Sustainable human resource management practices in organizational performance: The mediating impacts of knowledge management and work engagement.

• Author: Abu-Mahfouz, Shatha

INTRODUCTION

Organizations from various industries have faced complex tendencies and challenges like high-performance expectations, demographic changes, and globalization (El-Kot & Leat, 2008; Chandrakumara & Sparrow, 2004). Those difficulties have created a dire need to manage human resources (HR) to survive in the market and to accomplish competitive advantage. Those developments called for adequately managing human resources in assorted areas, including work engagement (Aboramadan, Albashiti, Alharazin, & Abed Dahleez, 2020; Chew, 2004), knowledge management (Gope, Elia, & Passiante, 2018; Minbaeva, 2005; Mohanapriya & Sasikala, 2015; Monteiro & Pais, 2014), and organizational performance (Chew, 2004; Wall & Wood, 2005; Al-Qudah et al., 2014; Abu-Mahfouz, 2019).

HRM practices have become a well-known field of investigation for practitioners and researchers because of the huge impact on innovative performance and organizational performance (Abu-Mahfouz, 2019; Al-Bahussin & Elgaraihy, 2013; Hashemi & Dehghanian, 2017; Jiang, Wang, & Zhao, 2012; Laursen, 2002). However, the sustainable HRM phenomenon highlights the importance of HR practices on organizational results (Ehnert, Parsa, Roper, Wagner, & Muller-Camen, 2016).

As a necessary and novel means of people management beyond strategic HRM, sustainable HRM (Kramar, 2014) has induced HR capacity reorientation and towards organizational sustainability (Ehnert, 2009; De Prins et al., 2014). In other words, sustainable HRM denotes an innovative notion in its preliminary stage that strives to associate sustainability with HRM. Realistically, organizations prioritized employees as a long-term asset rather than a mere financial cost through sustainable HRM practices to effectively execute sustainability initiatives (Ehnert et al., 2016).

The experience of developed nations featured the imperative role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in societal and economic developments (Fullwood & Rowley, 2017; Lilles & Roigas, 2017). The research literature has shown that the performance of educational institutions depends fundamentally on the quality of HR (Amin, Wan Ismail, Abdul Rasid, & Selemani, 2014), knowledge management (Sahibzada, Jianfeng, Latif, & Sahibzada, 2020), and work engagement (Gupta, Acharya, & Gupta, 2015). In that capacity, HEIs need to retain, develop, and recruit employees. University staff who are well trained, motivated, and skilled are bound to be committed to their research work and training that contribute to the development of nations (Lew, 2009).

HEIs are viewed as knowledge-intensive institutions, not just on account of their huge contribution to knowledge creation and development, but additionally, their engagement in knowledge dispersion through research, learning, and teaching (Fullwood & Rowley, 2017).

Thus, researchers have progressively accentuated the requirement for effective implementation of knowledge management initiatives in HEIs during the past few years (Al-Husseini & Elbeltagi, 2016; Ramjeawon & Rowley, 2017; Al-Kurdi, El-Haddadeh, & Eldabi, 2020; Quarchioni, Paternostro, & Trovarelli, 2020).

Given the importance of promoting academic pursuits, a few HEIs are gaining from HRM and achieving high performance (Amin et al., 2014), advancing positive collaboration (Wall & Wood, 2005), encouraging work engagement (Hughes & Rog, 2008; Aboramadan et al., 2020), and implementing many cycles of knowledge management (Brewer & Brewer, 2010; Sahibzada et al., 2020).

Albeit a few researchers have approached the aspects of HRM practices in HEIs (such as Huxley & Hall, 1996; Chen, Wang, & Yang, 2009; Lew, 2009; Khasawneh, 2011; Amin et al., 2014; Aboramadan et al., 2020), the research regarding work engagement in HEIs is exceptionally restricted (Aboramadan et al., 2020), as is research on knowledge management (Brewer & Brewer, 2010; Sahibzada et al., 2020), and organizational performance (Amin et al., 2014; Sahibzada et al., 2020).

Jordanian universities have a problem with a lack of clarity of their vision for independence, which has affected their efficiency and performance (Economic and Social Council, 2017).

Despite reform endeavors to accomplish high-quality education, many HEIs in Jordan are still struggling to achieve excellent performance in their annual evaluation on the basis of certain key performance indices (Alshatnawi & Abd Ghani, 2018). Among the challenges that have contributed to hindering job performance and competitiveness of universities around the world, especially in Jordanian universities, was the growing demand for a place to study (Economic and Social Council, 2017). Universities in Jordan were unable to accommodate the demand due to limitations in facilities or/and employee capacity (Khasawneh, 2011; Badran, 2014; Alawin et al., 2016).

While institutions are seeing knowledge management as a basic achievement factor in the present dynamic environment (Yeh, 2005; Ju, Lin, Lin, & Kuo, 2006), knowledge management activities in HEIs in Jordan are however inadequate (Alshatnawi & Abd Ghani, 2018). The improvement of employee work engagement is one of the vital stages to improve sustainable HRM (Xu, Zhang, Yang, & Wu, 2020). From this perspective, engagement needs to be tested further in Jordanian HEIs because it is expected to contribute to the growth of the institution, job performance, and new knowledge (Dhir & Shukla, 2019).

In summary, the recent research will not be exhaustive enough without testing the relevance between sustainable HRM practices and organizational performance in Jordanian universities. Furthermore, the study sought to determine the mediating influence of knowledge management and work engagement on the link between sustainable HRM practices and organizational performance in universities. In addition, the study also purports to determine the mediating influence of knowledge management on the link between sustainable HRM practices and work engagement. Universities need to realize how sustainable HRM practices, knowledge management, and work engagement affect organizational performance. The bonds between sustainable HRM practices, knowledge management, work engagement, and organizational performance have not been previously studied. The study destines to examine the ensuing relationships with the use of AMO theory to fill the knowledge gaps that, in turn, will facilitate the proffering of the solution to the impending problem.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

AMO theory

Scholars have broadly followed the AMO theory to investigate the effect of HRM practices on employee and organizational performance (Shin & Konrad, 2014; Obeidat, Mitchell, & Bray, 2016; Zhang & Morris, 2014; Jeronimo, De Lacerda, & Henriques, 2020). The AMO theory claims that the practices affect individuals into accomplishing organizational aims through their skills, knowledge, and abilities; motivation; and opportunity (AMO) that influence the employee and organizational performance (Lepak et al., 2006; Appelbaum et al., 2000) and accomplishment of organizational objectives (Buller & McEvoy, 2016).

Sustainable HRM practices have been utilized to allude to HRM activities that improved positive environmental results, green HRM results, and positive human and social results. Green HRM is considered in the assessment of sustainable HRM (Kramar, 2014). Sustainable HRM is instrumental in enhancing green performance through individual staff and has direct and indirect consequences on the workforce and the organization (Paille, Chen, Boiral, & Jin, 2014).

Thus, in AMO theory, sustainable HRM contains 1) ability-enhancing practices such as green training (Jeronimo, De Lacerda, & Henriques, 2020; Renwick, Redman, & Maguire, 2013), development, selection, and green knowledge management (Renwick et al., 2013); 2) motivation-enhancing practices, e.g., pay and reward systems and green benefits (Renwick et al., 2013), and incentives for green performance (Renwick et al., 2013; Jeronimo et al., 2020); and 3) opportunity-enhancing practices, e.g., employee' exchange knowledge (Jeronimo et al., 2020), employee involvement, engagement, groups for solving a problem, and encouraging individuals to generate suggestions for enhancements (Renwick et al., 2013).

In AMO theory, sustainable HRM may enhance the abilities, skills, and knowledge of individuals to reach an undeniable level. It can enhance the opportunity for them to share, disseminate, and transfer knowledge among employees. Ishak, Eze, and Ling (2010) proposed that firms that developed and extensively applied knowledge management would be able to achieve consistently high performance; consequently, reinforcing the organizations' ability to develop its sustainability further.

When employees were exposed to a high level of knowledge management, they would consistently experience a high level of engagement. Employee and organizational performance were among the results of work engagement because engaged individuals were more productive, more creative, and were more able to exceed everyone's expectations (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Those qualities impacted work performance in a manner that fortified an organizations' ability to enhance its sustainability (Macey & Schneider, 2008). According to the AMO theory, HRM practices give sustainable opportunities for individuals to use their abilities and express their enthusiasm to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge and apply them in the workplace. The ultimate goals are to create engaged employees and increase organizational performance.

Sustainable HRM practices

Innovative organizations should implement sustainability to establish optimization approaches (Manzoor, Wei, Banyai, Nurunnabi, & Abdul Subhan, 2019). Sustainable HRM is defined as the adaption of HRM strategies and practices that enables the achievement of financial, social, and ecological goals, with an impact inside and outside of the organization and over a long-term time horizon...