Failure to adopt the creative approach makes the organization continue to perform its current work in the same manner that it used in the past, which results in stagnation that ultimately leads to the weakening of the role of the organization (Nabulsi, 2014).

Human resources creativity is the adoption of a new idea or behavior by the employee in the field of the organization’s industry and its environment (Gupta & Singhal, 1993). In the same context, Sapon & Balal (2017) defined creativity as a new idea that is applied and aims to develop products, services, and processes, and its impact on organizations ranges from creating slight improvements in performance to developing substantive and affecting performance. Mirag (2015) defined it as mental capabilities that appear at the level of the individual, group, or organization, and these creative abilities can be developed and developed according to the capabilities of individuals, groups and organizations, and they are of multiple stages that result in a new idea or new work characterized by the greatest possible fluency, originality and sensitivity problematic and is characterized by the ability to form new engagements, discoveries, and relationships.

Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron (1996) believe that there are three different approaches to designing creativity in the organization. The first focused on “technical innovation”, which includes understanding design situations and tools, quantitatively or relying on information technology to support decision-making. The second focuses on “social innovation”, which describes how to construct social models, which reveals the artistic aspects of creativity and indicates the range of cases in which analysts should use social creativity. The third is called “Socio-technical” innovation, and it brings the two previous entries together. In the same context, Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn (2001) see that there are two entrances to generate creativity, namely the “product” approach that focuses on improving the services or commodities provided in order to better achieve the needs, desires and aspirations of customers, and the “process” approach that focuses on improving the current processes and methods of work in a more efficient and capable way to achieve goals and objectives Regulatory.

Among the indicators that indicate the creative behavior of employees are curiosity, cognitive flexibility, taking risks, learning, and the determination to face challenges and obstacles (Radi, 2010). According to Ahmad (2018), researchers have combined the following elements of human resource creativity: sensitivity to problems, intellectual fluency, flexibility, originality, continuity of direction, risk, delusion, and ability to evaluate. For the organizations’ methods of dealing with the creativity of human resources to be effective, a number of basic conditions should be taken into consideration, including allowing any idea to grow, respecting individuals, moving away from routine, turning work into something fun, working on continuous renewal of oneself, observing other people’s experiences, not giving up the idea That have not been implemented, and translate what the individual has learned on the ground (Bdesi, washelly, & Rizqallah, 2011). According to Chiu & Kwan (2010), creativity is a human phenomenon, and in order for the process of human resource creativity to succeed and reach the stage of application and spread, it must go through a set of stages: 1) authoring new ideas, 2) selecting, editing, and marketing new ideas, and 3) acceptance of the new ideas in the market.

The organizational structure affects the employees’ ability to participate and be creative, as the rigidity, centralization and inflexibility of the organizational structure leads to not allowing employees to establish relationships outside its framework, which makes them not enthusiastic about creativity, since the source of decisions is the supreme authority, unlike the flexible organizational structure that allows employees to be creative (Kent, 2017). Leadership that focuses on flexible democratic work is one of the most stimulating patterns for creativity, and the reason for this is that if employees participate in decision-making, they feel more commitment to change and creativity, unlike autocratic leadership that believes that change is the danger that creates chaos and threatens the system upon which the organization is based (Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 2006). Training is considered an important influence in achieving creativity among employees at the level of the organization, as it allows the development of the spirit of cooperation between individuals, which develops the spirit of one team and interest in the contribution of others and directs them towards achieving the goals of the organization in addition to it facilitating the identification of the skills of individuals with high creative abilities that can be used in the service of the organization and achieving its goals (Sarri, Bakouros, & Petridou, 2010). In order to preserve and develop creativity, the organization must provide the appropriate climate for that, as it is the outcome of material and moral stimulation, which makes the organization an incubator for generating and adopting ideas (Hon & Lu, 2015).

Methodlogy

The researcher referred to the references that dealt with the subject of the study to prepare the theoretical framework for this study. In order to verify the relationship between the impact of green human resource management practices on human resource creativity, the researcher developed a questionnaire that included several items. The researcher chose the University of Business and Technology Company, because of the specificity of this company in affecting environmental awareness, through its professional and trained cadres to solve problems and solve them in a green administrative way. The study population consisted of all the employees working in the University of Business and Technology Company, whose number was (524) employees for the year 2021. The researcher approved an electronic questionnaire, and it was distributed via the company’s official email. (467) questionnaires were retrieved, as a percentage of (89.12%) from the number of distributed questionnaires. The researcher analyzed the study data and tested its hypotheses by relying on the five-dimensional Likert scale to answer the questionnaire questions.

Discussion

The results showed the average level of green training and development, with the interest that the University of Business and Technology attaches to employees as they represent the human capital of the company. The answers proved that there is awareness about green human resource management practices that reflect positively on the company’s employees. This result is in agreement with previous studies (Zaid & Jaaron, 2018; Nejati, Rabiei, & Jabbour, 2017).

This result indicates the importance of green training and development for organizations by increasing employee awareness of the organization’s environmental policy and changing employee behavior to be more aware and aware of dealing with the environment, since training and green employment is one of the most important means for developing human resource and enabling the organization to reach a more sustainable society. This result was in agreement with a study conducted by Teixeira, Jabbour, Jabbour, Latan, & Oliveira (2016).

The results showed that the level of creativity of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company had a high evaluation of the general level. In an attempt to find out the importance of the creativity of human resources by asking the employees of the University of Business and Technology company, it was found that the creativity of the human resource has a great relationship with the green human practices that the company pursues. The greater the interest in green human resource practices, the greater the creativity of the human resource. Creativity constitutes a distinctive role within organizations, and the creativity of the human resource is an important element for the success of organizations, which works to create value and makes the organization have a competitive advantage and is considered a strategy for survival and continuation. Green human resource management practices contribute to stimulating human resource creativity and promote, develop and maintain sustainable practices and environmental elements that in turn contribute to creating awareness for organizations to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner. Therefore and depending on the results of the employees’ responses to the questioneer of the level of creativity of human resources, which showed an increase in the level of creativity of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company, the company paid more attention to the creativity of human resources, which showed an increase in the level of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company. The University of Business and Technology Company pays great attention to the creativity of human resources and raising their level to the highest levels required. The University of Business and Technology Company provided the opportunity for employees to express their new ideas with high confidence, as well as translate them on the ground, in addition to enhancing the employees’ sense of job security. The University of Business and Technology has also worked on developing an effective strategy and objective measures of creativity by clarifying the nature of creativity for managers as it needs patience, enthusiasm, renewed thinking, faith and trust on the part of managers on the importance of employee participation in decision-making. This result was in agreement with the study conducted by both Ogbeibu, Emelifeonwu, Senadjki, Gaskin, & Kaivo-oja (2020), and Singh, Giudice, Chierici, & Graziano (2020).

The results of the test of the main hypothesis confirmed the existence of a statistically significant effect of green human resource management practices on the creativity of the human resource in the University of Business and Technology Company. The results indicate that the practices of human resources management in its axis of green training positively affect the values ??of the variable dependent on the creativity of human resources as the company has visions and perceptions about green practices and has objective measures, clear evaluation criteria, and announced and environmentally friendly plans in training. This stimulates the human resource and increases his creativity, so that he can express his new ideas with high confidence and allow him to apply them on the ground. Thus, employees have a vision and ability to discover problems and the ability to solve them in addition to the competitive spirit among employees. This is ultimately beneficial and beneficial to the company.

The results showed that there is a statistically significant effect of green training and development on the creativity of human resources in the University of Business and Technology Company. The impact of training and development on the workforce has been positive results, as the company works to increase awareness among employees, concern for their skills, seek to ensure the effectiveness of green training through appropriate planning, and create clear-cut plans that have contributed to the pre-planning of training courses, including increasing training hours and Increase the number of trainees. Moreover, the University of Business and Technology Company established green personal competencies by sending a number of human resources employees in the company to obtain accredited certificates to raise their green competence, which increased the employee’s productivity, efficiency, and creativity.

Conclusion

The current study aimed to determine the effect of green human resource management practices in the green training axis on human resources creativity in the University of Business and Technology Company. The company has an average level of interest in GHRM manifested through green training and development. Through training and development, the company can increase employee awareness of the organization’s environmental policy and changing employee behavior to be more aware and aware of dealing with the environment. The level of creativity in the University of Business and Technology Company was high from a general perspective. The creativity of the human resource at the University Company has a great relationship with the green human practices that the company pursues. GHRM practices contribute to stimulating human resource creativity and promoting, developing, and maintaining sustainable practices and environmental elements that contribute to creating awareness for organizations to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Moreover, The University of Business and Technology Company has a policy for focusing on HR creativity and raising their level to the highest levels required. The University Company provides opportunities for employees to express their new ideas with high confidence and translate them on the ground, in addition to enhancing the employees’ sense of job security. The findings show a statistically significant effect of GHRM practices on the creativity of the human resource in the University of Business and Technology Company. These practices in its green training axis positively affect the values ??of the variable dependent on the creativity of human resources as the company has visions and perceptions about green practices and has objective measures, clear evaluation criteria, and announced and environmentally friendly plans in training. This leads to the conclusion that: there is a statistically significant effect of green training and development on human resources creativity in the University of Business and Technology Company.

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