Abstract
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into HRM promises sustainable outcomes, yet evidence is paradoxically conflicted: AI simultaneously boosts engagement and triggers turnover. This review resolves the paradox by revealing that employee emotions are the untheorized mediator in this relationship. While AI’s functional impacts are documented, its emotional implications remain critically underexplored, creating a false binary in the literature. Employing a Systematic Literature Review (SPAR-4-SLR protocol) of 35 peer-reviewed studies (2005-2025) and analysed via the TCCM framework, we synthesise this fragmented domain. Our analysis moves beyond listing enablers and barriers to introduce the core construct of “techno emotional alignment.” Findings demonstrate that sustainability outcomes (social, environmental, and economic) are not a direct result of AI implementation, but are contingent on whether employees experience emotional assimilation (driven by perceived fairness and transparency) or emotional resistance (driven by job insecurity and opacity). Theoretically, we offer a convergent framework, showing how various theories operate through this emotional lens. We also present an AMO-based model where emotion transforms AI’s “opportunity” into sustainable “ability” and “motivation.” Practically, we shift the imperative from implementing AI to managing the emotional ecosystem it creates, providing direct strategies for emotionally intelligent design. This review redefines the pathway to sustainable HRM, arguing that the critical algorithm is not in the software, but in the human emotional response it ignites.