Sustainable manufacturing and green human resources: Critical success factors in the automotive sector

This study aims to identify critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing sustainability in organizational human resources management (OHRM) within the automotive sector (AS). A literature review was carried out to identify the OHRM factors that are instrumental for the significant adoption of sustainable practices (SP) in the sector. Based on the outcomes from the literature review, an expert team composed of 17 experts from the AS, academia, and consultancy firms were consulted in order to identify cause–effect relationships among CSFs using a multi-criteria decision making tool. Data were gathered in India from November 2019 to April 2020. The results revealed that top management support and environmental auditing for suppliers are the two most important CSFs to be prioritized among the factors studied, which implies that by managing these factors first, automotive manufacturers may deal better with the adoption of SP. As a result of prioritizing these two factors, other CSFs related to OHRM (e.g., organizational culture, environmental training, rewards, and incentives) will also positively affect the adoption of SP. The novelty of this study comes through raising the importance of environmental auditing for suppliers as a factor that can facilitate not only the adoption of SP in the AS, but the other OHRM factors as well.