The double effects of female executives' participation on corporate sustainable competitive advantage through unethical environmental behavior and proactive environmental strategy

Based on the upper echelons theory, ecofeminist theory, and natural resource‐based theory (NRBV), this study has constructed a relational model between female executives' participation, unethical environmental behavior, proactive environmental strategy, and corporate sustainable competitive advantage. The samples include a total of 496 female executives from listed 524 companies in the manufacturing sector in China, and multiple regression methods are used for the analysis. The study showed that female executives' participation had double positive effects on corporate sustainable competitive advantage, which included both the inhibiting effect on unethical environmental behavior and the stimulating effect on proactive environmental strategies. The study also explored the boundary conditions of “conservative” and “proactive” behaviors from the internal and external perspectives of enterprises. But it was shown that the effect would not be further improved when both moderation effects of environmental stakeholder pressure and environmental leadership were higher at the same time. As enterprises' behaviors should match with their capability range, radical behaviors might run counter to their desires.     

Stakeholder pressure for sustainability: Can ‘innovative capabilities’ explain the idiosyncratic response in the manufacturing firms?

This study explores role of innovative capabilities in determining a manufacturing firm's response to stakeholder pressure for adopting sustainable practices. Drawing on the theory of conservatism, we delineate that the firm's response is idiosyncratic and undergirded in the nature of its innovative capabilities. Our empirical investigation reveals that the response to the stakeholder pressure is mediated by the nature of the firm's innovative capabilities. Indian manufacturing firms are identified as unit of analysis for this study. The individual manufacturing facilities implement the environmental practices. The findings suggest that the manufacturing firm's exposure to exploitative/exploratory innovative capabilities triggers sustainable behaviours with ephemeral focus and enduring focus. Further, the exploratory/exploitative innovation is capable of explaining idiosyncratic behaviour for the firms' sustainability practices adoption. The findings delineate, with analysis, that unlike China, regulatory stakeholder pressures in India inhibit the adoption of sustainable practices with enduring focus in manufacturing firms.     

Adopting Proactive Environmental Strategy: The Influence of Stakeholders and Firm Size

abstract While smaller firms are less likely to undertake as many environmental practices as larger firms, extant literature suggests that smaller firms may be more responsive to stakeholder pressures. This paper contributes to the development of stakeholder theory by deriving a size moderated stakeholder model and applying it to a firm's adoption of proactive environmental practices. The empirical results show that smaller firms are more responsive to value‐chain, internal, and regulatory stakeholder pressures. These findings suggest that researchers evaluating organizations and the natural environment should be cautious about associating stakeholder pressures directly with firms' environmental strategies. Rather, the relationship between stakeholder pressures and environmental strategy tends to vary with size.     

Stakeholder engagement and environmental strategy – the case of climate change

Many management studies analyze stakeholder pressures and corresponding corporate strategies in the context of the natural environment. This study investigates the role of the sources of stakeholder pressures and additional contextual factors for choosing an environmental strategy. By focusing on climate change as an important ecological challenge, four general response strategies to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction pressures are empirically derived and discussed. The analysis is based on a global survey that includes 141 companies across eight different GHG emission‐intensive industries. It is found that organizations' response strategies do not relate to individual stakeholder groups, but rather the organization's level of pollution measured as its GHG intensity is identified to have an influence on the environmental strategy. We discuss important implications for stakeholder theory as well as policy makers and suggest areas for future research. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Assessing the Comprehensiveness of Supply Chain Environmental Strategies

As environmental awareness grows, firms are expected to expand the scope of their environmental strategies beyond organisational boundaries and to address more comprehensively environmental issues in their supply chains and product life cycles. Drawing on different literature streams, international standards and corporate disclosure, this paper presents a conceptual framework for the quantitative assessment of the comprehensiveness of firms' environmental strategies. This framework allows us to capture: (i) the environmental inputs and outputs addressed, (ii) the firm versus supply chain orientation of environmental strategies, and (iii) the environmental management practices adopted by companies. We illustrate the application of this framework with a content analysis of corporate sustainability reports for a cross‐sectoral sample of sustainability leaders. Our results indicate that there is a need for greater specificity in environmental reporting and that, overall, companies remain firm‐oriented. It is also observed that supply chain orientation can generally be associated with stakeholder pressure. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Stakeholder management in sustainable supply chains: A case study of the bioenergy industry

Engaging with stakeholders and managing their issues when striving for a sustainable supply chain (SC) is a significant challenge. Although most studies on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) consider stakeholder management necessary, little is known about related stakeholder management practices in SSCM. Thus, this paper seeks to enrich the theoretical debate on stakeholder management practices in SSCM through a case study approach to bioenergy SCs in Chile. Based on 28 interviews with SC actors and representatives from the surrounding stakeholder environment, the deductive–inductive analysis reveals that stakeholder management combines different practices to discuss stakeholder concerns, address them, and evaluate the process at the SC's external and internal levels. We propose structuring these practices based on two dimensions: “practices to address stakeholder requirements” and “practices whereby stakeholders are integrated.” The analysis' results indicate that although two-way communication with stakeholders can be seen as the core of stakeholder management, a certain willingness to learn and transform SC design is a prerequisite for true orientation toward stakeholder management in SSCM. Additionally, linkage development and local anchoring are practices used to obtain further legitimacy at the external level. Building on these findings, this study can guide practitioners in engaging with stakeholders and managing their issues across the SC.     

An empirical test of stakeholder influence strategy models: evidence from business downsizing in Taiwan

Frooman's model of stakeholder influence strategies uses levels of resource dependence to determine the power of stakeholder influence. Our study provides initial empirical tests of his model applied in business downsizing. Data from 18 recently downsized firms in Taiwan, including nine multinational corporations (MNCs), were plotted against the Frooman model. We found that resource-dependence alone as Frooman theorized could not explain the influence strategies that stakeholders (in this case the employees) took in response to firms' downsizing decisions. Further investigation revealed that the institutional factors had a significant effect on how firms structured their downsizing initiatives and hence changed the way the employees reacted to firm decisions. We proposed a new model using both resource-dependence and institutional legitimacy as determinants of stakeholder influence strategy and suggested relationships between these determinants and stakeholder actions. This proposed model has profound research implications for the strategic stakeholder theory, as well as practical implications for human resource management.     

Institutional Constraints,Stakeholder Pressure and Corporate Environmental Reporting Policies

Within the theoretical framework of socio‐political economics, and more specifically of stakeholder theory, this work examines whether companies operating under different institutional constraints and stakeholder pressure tend to emphasize different models of corporate environmental reporting. Furthermore, the paper tests whether different corporate environmental reporting policies are driven by the countries' corporate governance systems. A sample of 3931 international companies was examined through a logistic biplot and conditional mean linear regression models. The main results reveal that companies follow two distinct environmental reporting approaches, which depend on specific stakeholders and institutional requirements. The first model, which is followed by firms within codified law countries, mostly focuses on water and emissions. The second approach, mainly followed by companies operating in common law countries, emphasizes materials and energy issues. This finding reveals that companies gradually modify their environmental strategies to make themselves more compatible with the characteristics of the social and institutional environment, which will result in several corporate benefits. The paper provides several outstanding implications for companies' strategic managers, national institutions and firms' stakeholders, especially for investors and customers. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Stakeholder management and sustainability strategies in the French nuclear industry

This paper describes how a nuclear power corporation integrates sustainability into corporate strategies and practices. The case study focuses on one of the world's largest nuclear power generators and describes the corporate capture of sustainable development in its strategic efforts to promote a growth strategy. The paper shows how corporate strategies to address sustainability concerns involve managing different stakeholders, enabling the corporation to sustain its economic growth strategy. Three types of stakeholder management strategy are identified: reinforcement strategies for supportive stakeholders, containment strategies for obstructive stakeholders and stabilization strategies for passive stakeholders. The paper argues that, despite claims of sustainable development in the nuclear industry, there is no significant shift in the ‘business as usual’ approach and that sustainable development is merely reframed as sustainable growth. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Do chief information officers matter for sustainable development? Impact of their regulatory focus on green information technology strategies and corporate performance

This study proposes and empirically tests a model delineating the relationships among a chief information officer's (CIO's) dominant regulatory focus, the corporate practice of green information technology (IT) strategies and corporate performance. It also examines the moderating role of regulatory stakeholder influence (RSI) in this model. Findings based on sampled firms operating in China have provided support for all the hypotheses. Specifically, they highlight that CIOs with a dominant promotion focus are more prone to practice green IT strategies than those with a dominant prevention focus. Moreover, RSI is found to positively moderate the impact of dominant regulatory focus on the practice of green IT strategies. This strategic practice is also found to enhance corporate performance. Last, the empirical findings reveal that a CIO's dominant promotion focus exerts a direct and positive influence on corporate performance, which suggests that this focus also serves as a direct driver for corporate performance. In sum, these findings not only enrich the extant literature on environmental management and information systems, but also provide useful insights into fine-tuning firms' CIO selection criteria and policy makers' regulatory measures to advance corporate sustainability.     

Mindfulness,socioemotional wealth,and environmental strategy of family businesses

The study advances knowledge in the field of business strategy and the environment by incorporating mindfulness theory into the research on socioemotional wealth (SEW) and its environmental consequences in family businesses. Using an integrative model, the paper investigates the relationship between mindfulness SEW dimensions and family firms' environmental strategies, specifically in developing sustainable products and processes. This study also proposes the firm's capabilities as a mediator in this relationship, while market turbulence is a moderator in the relationship between the firm's capabilities and sustainable products and processes. The empirical results show that in protecting SEW, specifically in the identification of family members with the firm and binding social ties, mindfulness provides a rich endowment that develops appropriate capabilities to produce sustainable products and processes. While the moderating role of market turbulence is insignificant, we can infer that irrespective of how turbulent (or not) the market is, the firm's capabilities are a key determinant of sustainable products and processes. Our findings offer theoretical and managerial implications for sustainable practices in the family business context.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in China: a Preferential Stakeholder Model and Effects

Research interest in examining corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing economies is on the rise; however, our knowledge of the role of government in CSR remains limited. The aim of this paper is therefore to bridge this gap with an investigation into the specific CSR strategies that global firms have developed in the world's largest emerging economy and a nominally communist country, namely China. Drawing on institutional theory and a relational governance perspective, we posit that rather than adopting a canonical holistic CSR stakeholder model as typically observed in Western countries, these firms adopt a preferential stakeholder model using government‐aimed and consumer‐aimed CSR strategically. Our empirical study sampled 17 global retailers operating in China, with a dataset compiled to include their CSR web announcement data and firm performance data. The results of partial least squares modelling suggest that only government‐aimed CSR plays a salient role in enhancing retailers' performance. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Gaining sustainable development by green supply chain innovation: Perspectives of specific investments and stakeholder engagement

Despite general attention has been given to sustainable development and green innovation, little empirical effort has been made to explore the factors influencing green innovation performance in the context of supply chain relationships, especially in emerging countries like China. To address this research gap, from the perspectives of specific investments, we examine the role of specific investments in relation to the outcome of green supply chain innovation. Drawing on knowledge management theory, we propose that knowledge transfer plays a mediating role underlying the relationship. On the basis of the stakeholder involvement theory, we argue that partner social responsibility plays moderating roles not only in specific investments—green supply chain innovation performance link—but also in the link of knowledge transfer and performance. We tested the proposed relationships with a sample consisted of 331 questionnaires and validated responses from 187 high‐tech firms in China. The results generally support the proposed hypotheses, and the integrative model—moderated mediation—is also supported. As such, this study contributes to understand about how specific investments affect the performance of green supply chain innovation, providing new insights on stakeholder involvement and knowledge transfer in green supply chain innovation management.     

Integrating sustainable development in the supply chain: The case of life cycle assessment in oil and gas and agricultural biotechnology

It is widely accepted that firms play an important stewardship role in addressing sustainable development concerns. A key challenge in this role is to balance the often conflicting pressures created by sustainable development—firm-level economic performance versus environmental degradation and social disruption. Drawing on complexity theory, risk management, stakeholder theory and the innovation dynamics literature, we discuss the problems of integrating sustainable development concerns in the supply chain, specifically the applicability of life cycle assessment (LCA). Many authors have emphasized the importance of the “cradle to grave” approach of LCA in optimizing closed-loop supply chains, improving product design and stewardship. Based on two case studies (an agricultural biotechnology and an oil and gas company) with supporting data collected from key stakeholders, we argue that sustainable development pressures have increased complexities and presented ambiguous challenges that many current environmental management techniques cannot adequately address. We provide a framework that addresses these deficiencies and discuss implications for practitioners and management theory.     

Environmental,Sustainable Behaviors and Innovation of Firms During the Financial Crisis

In this paper, we analyze the relation between sustainable and environmental behaviors and performance and innovation. Altogether, 1032 observations are divided into specific groups according to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Global 500 report and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for 2008 and 2009. Based on legitimation theory and stakeholder theory, we regard the voluntary activities of firms as having long‐run effective characteristics that can be applied to industry in general. The environmental behavior of firms is represented by CDP activity, while the DJSI represents their sustainable activities. Based on the assumption that corporate environmentalism is a bilateral agreement between policymakers and firms, we answer four specific research questions. (i) What is the relation between voluntary activities and performance of firms? (ii) Do firms' voluntary activities in environmental and sustainable implementations induce innovation? (iii) How does the nature of innovation depend on voluntary type of the firms? (iv) What is the link between firm characteristics and innovation according to voluntary types? From the presented empirical analysis, we find positive relations between corporate environmentalism and innovative activities. We then classify environmental and sustainable issues and propose an empirical model of the links between environmental and sustainable behaviors and innovation activities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Exploring external and internal pressures on the environmental behavior of paper enterprises in China: A qualitative study

As one of the typical high‐polluting and high‐energy‐consuming industries in China, the paper industry's environmental behavior has become the focus of a range of stakeholders, policy makers, and the whole society because the industry's business activities are a main source of environmental pollution and contribute to massive energy consumption. This study used a qualitative approach to examine the relative importance of external and internal pressures (EP and IP) in driving the environmental behavior of paper enterprises in China. Based on grounded theory, this study aimed to examine the EP and IP on the environmental behavior of paper enterprises to create a comprehensive theoretical model based on grounded theory code analysis. It was found that government pressure, economic pressure, social pressure, and IP have direct and significant positive effects on the corporate environmental behavior (CEB) of paper enterprises in China. Furthermore, government, economic, and social pressures have indirect and significant positive effects on CEB through other pressures. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of these four pressures and provides policy implications.     

An examination of sustainable development of supply chain using foreignness perspective

This multidisciplinary paper examines the sustainability of supply chain partners from a foreignness perspective. The arguments draw from the research on institutional theory to explain the underlying mechanisms. We propose and discuss a comprehensive conceptual framework evaluating the relationships of foreignness to economic, social, and environmental sustainability. In addition, we consider contingent factors such as the level of development of supplier's nation, level of global integration of buyer, and type of industry, on sustainable development of focal firms. The direct and contingency frameworks introduced in this paper are presented along with research propositions that provide valuable insight into the sustainable supply chain management from the international business perspective.     

Unleashing the Power of Networks: Shareholder Activism,Sustainable Development and Corporate Environmental Policy

In recent years, a new trend has emerged in which shareholder activists have formed networks to empower shareholders and magnify shareholder voices. This study explores the structural patterns and effectiveness of shareholder activism networks and shows how those networks affect corporate sustainability policies. We draw upon stakeholder influence theory, stakeholder network management theory and recent studies on activism networks to examine a shareholder activism network formed around environmental issues. The study found that (1) the structure of shareholder activist networks is largely driven by organizational attributes such as organization type, organizations’ human resources, media visibility and history; and (2) activist organizations with high centralities and eigenvector centralities enjoy more efficient results. This study contributes to our understanding of the business responses to shareholder demands on improving environmental performance and paves the way for future research on sustainable development through partnerships with shareholder networks. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The impacts of perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity on sustainability development: A theory of planned behavior purchase intention model of sustainability‐labeled coffee and the moderating effect of climate change skepticism

This study sought to elucidate the antecedents that may influence the effect of people's purchase behavior on the Earth's sustainable development. It included people's perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity in the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model to investigate attitudes among the Taiwanese public's attitude toward purchasing sustainability‐labeled coffee and their purchase intentions. The moderating effect of climate change skepticism is also considered in this study. A total of 745 nationwide and self‐reported questionnaire valid data was collected in Taiwan. Hierarchical and moderated regression analysis results indicated that the components of the TPB model had positive influences on the public's purchase intention. The public's perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity, proposed for inclusion in the TPB model, had significant and positive influences on purchase intention. The extended TPB model has higher explanatory power than that of the original model. The positive relationship between sustainability self‐identity and intention to purchase sustainability‐labeled coffee was moderated by climate change skepticism. This study provides marketers and the players in the supply chain with a comprehensive framework for understanding the influence of perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity on purchase intention toward sustainability‐labeled products. In addition, this study responds to a call for a more thorough investigation of the effect of people's skepticism about climate change in the context of ethical and sustainable consumption decision‐making processes.     

Competitive sustainability and stakeholder engagement: Exploring awareness,motivation, and capability

In adding to competitive dynamics and sustainability literature, this study examines the role of a supplier and consumer on a focal firm's sustainability competitiveness through the awareness, motivation, and capability (AMC) perspective and stakeholder engagement research. Regression analyses are performed utilizing secondary sustainability and financial data to test proposed environmental and social competitiveness hypotheses. A constraint factor model is also tested. This study finds that a focal firm's motivation is positively associated with its own sustainability competitiveness. The study also finds that awareness and capability are negatively associated with environmental and social competitiveness. Finally, whereas suppliers' AMC have no significant impact, customer awareness and capability do. The findings reflect both conformity and divergence from the AMC model when applying it to a supply chain context as well as enhance the managerial understanding of how a supply and customer base can impact their own sustainability competitiveness.