Sustainable HR practices and Generation Z: role of career growth in commitment and turnover intention

This study examines how sustainability-oriented human resource management practices relate to perceived career growth, organizational commitment, and intention to quit among Generation Z employees.

Drawing on a sample of 403 employed Gen Z respondents in Türkiye, we estimated a mediated model using PLS-SEM (SmartPLS 4) with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Organizational commitment and intention to quit were modeled as distinct latent constructs, and the mediating role of career growth was explicitly tested.

Results indicate that SHRM is positively associated with perceived career growth, which in turn is linked to higher commitment and lower quitting intentions. The indirect (mediated) relationships were statistically significant, suggesting that career growth functions as a meaningful pathway through which SHRM is associated with attachment-related outcomes for this cohort.

Theoretically, the findings link sustainability-oriented HR bundles to a career-development mechanism that appears especially relevant for younger employees evaluating future opportunity within the organization. Practically, they point to codified career architectures, frequent progress reviews, and development-linked recognition as actionable levers to enhance engagement and retention. While the cross-sectional, single-country design limits causal and cross-context generalization, the results offer a useful basis for understanding how SHRM may be aligned with early-career employee expectations in evolving labor markets.