Introduction: Sustainability has moved from the margins to the core of organizational strategy, extending beyond green technologies to how people are managed. Yet, while Sustainable Human Resource Management (SHRM) is well-studied in large firms, its role and drivers in startups remain underexplored. With over 150 million startups worldwide and their growing socioeconomic impact, addressing this gap is critical.
Purpose: This study investigates the relationship between founders' value-based motivation for sustainability and the adoption of SHRM policies and practices in startups. It further examines how SHRM influences workplace well-being and affective organizational commitment, and whether managerial sustainable leadership behaviors moderate these relationships.
Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 91 non-founder employees across 68 global startups. Data was collected using validated scales, and organizational-level analyses tested both direct and moderating effects.
Results: Findings reveal that founder value-based motivations significantly predict the implementation of SHRM practices, which in turn positively affect workplace well-being and affective commitment. However, sustainable leadership behaviors of managers did not moderate these relationships. Among SHRM policies, Diversity & Equal Opportunities and Attraction & Retention emerged as particularly impactful.
Conclusions: Results identify the founder as a normative architect of culture, consistent with imprinting and sustainability theories grounded in ethical responsibility and social justice. Rather than profit motives, SHRM in startups is driven by deliberate, values-based leadership. This positions them as not mere risky ventures but as laboratories for people-centered sustainability, with lessons extendable to organizations of all sizes. By emphasizing the human and psychological foundations of SHRM, this study advances entrepreneurial and organizational sustainability literature. It offers practical guidance for founders and managers on how to drive SHRM, for HR professionals to design low-cost, impactful systems, and for investors to recognize people-centered sustainability as a marker of resilience