A Contribution to Sustainable Human Resource Development in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Published in: Journal of business ethics Vol. 191; no. 2; pp. 337 - 355
• Main Authors: Piwowar-Sulej, Katarzyna, Malik, Sakshi, Shobande, Olatunji A., Singh, Sanjeet, Dagar, Vishal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-05-2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Business and Management; Business Ethics; Corporate culture; COVID-19; Education; Employees; Ethics; Management; Original Paper; Pandemics; Philosophy; Quality of Life Research; Random sampling; Resilience; Sampling; Sustainability; Sustainable development; COVID-19; Stakeholders; Sustainable HRD; Human resources
• ISSN: 0167-4544; 1573-0697
• DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05456-3

This examines the six drivers and twelve detailed practices of sustainable human resource development (S-HRD) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic across different organizations in Poland. The empirical strategy is based on explorative research conducted using surveys in Poland between 2020 and 2021. The results confirm that the surveyed organizations implemented S-HRD practices driven mainly by the expectations of external stakeholders. They neglected the areas of caring for employees’ well-being and developing environmental awareness before the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, most companies maintained their approach to S-HRD. This research is unique because it adds to the body of literature advocating the significance of S-HRD for organizational resilience before, during, and after extreme events. Generalizing the results is challenging because the snowball sample has significant restrictions. However, future research may overcome these shortcomings by using larger samples based on probability or random sampling techniques.