The moral camouflage of green HRM: how sustainability discourse legitimises managerial control
Ifzal AhmadPurpose
This study examines how sustainability discourse within Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) is constructed, legitimised and experienced in organisational contexts. Moving beyond dominant “win–win” assumptions, it investigates how sustainability narratives shape managerial expectations and employee responses through moral framing.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a qualitative research design based on multi-source data collected from five organisations across banking, telecommunications and manufacturing sectors. Data include semi-structured interviews, organisational documents and sustainability reports. The analysis is guided by an integrated theoretical framework combining Labour Process Theory and Neo-Institutional Theory.
Findings
The findings show that sustainability discourse is actively moralised, framing organisational expectations as ethical obligations rather than formal requirements. Employees not only internalise these expectations as moral responsibilities, leading to self-regulation, but also experience tension, guilt and subtle forms of resistance. Institutional pressures play a key role in shaping these dynamics by embedding sustainability within broader legitimacy narratives. The study identifies a mechanism termed “moral camouflage”, through which organisational control is reframed and internalised as ethical responsibility.
Research limitations/implications
The study is contextually situated in Pakistan, limiting generalisability to non-religious or less collectivist cultures. Future research should explore cross-national moral variations and examine how moral legitimacy influences psychological outcomes such as guilt or moral fatigue.
Originality/value
This study contributes to GHRM and critical HRM literature by introducing the concept of moral camouflage and by integrating Labour Process Theory and Neo-Institutional Theory to explain how sustainability discourse operates as both a legitimacy mechanism and a form of control. It offers a process-based understanding of GHRM that complements existing outcome-focused research.