ORIGINAL ARTICLE High-performance organizing, environmental management, and organizational performance: An evolutionary economics perspective David B. Zoogah Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio Correspondence David B. Zoogah, Williams College of Business, Xavier University, 3800 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45207. Email: zoogahd@xavier.edu This study applies evolutionary economics reasoning to the green HRM context and examines whether and how environmental management routinization relates to organizational perfor- mance. In doing so, we introduce the concept of ecological routines, defined as deeply embed- ded, firm-specific rules and procedures associated with organizing and practicing corporate environmental management that do not change very much from one iteration, period, or func- tional unit to another. We examine the extent to which ecological routines that encompass organizing (high-performance organizing [HPO]) and practice routines of environmental sustain- ability relate to green decisions, green behaviors, and organizational performance. In a sample of 229 managers from 33 organizations in the environment-sensitive industries of the United States, we find support for multilevel mediation of green decisions and green behaviors as well as interaction of HPO and environmental management practice routines. Implications for research and practice are discussed. KEYWORDS ecological routines, environmental management, green behaviors, green decisions, high- performance organizing 1 | INTRODUCTION Growing global concern about the long-term consequences of envi- ronmental degradation and climate change as well as the threats that these pose to economic growth and firm performance has driven companies to proactively strive toward improved environmental responsibility and stewardship (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Bartlett, 2011; Norton, Parker, Zacher, & Ashkanasy, 2015; Starik & Marcus, 2000). A study by Accenture (2010) showed that 93% of chief execu- tive officers (CEOs) consider sustainability important to the future success of their company, and 81% indicated that sustainability is already “fully embedded into the strategy and operations of their company.” The United Nations Global Compact, “a call to companies to align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption, and take actions that advance societal goals” 1 encourages establishment of routines or organizing systems that facilitate corporate environmental sustain- ability. Even though the environmental outcomes organizations attain derive from routines, processes, and behaviors of employees and managers (Sharma, Pablo, & Vredenburg, 1999; Wehrmeyer, 1996) it is only recently that scholars have started to examine micro (human resource management [HRM] and organizational behavior [OB]) influ- ences on environmental management (see Huffman, Watrous-Rodri- guez, Henning, & Berry, 2009; Jackson, Renwick, Jabbour, & Muller- Camen, 2011; Jackson, Schuler, & Jiang, 2014; Renwick, Redman, & Maguire, 2013). There is thus a paucity of environmental management studies in HRM. Jackson et al. (2011) observed that in order for green HRM “to develop and mature, scholarship that addresses a broad array of issues is needed” (p. 104). Further, Jackson et al. (2014) indicate that HRM scholars should respond to calls for research in corporate environmen- tal sustainability by deploying strategically aligned HR systems. One of the areas suggested is “research linking strategic HRM and environ- mental management” (Jackson et al., 2011, p. 108). Such research pro- vides insight on alignment of business strategies and HRM practices with environmental management policies (Jackson et al., 2014). DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21869 Hum Resour Manage. 2017;1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1