Some scholars have argued that environmental regulatory pressures constrain organizations' financial opportunities, while others maintain that environmental regulations can spur product and ...technology innovations and encourage greater operational efficiencies. Advocates on both sides have evidence in support of their positions. However, considering both perspectives in tandem and recognizing that other factors may be associated with improved financial performance, we may find that neither position is valid, or that both are. Relying on data for manufacturing facilities in seven countries, this study shows that more stringent environmental policy regimes are related to diminished firm profits. Yet organizations that are motivated by a green production focus—defined as enhancing internal efficiencies and new product and technology development—are more likely to improve their environmental performance. They also demonstrate a greater probability of benefiting financially, thereby offsetting the cost of regulation or accruing a net gain.
While prior ecolabel research suggests that consumers' trust of ecolabel sponsors is associated with their purchase of ecolabeled products, we know little about how third-party certification might ...relate to consumer purchases when trust varies. Drawing on cognitive theory and a stratified random sample of more than 1200 consumers, we assess how third-party certification relates to consumers' use of ecolabels across different program sponsors. We find that consumers' trust of government and environmental NGOs to provide credible environmental information encourages consumers' use of ecolabels sponsored by these entities, and consumers do not differentiate between certified versus uncertified ecolabels in the presence of trust. By contrast, consumers' distrust of private business to provide credible environmental information discourages their use of business associationsponsored ecolabels. However, these ecolabels may be able to overcome consumer distrust if their sponsors certify the ecolabels using third-party auditors. These findings are important to sponsors who wish develop ecolabels that are more credible to consumers, and thus encourage more widespread ecolabel use.
Using Japanese facility-level data, we estimate the effects of ISO 14001 certification on the promotion of more advanced practices, namely green supply chain management (GSCM). Our results show that ...ISO 14001 promotes GSCM practices. Facilities with environmental management systems (EMS) certified to ISO 14001 are 40% more likely to assess their suppliers' environmental performance and 50% more likely to require that their suppliers undertake specific environmental practices. Further, government programs that encourage voluntary EMS adoption indirectly promote GSCM practices. These programs increase the probabilities that facilities will assess their suppliers' environmental performance and require suppliers to undertake specific environmental practices by 7% and 8%, respectively. Combined, these findings suggest that there may be significant but previously unnoticed spillover effects of ISO 14001 and government promotion of voluntary action.
•ISO 14001's effectiveness at reducing pollution varies across countries.•ISO 14001's effectiveness at reducing pollution varies across environmental impact.•Standard instrumentation approaches to ...address endogeneity may not be sufficient.•ISO 14001 may be more effective when there are clear cost-saving opportunities.•ISO 14001 may be more effective at reducing indirectly regulated impacts.
This research explores why some facilities accrue greater costs when adopting an environmental management system (EMS) and why costs vary among three different ownership structures. Using survey data ...of organizations that documented their EMS adoption costs over a 3-year period, the results show that publicly traded facilities had stronger complementary capabilities prior to EMS adoption and therefore lower adoption costs. By contrast, government facilities and privately owned enterprises had fewer capabilities and accrued higher EMS adoption costs. The development of organizational capabilities and resources therefore appears to be a function of both organizational exploitation of imperfect or incomplete market factors, and the institutional context of these decisions.
The promotion of voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) as alternative approaches to traditional environmental regulation has fueled numerous researchers to evaluate VEP performance. However, these ...studies have focused on assessing the environmental performance of a single VEP. As yet, we know little about the overall environmental benefits of these programs. Moreover, questions remain about whether VEPs designed with different monitoring regimes--related to whether programs are self-monitored or undergo external certification--vary in their ability to improve environmental conditions. Using meta-analysis methodology, this article evaluates the aggregated environmental outcomes of U.S. VEPs drawing on data from nine studies and over 30,000 firms. We show that collectively VEP participants do not improve their environmental performance over nonparticipants. Rather, nonparticipants improve their environmental performance by 7.7 percent more than VEP participants. Additionally, nonparticipants improve the environment 24 percent more than participants in self-monitored VEPs, whereas participants in International Standards Organization 14001 as a group exhibit inconclusive environmental performance improvements.
While previous research considering the emergence of strategic alliances has typically viewed their formation through a single theoretical lens, we suggest that multiple theoretical perspectives are ...needed to understand their complexity. This research conceptually integrates the resource-based view and institutional theory to assess variations in firm-level motivations to form strategic alliances. Applying these ideas to the context of complex environmental problems, we propose that strategic alliances typically are either competency- or legitimacy-oriented, and that four structural dimensions characterize both types of alliances—organization learning, partner diversity, governance structure, and partner relations. We present research propositions that describe how alliances differ along these dimensions, and offer an important broader perspective on alliance formation that is applicable towards understanding their strategic and social outcomes.
Thousands of facilities worldwide have certified to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001, the international environmental management system standard, and previous research ...typically has studied these certification decisions at the facility level. However, significant anecdotal evidence indicates that firms may have a strong role, and if so, prior studies may be drawing inappropriate conclusions about the rationale for ISO 14001 certification. Drawing on institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, this study offers a conceptual framework that explains why parent companies would mandate—rather than simply encourage—their operational units to certify to ISO 14001. The framework is tested using survey data of corporate environmental managers. The results show that firms have a central role in nearly half of all facility-level certifications and that firms that mandate ISO 14001 endure greater external pressures and have stronger complementary resources and capabilities that support their organization-wide ISO 14001 policies.
Local governments nationwide have been adopting a variety of sustainability practices in the absence of strong federal guidance. The collection of these practices, which differ in design, forms the ...local government's sustainability strategy. Some local governments may develop a more focused sustainability strategy to achieve more predictable environmental benefits around a narrower array of environmental issues. By contrast, other local governments are developing a more comprehensive sustainability strategy that is more broadly focused to address complex, interconnected environmental issues. However, the external conditions that give rise to these different strategies is not well understood. Drawing on data for more than 950 U.S. municipal governments, this study provides important evidence that local governments' comprehensive sustainability strategies are influenced more by their community contituents and external environmental settings, with greater pressures in particular from constituents in new economy industries and environmental NGOs. These strategies are also more strongly related to higher disaster risk in the external environmental setting than more focused sustainability strategies. These findings broaden our understanding about why local governments' sustainability strategies differ in their design, which may provide a starting point for understanding how different sustainability strategies relate to actual environmental performance outcomes.
Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) have become a popular alternative to traditional regulation. However, little is known about whether these programs are sending accurate signals about the ...environmental practices of their participants. As a means for understanding signaling accuracy, this research investigates VEP design characteristics. The findings suggest that there are four distinct types of programs with varying degrees of rigor. Because information for differentiating among program types is limited, less rigorous VEPs can signal that their administrative, environmental performance and conformance requirements are comparable to programs with more robust designs. Further, the lack of monitoring and sanctions in less rigorous programs create opportunities for participants to free-ride and receive benefits without satisfying VEP requirements. Unless some means of distinguishing among program types is implemented, these issues can threaten the long term viability of VEPs as a tool for environmental protection, and the credibility of market mechanisms more broadly.
PDF
