Contributions of HRM throughout the stages of environmental management: methodological triangulation applied to companies in Brazil

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to analyze the contribution of human resources management throughout the evolutionary stages of environmental management in Brazilian companies. A theoretical framework concerning environmental management and its evolution and the ‘greening’ of the functional and competitive dimensions of human resource management were developed. A methodological triangulation was developed in two complimentary phases. In the first phase, data were collected from 94 Brazilian companies with ISO 14001 certification. The data collected were analyzed and processed using statistical techniques. The conclusions of the first phase supported the second phase of this empirical research. The second phase consisted of a study of multiple cases in four Brazilian companies. The results show evidence of the first known empirical study of contributions of human resource dimensions throughout the stages of environmental management in Brazilian manufacturing companies.

Keywords:

• Brazil
• environmental management
• evolution of environmental management
• human resource management
• methodological triangulation

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank the referees for thier comments on an earlier version of this paper. The research was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Sâo Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil and by the Couselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil.