Is there a role for HRM in corporations’ CSR strategies? An analysis of the sustainability reports

A significant degree of confusion regarding the relationship between human resources management (HRM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) persists in research and practice. Drawing on sustainability reports of large European companies, we examine how HRM’s role is presented in connection to CSR. The links between sustainable HRM and CSR are scarce but exist. Our analysis makes three contributions. First, HRM fulfills its CSR role toward employees as internal stakeholders through implementing standard human resources (HR) practices that ensure employee employability, safety, health, and wellbeing without playing a strategic role in CSR. Second, employees are seen as objects of CSR activities rather than active subjects. Third, the CSR–HRM relation is ad hoc and unsystematic; the system-level integration of CSR and HRM remains obscure; and the incorporation of CSR and sustainable HRM does not take place. We suggest that sustainable HRM characteristics would allow HRM to play a more active role in the development and implementation of CSR strategies. Sustainable HRM characteristics could elevate the role of HRM and different HR activities toward a more substantial and strategic role in CSR that is more externally orientated. We call for more empirical research on CSR strategy–sustainable HRM linkage.