A Faculty-Student Collaborative Study of Employee Selection Practices In Sustainable Organizations

This paper presents an example of a research collaboration examining sustainable organizations that facilitates both faculty and students’ achievement of professional and educational goals. Given that our current student generation, “Gen Z,” desires to make a positive impact and are passionate about environmental causes, studying sustainable organizations provides opportunities for this type of collaboration. This project combines students’ senior theses, independent research projects and a faculty member’s research in employee selection practices. We focus on how sustainable organizations can use behavioral interviews and pro-environmental behavior survey measures during their employee selection processes to assess person-organization (P-O) fit and thus, values alignment between individuals and organizations. We argue that this results in the strategic hiring of individuals who will support the organization’s sustainability efforts. In Study 1, we interview ten hiring managers about the role of P-O fit in their selection processes and how they assess this alignment. In Study 2, we develop and pilot test measures of pro-environmental behavior for recycling and water conservation behaviors (N=98). Finally, we discuss how this collaboration contributes to the study of HRM in sustainable organizations, specifically hiring processes, a topic that sustainability researchers continue to overlook.