Green human resource management in the Nigerian oil and gas industry: Context and implementation.

Abstract

Research on Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) largely emphasises internal drivers, with limited attention to external institutional influences. This study examines how institutional pressures shape the adoption of GHRM practices in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, drawing on insights from 25 professionals working in the upstream (56 per cent), midstream (36 per cent), and downstream (8 per cent) sectors. Findings reveal that coercive and normative pressures, more strongly influence GHRM practices, such as recruitment, training, and performance management than mimetic pressures. Evidence of decoupling emerged, with gaps between policy and practice, means and ends, structure and implementation, highlighting discrepancies between formal adoption and substantive enactment. By extending institutional theory to a developing-country extractive sector, the study underscores the contextual nature of isomorphic pressures and the multi-level manifestations of decoupling, offering fresh insights into how external institutional constraints drive reactive rather than proactive GHRM adoption.