When do threats mobilize managers for organizational change toward sustainability? An environmental belief model

In pursuit of counteracting today's environmental problems, corporate management will have to implement organizational changes factoring in sustainability, which is why it is important to understand exactly what leads managers to initiate these changes. It has been established that managers' personal values are critical for their behavior and that threats to these values can mobilize managers to change their actions. However, when confronted with environment-related threats, managers may face value conflicts and various tensions between their aim to implement sustainable changes and their desire to fulfill business requirements of their job positions. Only recently have researchers begun to investigate the underlying beliefs that may lead managers to initiate organizational change toward sustainability. Borrowing theoretical assumptions from the domain of health psychology (from the well-established health belief model), the present conceptual article develops an environmental belief model that specifies when exactly threats lead managers to initiate organizational change. The environmental belief model proposes that environment-related threats trigger change (i) when managers believe that their firms are susceptible to these threats, (ii) the threats are considered as serious for the company, (iii) the perceived benefits of the change outperform (iv) the perceived barriers, and when there is (v) an external cue (e.g., an information campaign). All these propositions are supported with empirical findings from business contexts. Besides theoretical advancement on the role of environmental threats as precipitators of organizational change, the model provides guidance on how to frame environment-related threats that will mobilize managers for organizational change toward sustainability.     

Implementing a corporate environmental strategy: establishing coordination and control within multinational companies

This article presents the results of an empirical study that investigated coordination and control within multinational companies over six key aspects of their environmental strategy. Specifically, it first examines the level of centralization of these key issues. Second, it investigates whether there is a positive relation between three variables associated with organizational complexity and the level of centralization of the environmental issues. Statistical analyses of the data obtained from a sample of 98 North American multinationals were conducted. The study's results revealed that most companies have adopted a global environmental standard to govern their worldwide business activities that is supported by strong central controls over both environmental performance evaluation of facilities and decisions regarding the development of environmental programs. Results also revealed that there are limited links between organizational complexity and most aspects of the environmental strategy. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Ambidextrous culture,contextual ambidexterity and new product innovations: The role of organizational slack and environmental factors

Contextual ambidexterity, defined as the simultaneous pursuit of alignment and adaptability at business unit, is linked to several organizational outcomes including improved performance and innovation outcomes. Extant research posits ambidextrous organizational culture as an important enabler to contextual ambidexterity but suffers from a lack of a well‐meaning scale for the same. In addition, there is very little understanding as to how tasking and facilitating environment can be on firms' endeavour for contextual ambidexterity and the outcomes thereof. Therefore, the current piece of research has twin objectives using two separate studies. First, to develop a scale for ambidextrous organizational culture construct and second, to analyse the role played by the external forces (munificence and dynamism) and internal slack resources on the relationships between ambidextrous organizational culture and contextual ambidexterity and between contextual ambidexterity and new product innovation outcomes through an empirical investigation in India. Using structural equation modelling on data from 414 respondents, we found environmental munificence to strengthen the relationships between ambidextrous organizational culture and contextual ambidexterity and between contextual ambidexterity and new product innovation outcomes. On the other hand, environmental dynamism had a dampening impact on these relationships. Our findings also suggest that for low slack organizations, dynamic and unmunificent environments magnified the negative impact on an organisation's ambidexterity efforts and new product innovation outcomes.     

Aspiring,nascent and fledgling entrepreneurs: an investigation of the business start-up process

This study focuses on three different milestones in the business gestation process, i.e. becoming an aspiring entrepreneur, a nascent entrepreneur, and a founder of a fledgling new business. Moreover, this study uses a combination of both individual and regional (or environmental) factors in predicting individuals’ success or failure to reach each of these three milestones. Hypotheses are developed to test the effect that human and environmental resources have on the odds of reaching the different milestones in the business start-up process. The study is based on interviews of a representative sample of 9533 Norwegians aged 18 years or older. From this group, 197 respondents qualified as nascent entrepreneurs. These were subsequently interviewed in follow-up interviews conducted in 1996, 1997 and 1999. In addition, regional data at the municipality level is included to measure the available pool of environmental resources. The results indicate that entrepreneurial experience is the single most important factor for predicting the outcome of the business start-up process. Even though environmental resources play a role, human resources are generally found to be better predictors of the outcome of the business start-up process. Several important implications for policy-makers are presented.     

The central role of human resource management in the search for sustainable organizations

The aim of this article is to present the main contributions of human resource management to develop sustainable organizations. The relationship between human resources and organizational sustainability, which is based on economical, social and environmental performance, involves some important aspects concerning management such as innovation, cultural diversity and the environment. The integration of items from the triple bottom line approach leads to developing a model based on a strategic and central posture of human resource management. Based on this model, propositions and recommendations for future research on this theme are presented.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND THE INTERPRETATION OF STRATEGIC ISSUES: A NOTE ON CEOS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT*

This paper explores the relationship between organizational context and the interpretation of strategic issues by examining the hypothesis that CEOs' interpretations of foreign investment in the USA are influenced by the organizational context in which they are embedded. Three aspects of organizational context - the global business experience of the firm; the firm's level of organizational inertia (as represented by firm age and size); and the resources available for responding - are examined as predictors of CEOs' perceptions of foreign investment as a threat or an opportunity. Analysis of data from 320 organizations, controlled by industry, shows that global business experience, firm size, and perceived capability are significant predictors of the perception of threat and opportunity. the discussion addresses the implications of these findings for future research on issue interpretation and organizational context.     

Irrational decision making: Cultural influence on environmental nonprofit organizations' advocacy strategies

The determinants of environmental nonprofit organizations' (ENPOs) advocacy strategies is particularly important in East Asian countries, such as Taiwan, in which the public values harmony and aggressive movements are often controversial because of the influence of Confucianism. What triggers ENPOs in Taiwan to initiate aggressive environmental protests is consequently a question worth investigating. Accordingly, this study sought answers to the unasked question: How do ENPOs' decision makers decide what types of advocacy activities to pursue? To answer this question, this study utilized cultural theory (CT) to develop hypotheses to test data collected through an online survey in Taiwan. The evidence confirms what CT predicted. ENPOs' decision making on advocacy activities is neither affected by their organizational scale/resources nor the effectiveness and acceptance of environmental activities. Instead, ENPOs' organizational culture plays a crucial role, especially in explaining advocacy activities that are relatively controversial and less accepted by the Taiwanese public. ENPOs that have egalitarian and individualistic organizational cultures are more likely to initiate every type of environmental activity, especially protest-based activities. Based on the results, organizational culture may be useful in explaining the bounded rationality behind decision making. This result also indicates that ENPOs in Taiwan should plan more carefully before initiating activities. Actions without careful planning may result in resource waste and legitimacy challenges. The results of this study can be beneficial for ENPOs to reconsider their decision making regarding environmental advocacy.     

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 role of project management maturity and organizational culture in perceived performance

This study investigates whether project management maturity (PMM) relates to perceived organizational performance and how an organization's cultural orientation is a contributing factor. Perceived organizational performance is defined as project effectiveness and efficiency followed by resulting business performance. A survey‐based research was conducted with 86 project professionals from various U.S. service and manufacturing organizations. The study revealed that PMM is significantly related to business performance but not to project performance. Furthermore, while clan organizational culture is a sole contributing factor for project and business performances, PMM interacts with market culture in improving business performance. This study shows that in order to deal with project time, budget, and expectations issues, an organizational culture change toward sharing, collaboration, and empowerment is a must. Furthermore, an increasing project management maturity along with a results‐oriented organizational culture improves an organization's competitiveness, resulting in cost savings and increased sales. PMM efforts are therefore crucial. PMM accompanied by an understanding of cultural orientation is a best strategy for today's project‐based organizations.     

Do firm characteristics affect environmental sustainability? A literature review-based assessment

Combating environmental pollution and climate change mandates strong commitment and participation of all firms across sectors. However, the environmental conduct of firms is seen to vary as per their characteristics, especially their size, ownership, and age. Current understanding of these characteristics' influence on environmental sustainability is limited, fragmented, and scattered across the literature, which this study seeks to improve and contribute to. Based on a rigorous screening of the last 25 years' literature (1996–2020), the study develops a comprehensive understanding of firm characteristics' implications for environmental sustainability, namely, environmental practices implementation, environmental drivers, environmental barriers, and associated (environmental, cost/economic, operational, and organizational) performance implications. Several meaningful and generalizable trends, conflicts, and consensus, or lack thereof, are revealed. For instance, the extent of environmental practices' implementation can be seen to be greater at large firms' (vis-à-vis small ones) and at foreign firms' (vis-à-vis local ones), though not much difference is seen between old and new firms. Also, several metafactors such as resources availability, innovation propensity, and bureaucracy and organizational inertia are identified that explain the differential influence of firm characteristics on environmental sustainability and dispel erroneous stereotypes. Finally, gaps in the literature offering avenues for future research are highlighted along with implications for research, theory, and practice. Results are expected to help policymakers and practitioners develop policies/interventions that ensure all firms, irrespective of their characteristics contribute to environmental sustainability. A comprehensive review of this kind has not been previously undertaken and constitutes the novelty of this work.     

Human resource strategy for the new ICT-driven business context

The influence of technology developments on the content and arrangement of work is a recurring theme in many publications. Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) are reshaping internal organizational design and necessitate new types of employee capabilities and behaviour. As will be illustrated, ICT developments create a heightened level of business and market dynamics. Arguably, these dynamics affect the required capabilities and behaviour of employees even more strongly. Similarly, the way businesses are operating, and customer, supplier and business partner relationships are formed, is also affected by the rapid ICT progress. Key drivers shaping the new business context will be addressed. This paper argues that the trends and developments illustrated necessitate revision of traditionally held beliefs and paradigms. Said revision has important implications for the strategy and management of human resources, whereby the focus on employee behaviour is crucial. Two key aspects of a human resource strategy will be discussed, identified as HR alignment and HR enablement. With the focus on employee behaviour, attention should be given to the organizational context, since this context determines employee behaviour. Said context is defined by organizational culture, management practices and various organizational structures and systems. In view of the necessary organizational change associated with the developments illustrated, the importance of consistency and coherence between the elements of the organizational context is stressed. Establishing change under conditions of consistency and coherence is therefore identified as a crucial organizational competence.     

Metrics: HRM's Holy Grail? A New Zealand case study

What gets measured in business is noticed and acted on. The importance of human resource management (HRM) to be noticed as a vital key to business success has been argued profusely by the HRM profession over the last three decades. While the importance of human resource (HR) measurement is not disputed by business managers, the search for meaningful generic HR metrics is like HRM's Holy Grail. The purpose of this research is to investigate the issues confronting a sample of business organisations concerning measurement issues. It examines the current measurement practices used and their HR measurement needs. Developing appropriate HR measures, in terms of adding value, allows organisations to refocus their resources for leverage. Inappropriate measures simply encourage inappropriate behaviours not in the long‐term interests of the business. We know that HRM is less prepared than other business functions (like finance or management information systems) to quantify its impact on business performance. Our results suggest that HR metrics as the Holy Grail of HRM remain elusive. This research signals the importance of developing relevant and meaningful HR measurement models, while acknowledging that the actual metrics used (unlike accounting measures) may vary from business to business.     

A Transdisciplinary Exploratory Model of Corporate Responses to the Challenges of Environmental Sustainability

Global surveys of business leaders identify the environment as a major issue of concern, but uncertainties about how to address the challenges of environmental sustainability are cited as a significant inhibitor to business responses. Persistent levels of corporate uncertainty in this domain may be due to the complexity of issues and difficulties in meaningfully capturing this complexity. Calls have been made for new ways to produce knowledge about complex societal challenges, including environmental sustainability. This paper aims to reduce business uncertainties and to stimulate business and research initiatives. The paper describes a field study of a global corporation's pioneering responses to environmental sustainability. The study highlights academic and practitioner collaboration to generate, transfer and implement new knowledge through an innovative research approach. The outcome is a transdisciplinary, exploratory model, presenting a progression of integrated activities and processes within eight categories of corporate responses. Implications for research and practice are considered. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

Workers engaging in voluntary and unrewarded environmental actions that go above and beyond their job requirements in an organizational setting can crucially contribute to a reduced environmental impact of organizations. This research investigates some of the factors that may contribute to the emergence of such organizational citizenship behaviour directed towards the environment (OCBE). The hypotheses predicted employees' concern for the environment, employees' perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and organizational commitment as antecedents of OCBE. Employees from two organizations (n = 547) completed an online survey. Controlling for organizational tenure, a significant relationship between (a) employees' concern for their environment and OCBE, (b) perceived organizational support for environment efforts and OCBE and (c) organizational commitment and OCBE were found. Furthermore, organizational commitment mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and OCBE, but not environmental concern. This study's insights into the factors that can drive employees' engagement in small, voluntary environmental actions at work can guide organizations wishing to encourage such behaviours. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Environmental attitude in the board. Who are the “green directors”? Evidences from Italy

Board members' attitudes towards environmental protection are an important antecedent of how companies define and implement sustainability initiatives, but little is known about directors' attitudes and the factors associated with these. Using survey data on Italian board members, the research sought to explore the relationships between these individual's personal attributes, especially those related to their roles on boards, and their attitudes towards environmental protection. The findings suggest that female directors, directors with financial background, and independent directors are positively related to attitudes towards environmental protection. In the financial sector, younger board members and risk committee members show stronger environmental attitudes. The results could be of interest to policymakers because the board member attributes identified may require a stronger regulatory focus in order to achieve public policy's environmental protection objectives and to governance bodies in terms of defining board committees' composition and selecting “green directors” oriented towards environmental issues.     

The challenge of international human resource management: balancing the duality of strategy and practice

Over the last two decades there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of organizations that have internationalized their operations. The international movement of labour that has been concomitant with such expansion of international business has meant that issues associated with the management of human resources across international borders are increasingly important to international human resource managers and academics. The research presented in this paper examines international human resource management (IHRM) pedagogy and practice in Australia. It reports IHRM academicians' and practitioners' understanding of the major issues for teaching and practice in IHRM and elucidates current developments and directions for this field.     

Factors affecting corporate environmental strategy in Spanish industrial firms

During the last 30 years, environmental issues have become very important for governments, consumers and companies. Firms, aware of their environmental responsibilities, have started to show an important commitment to society and the natural environment, developing environmentally friendly strategies. However, the factors that determine the choice of environmental strategies are still unclear. They range from ethical motivations to social, legislative and competitive factors. This study analyses the main antecedents that influence firms' ecological behaviour, distinguishing between environmental orientation and environmental strategies. The hypotheses proposed in this study are analysed by means of a structural equation model on a sample of 235 industrial firms. The results reveal that competitive motivations and management commitment are the most important factors explaining why firms incorporate environmental issues into their strategic planning process. Moreover, management commitment is a critical factor for firms because managers' perception about customers' ecological concern directly influences firms' environmental behaviour. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate sustainability and financial performance: Collective reputation as moderator of the relationship between environmental performance and firm market value

Markets value superior corporate sustainability performance in part because investors use a firm's environmental performance as a signal of desirable but difficult-to-observe attributes, such as the firm's integrity capacity. Yet a signaling conflict can arise when a firm belongs to an organizational form that has a collective reputation for being unethical. In such circumstances, the firm's environmental performance may no longer credibly signal its underlying integrity capacity, leading markets to adjust downward the value they would otherwise place on the firm's environmental performance. Using longitudinal data on South Korean firms, we find that improvements in firm environmental performance lead to smaller increases in market values for firms belonging to a poorly reputed organizational form. However, firms can partially recover lost value by adopting firm features that reduce the signaling conflict, thereby restoring the notion of corporate sustainability performance driving firm market values.     

Developing Organizational Citizens: Creating Business Impact and Greater Human Capital

Organizational citizenship behavior, when part of a leadership development program, can have an impact on an organization's culture and can impact measurable, tangible business outcomes. Striving for increased organizational citizenship behaviors as a component of leadership development programs can be beneficial in realizing greater organizational human capital and business impact, such as job satisfaction, reduced turnover, organizational effectiveness, and increased customer satisfaction. The associated steps for weaving organizational citizenship into a leadership development program and measuring it are outlined.     

Managerial perceptions of corporate environmentalism: interpretations from industry and strategic implications for organizations

Environmental issues are becoming increasingly important in organization theory and practice. Corporate environmentalism is emerging as a process of addressing environmental issues facing business firms. In this paper I examine managerial perceptions of corporate environmentalism and describes how key organizational members interpret the relationship between their firm and the biophysical environment. Corporate environmental orientation and environmental strategy focus are two themes of corporate environmentalism that emerge from the study. I discuss managerial perceptions of regulatory forces, public environmental concern, top management commitment and need for competitive advantage, and how perceptions of these factors might translate into environmental strategies. I conclude by discussing implications of corporate environmentalism for organizational theory and practice.