Leveraging green human resource management and green innovation into sustainable competitive advantage for small and medium enterprises

The importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the world economies is an indisputable fact. If SMEs are to survive and thrive in a globally competitive environment, sustainable competitive advantage is essential whereby the uncertainty and resource constraints are the norm. This study proposes a new framework for sustainable competitive advantage from the perspective of green human resource management (HRM) and green innovation, that possess impor-tant theoretical and practical research value. Building upon ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) theory and resource-based theory (RBT), green HRM builds green employees' abilities, elevates employee engagement, and provides green opportunities for employees, while green innovation improves product design and adopts industrial processes that save energy, reduce pollution, and at the same time, is sensitive toward environmental pollution caused by business enterprises. The article ultimately provides critical perspectives of green HRM and green innovation in achieving SMEs' sustainable competitive advantage.