The PhD thesis focuses on the role of sustainable human resource management in Slovenian organisations. The complexity of sustainable development is presented in the theoretical part from several perspectives. As the concept is still perceived through different perspectives, an in-depth review of crucial historical events and literature has been used to show the evolution of the concept on the international political level. In that, we demonstrated the gradual recognition of the role and accountability that organisations have in guiding societies towards a sustainable way of life. Accordingly, we have turned our attention to the field of organisational context, where we have focused on human resource management. Through a literature review, we have illustrated the key development theories, concepts and models that have shaped the different approaches, concluding with the transition from strategic to sustainable human resource management. For the latter, we have illustrated the diversity of approaches, showing that there is no single definition and proposed model in the existing literature. Through an empirical study involving three large Slovenian organisations, we sought to identify the characteristics of organisations’ potential orientation towards sustainable development and the elements of human resource management that could be defined as sustainable. Using a variety of methodological approaches, namely semi-structured interviews, media analysis, content analysis of sustainability, annual reports and CRANET research data, we established the existence of sustainably-oriented organisations in Slovenia. The empirical research showed that sustainable human resource management plays a key role in the orientation of organisations in sustainable development and that the heritage context is an important factor in the development and implementation of sustainable human resource management strategies, practices and policies. In the doctoral dissertation we propose a context-specific model of sustainable human resource management with a focus on the post-socialist context.
|
