The Impact of Human Resource Management on Environmental Performance: An Employee-Level Study Pascal Paille ´ • Yang Chen • Olivier Boiral • Jiafei Jin Received: 9 December 2012 / Accepted: 22 April 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract This field study investigated the relationship between strategic human resource management, internal environmental concern, organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, and environmental performance. The originality of the present research was to link human resource management and environmental management in the Chinese context. Data consisted of 151 matched question- naires from top management team members, chief executive officers, and frontline workers. The main results indicate that organizational citizenship behavior for the environment fully mediates the relationship between strategic human resource management and environmental performance, and that internal environmental concern moderates the effect of strategic human resource management on organizational citizenship behavior for the environment. Keywords Strategic human resource management Á Internal environmental concern Á Organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) Á Environmental performance Á Green human resource management Introduction Contemporary firms are faced with many pressures from stakeholders and shareholders to develop environmentally responsible activities (Molina-Azorı ´n et al. 2009). Envi- ronmental performance reflects an output demonstrating the degree to which firms are committed to protecting the natural environment (hereafter, ‘‘environment’’). Environ- mental performance can be evaluated by a set of indicators such as low environmental releases, pollution prevention, waste minimization, and recycling activity (Lober 1996), and it may be increased by the implementation of envi- ronmental management system (EMS), such as ISO 14001 certification, a tool requiring high interactions between human resource management (HRM) and environmental management (EM) (del Brı ´o et al. 2007). Some recent papers illustrate the cross-fertilization between EM and HRM for the achievement of environmental performance. For example, Jabbour and Santos (2008a, b) and Jabbour et al. (2008) examined four organizations all holding the ISO 14001 certification, and reported that the best results in terms of environmental performance were observed in the organization (among the four studied) where employees were the most stimulated by the use of appropriate HRM practices at each stage of the manufacturing processes. By establishing the important role played by HRM in environmental performance issues, findings obtained by Jabbour and his colleagues reflect the efforts that have P. Paille ´(&) Á O. Boiral Department of Management, Faculty of Business Administration, Laval University, Pavillon Palasis-Prince, Local 1638, 2325, rue de la Terrasse, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada e-mail: Pascal.Paille@fsa.ulaval.ca O. Boiral e-mail: olivier.boiral@fsa.ulaval.ca Y. Chen Á J. Jin School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, No. 555, Liutai Road, Wenjiang District, Chengdu 611130, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China e-mail: francisnju@gmail.com J. Jin e-mail: jin@swufe.edu.cn 123 J Bus Ethics DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-1732-0