Sustainability and Ambivalence in HR Management Practice: How to Get Out?

The paper aims to demonstrate the ambivalent character of HR Management in many large companies. On the one hand, in fact, companies do need a strong organizational culture, based on engagement and commitment of its workforce. This seems to be the basic need in order to allow people to cooperate to achieve the organizations’ goals. But, on the other hand, disruptive HR practices tend to destroy internal social context that allows people to cooperate and build strong identification with the organization’s objectives. In order to find a way to get rid of this ambivalence, the authors believe that principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR), in terms of HR management practices, must be placed at the core of the organization’s values and mission, being firstly interiorized at the top-level management.