Keynote Speech Prof. Kim Seong-Kook

Sustainable Management and Future of Human
Resource Management
Prof. Dr. Seong Kook Kim
(School of Management, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea)
1. Sustainable Management
Attention to sustainable management has been growing in global business area
in recent years as the global society experiences harmful effects of massive
consumption of resources. In definition, sustainable management creates the ability to
keep a system running indefinitely without depleting resources, but maintaining
economic viability and nourishing the needs of the present and future generations. From
this definition, sustainable management has been created to be defined as the
application of sustainable practices in the categories of businesses, society, environment,
and personal life by managing them in a way that will benefit current generations and
future generations. Sustainable management is needed because it is an important part
of the ability to successfully maintain the quality of life on our planet. Sustainable
management can be applied to all aspects of our lives. For example, the practices of a
business should be sustainable if they wish to stay in businesses, because if the business
is unsustainable, then by the definition of sustainability they will cease to be able to be
in competition.
Global financial crisis, started from U.S. subprime mortgage issue, made
companies to acknowledge the importance of sustainable growth, and companies has
begun to think how to apply the concept to their business practices. While the practices
were only limited to Corporate Social Responsibility activities in the past, it is now
extended to strategic management area to develop new business opportunities or profit
making models. This new management trend shows that a company does consider
sustainable management not only as a way to improve its brand reputation but also as a
direction to build its corporate strategy and core competencies.
This new trend is noticed in global business practices. For example,
International Standard Organization (ISO) developed ISO 26000 to regulate overall
social responsibilities on environment, human rights, labor management, and etc. As
ISO 26000 becomes a global business standard, it can be disadvantageous to companies
that do not follow the guideline and indirect trade barriers.
Organizations need to face the fact that the boundaries of accountabilities are
expanding and moving fast. It is imperative for a company to consider not only
shareholders’ profit but also stakeholders’ interest, such as social and environmental (or
ecological) responsibilities to succeed in long-term. With the consensus on the

importance of sustainable management, there has been a research on developing a
framework to integrate sustainable management requirements into traditional
management agenda.
Triple Bottom Line (TBL) has emerged as one of the best integrated frameworks,
to which a company can refer in building their short-term and long-term strategy. The
TBL captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational
success: 1) economic, 2) ecological and 3) social. The TBL is also known as “people,
planet, and profit” or “the three pillars.” In practical terms, Triple Bottom Line means
expanding the traditional management framework to take into account ecological and
social performance in addition to financial performance. Here are some of the best
practices listed for your reference:
- Philips: “Green Flagship”:
Green Flagship products provide concrete example of how Philips improves
the quality of life and tackles the issues – such as global warming – that
resonate with consumers worldwide.
Green Flagship products must be proven to offer substantial better
environmental performance than their predecessors or closest commercial
competitors on energy consumption, packaging hazardous substances,
weight, recycling and disposal and lifetime reliability.
These products now account for an turnover of 2 billion Euros, double that
of 2004.
- GE: “Ecomagination”
Ecomagination contributed to cost reduction and sales increase by launching
“Lighting Efficiency Retrofits”projects. “Powering Your Home is one of the
GE Ecomagination Challenges, part of GE’s &200 million commitment to
finding and funding the most promising technologies for our energy future.
The “Powering Your Home” program contributes to dramatical improvement
of creation, management and use of energy in the home.
- BP: “Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation”
BP worked with nationally-recognized wildlife groups to develop
specific rescue and rehabilitation programs for nesting turtles, migratory
shore birds and other species. Experts from NOAA, the US Fish and Wildlife
Service, the National Park Service, as well as state agencies, helped BP
to identify the most sensitive wildlife habitats and prioritize appropriate
spill countermeasures. These measures included booming wildlife refuges,
state wildlife management areas and rookeries along the coast, as well as
using methods to deter wildlife from entering oiled areas. Within days of
the accident, BP established a hotline for the public to be able to
report sightings of impacted wildlife. Throughout the response, wildlife
rescue and rehabilitation teams worked closely with oil removal and operations
teams to prevent and minimize oil reaching sensitive wildlife areas.

2. Sustainable Human Resource Management
Human resource management (HRM) is a big part of sustainable management in
general. For example, cooperative labor union relations management, global talent
management, corporate and community welfare are core themes of sustainable
management, and it is closely linked to human resource management. In this context,
sustainable human resource management is playing critical roles in sustainable
management(see Figure 1).
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!
!
• !
• !
!
• !
!
Economic
Profits!
Ecological
Soundness!
Social
Responsibility!
The Relationship between Sustainable Management and Sustainable HRM
In general, sustainable human resource management is defined as strategies and
activities to achieve a company’s balanced objectives of social accountabilities and
economic profits through acquiring, developing, and attaining human resource. The
perspectives on the subject can be different from an employer and an employee. While
an employer focuses on accomplishing sustainable profits and meeting social
responsibilities, an employee is more interested in individual responsibilities,

motivation, and continuous development to accomplish both personal and
organizational goals. Considering the different interests, close collaboration between an
employer and an employee is required.
There are diverse perspectives on sustainable human resource management
among academic researchers. No one universal consensus exists on the key subjects
yet. However, there was a meaningful research to develop the list of key subjects in the
area. The empirical research was funded by the Swiss Confederation and conducted by
(IOP) members in University of Bern in 2001. Around 1,000 organizations across 8
countries participated in the study. 300 key words under 20 categories on sustainable
human resource management were surveyed.
In Figure 2, core key words that came frequently from the survey are listed.
The most frequently stated concept by participants was human resource development.
Here, human resource development covers training and development, re-training,
license and certification, and career development. Employee characteristics are ranked
as the secondly important concept. This includes the concepts of employee motivation,
flexibility, reliability and volunteerism for performance. This research displayed huge
influence on following researches, and scholars have developed key subjects and
components as listed below.
- Employee wellness program
- Work-life balance:
Flexible working hours
Job-sharing
Sabbaticals
Teleworking
- Human resource development
Promoting employee motivation
Increasing employee responsibility
Expanding training opportunities
- Leadership and coaching
Participatory Leadership
Management by objectives
Communication among employers and employees
3. Future of Human Resource Management

Sustainable human resource management is like a two-sided coin. In employee
aspect, key components of sustainability are 1) higher opportunity for employment, 2)
larger individual responsibilities, and 3) work and life balance. However, from
employer stance, the competitiveness of the organization comes first (Figure 2). To
address both parties interest, collaboration between management and employees should
go along with sustainable human resource management system.
Studies on this topic are still at early stage. Even though there is awareness of
the importance of sustainability, there are few real business cases of sustainable human
resource management. Given the time required to prepare for it, it will be too late for
companies to start related initiatives when they need to implement. To achieve long
term sustainability and mitigate future risk, it is the right time to design and start
sustainable human resource strategy and initiatives.
According to German scholar Norbert Thom’s theory (2001), sustainable HRM
can be achieved through close collaboration between an individual and an organization.
To maintain sustainability as an individual, one should 1) focus on self-development to
increase one’s marketability in the labor market, 2) provide the best efforts to the
organization in line with one’s responsibilities and 3) make a work-life balance (see
Figure 3). As an individual strives for sustainability, a business organization should
build sustainable HRM practices to support its employees to be adjusted into
organizational culture, values, goal and strategy. Sustainable HRM is an ideal
management practice for both employees and employers, and it contributes to the future
of HRM in a positive way. Here are some of the best practices of corporate
sustainable HRM in Korea:
The Hankyoreh Economic Research Institute, an affiliate of The Hankyoreh,
analyzed the “sustainability reports 2007” of 22 South Korean companies to estimate
how transparent they have been in disclosing their business achievements in diverse
categories. The areas include the economy, the environment, labor, human rights,
society and consumer protection...Yuhan-Kimberly (joint venture Yuhan &
Kimberly-Clark) scored an average 57 points on a scale of 100, ranking first among
those surveyed. Korea South-East Power came in second...followed by POSCO and
Daewoo Securities...Samsung SDI and Korea Electric Power Corp. were next...Along
with the top six companies, Samsung Electronics, KT, Samsung Electro-Mechanics,
Korea Water Resources Corp. and Korea Midland Power received higher-than-average
scores, while SK Telecom, Korea Land Corp., LG Electronics, Lotte Shopping, Korean
Air [part of Hanjin Group], Hyundai Motor Company, GS Caltex, Shinhan Bank,
Kumho Asiana Group and Woongjin Coway were among those which received
lower-than-expected scores.
Yuhan-Kimberly Model (4-Day Shifts): Workers at Yuhan-Kimberly,
Korea’s No. 1 maker of diapers and toilet tissues, take the time to ensure that
the company’s products are free from the most minor defect. An assembly line
worker at Yuhan-Kimberly typically works 12 hours for four days and takes the
next four days off. That’s unusual here, where many people still put in 50 or

60 hours a week and have only one day a week to rest. Not only that, but
after their four days of rest, the employees then work night shifts for four days
in a row, 12 hours each night. After another four days of rest, they work four
day-shifts again. Their schedule continues to alternate in this way, an
arrangement which allows Yuhan-Kimberly to keep its expensive production
machinery operating 24 hours a day.
Though unorthodox, there is no denying the four day scheme has produced solid
returns. Employee satisfaction is high and increased productivity has led to a
17-fold leap in net profit over the past 13 years. In addition, the system has
contributed to job creation. Over that period, the consumer goods company has
increased its workforce by 30 percent. Yuhan-Kimberly also enjoys the top
market share in eight product categories. Its product list includes "Huggies,"
Korean mothers’ most favored diaper brand.
While companies worldwide have adopted a policy of having "reserve" workers,
particularly in sectors where safety is a concern, the so-called Y-K model is
original because of its emphasis on education.
On one of the four days they are off, Yuhan-Kimberly workers attend a
study session at work. It’s voluntary, but about 80 percent of the assembly
workers participate. Those who attend also get paid 150 percent their regular day
rate. A large portion of the classes is devoted to keeping employees well versed
with the machines and tools they use. Despite the company’s phenomenal
success, most Korean corporations still believe that cutting the workforce - not
bolstering it - is the first step to restructuring. But given Yuhan-Kimberly’s
reputation as Korea’s most ethical company, many companies are willing to give
the Y-K model a second thought. The company has been flooded with inquiries
from corporations nationwide that want to learn the secret of the company’s
success.
Core Issues on Sustainable HRM (Results of the Survey)
Source: Swiss University of Bern (2001)

Organizational Culture & Values!
Marketability ! Responsibility !
Individual !
Goal &
Strategy !
Work-Life Balance!
Instruments, !
Methods, !
Process, !
Structure!
Thom’s Model for Sustainable HRM
Source: Norbert Thom (2003)