Bridging Global Green HRM and Local Behavior: The Supervisory Role in MNE Subsidiaries

ABSTRACT Multinational enterprises (MNEs) increasingly deploy global Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) practices to drive environmental sustainability across geographically dispersed subsidiaries. However, translating these standardized practices into local employee green behavior presents significant implementation challenges, particularly in institutionally complex host‐country environments. Prior research has predominantly assumed that formal GHRM systems and informal supervisory support function as complementary mechanisms that mutually reinforce sustainability outcomes. This assumption overlooks the possibility that employees may strategically navigate between these information sources when constructing meaning about organizational environmental expectations. Drawing on social exchange theory and sensemaking theory, this study examines whether host‐country national (HCN) managers' behavioral influences—sustainability ambassadorship, supervisory support, and green advocacy—moderate the relationship between global GHRM practices and local employee green behavior through environmental commitment. Using time‐lagged, multi‐source data from 260 employee–manager dyads across 54 MNE subsidiaries in China, we tested a moderated mediation model. Results reveal that environmental commitment mediates the GHRM–green behavior relationship. Contrary to the complementarity assumption, all three supervisory behaviors negatively moderate this relationship, with global GHRM effects stronger when informal supervisory guidance is weak. These findings demonstrate a substitution mechanism whereby formal and informal systems function as alternative pathways to environmental outcomes, offering MNEs' strategic flexibility in implementing global sustainability initiatives across diverse subsidiary contexts.