Understanding consumers' purchase intentions toward natural‐claimed products: A qualitative research in personal care products

In recent years there is a trend of consuming natural products for a sustainable and healthier life. Therefore, firms began aligning their strategy with sustainability by communication strategies that they produce natural products, which are better for health as well as the environmental sustainability. However, sometimes these claims may be deceptive. The purpose of this paper is to understand the consumers' purchasing intentions toward products claiming naturalness in their advertising and packaging strategies. This research also examined greenwashing perceptions and their potential roles in purchasing intentions. In‐depth face‐to‐face interviews carried out with 20 Turkish women regarding personal care products (local brand and international brand). The findings of the interviews revealed eight themes (perceived greenwashing, perceived green image, price perception, environmental concern, green trust, skepticism, perceived risk, and purchase intention). This study contributes to predict a framework from consumer viewpoint for identifying the themes related to greenwashing.     

Beyond symbolic and substantive: Strategic disclosure of corporate environmental information in China

Under increasing regulatory pressure to disclose environmental impacts, corporate environmental information disclosure (EID) is becoming more prevalent. However, the motives for EID and disclosure approaches (i.e., symbolic or substantive) remain controversial. Using a sample of data for 742 listed manufacturing firms in China across 3 years, we provide evidence to show that the level of EID is significantly positively associated with a firm's advertising intensity and that firms in moderately competitive industries have a higher propensity for adopting an EID‐based differentiated strategy than firms in stronger or weaker competitive industries. We also find that firms that are more sensitive to environmental issues strategically understate their environmental impact when directly facing consumers. Our results suggest that the implementation of corporate EID is strategic and that firms have strong market motives, even under regulatory pressure to demonstrate legitimacy. We discuss this study's contributions to research on EID theory and implications for strategic EID management.     

In the line of fire: managing expatriates in hostile environments

Abstract

This study explores best practice in the preparation and protection of strategic HRs deployed by Multinational corporations (MNCs) in hostile environments. By building on the literature from the areas of strategic and IHRM, expatriation, as well as risk and crisis management, the limitations and gaps of the extant research are highlighted. This provides a foundation for our investigation through a series of in-depth interviews with corporate executives, and insurers and relocation specialists with professional expertise in protecting and supporting HRs. This represents the first time such a detailed picture of the partnerships between MNCs and the specialists, required to deliver preparation and protection in hostile environments, has been depicted in the IHRM literature. The findings identify the challenges MNCs face when protecting their HRs and highlights the importance of specialist expertise, knowledge, and management. A framework for managing HRs within international hostile environments is subsequently developed offering an opportunity to systematically consider some of the ethical and strategic issues associated with the contemporary challenges of international mobility.     

基于DEA模型的建筑业环境行为效率评价研究

对建筑企业进行环境行为效率评价是促进我国建筑行业健康可持续发展的重要手段。根据建筑行业特点及我国现有的企业环境信用标准,构建了建筑企业环境行为评价的投入产出指标体系,将改进的数据包络分析方法模型运用到企业环境行为效率评价领域,解决了现有企业评价研究主观性突出的问题,得出建筑企业评价分析方法。在此基础上对某代表性建筑企业2010—2017年环境行为数据进行了评价分析。分析结果表明该企业环境行为总体效率良好,但鉴于出现了奇数年和偶数年的效率波动情况,仍需提高环境行为效率。     

The heterogeneous relationship between board social ties and corporate environmental responsibility in an emerging economy

Firms in emerging economies are faced with multiple, incompatible institutional forces in their environmental activities. Which of these forces will be dominant and instantiated within an organization is partly determined by the social relationships that a firm maintains with external actors. This paper investigates the relationship between board social ties and the level of environmental responsibility undertaken by firms in China, an emerging economy, by categorizing board social ties into three types in terms of the three isomorphic forces in the institutional field (coercive, normative and mimetic). Drawing on institutional and agency theories, using a sample of listed firms in environmentally sensitive industries, and a generalized least squares regression method, the results provide empirical evidence that ties that are linked to coercive and normative forces (i.e., political organizations and universities) are related to a higher level of environmental responsibility; however, those that are linked to mimetic forces (i.e., industrial peers) have a negative association with environmental responsibility, which is mitigated by CEO power. These findings suggest that the heterogeneous effects of board social ties on environmental responsibilities experienced by firms in a context of environmentalism are at an early stage.     

Supplier Development Practices for Sustainability: A Multi‐Stakeholder Perspective

Supplier development for sustainability is a critical element of sustainable supply chain management and requires extensive multi‐stakeholder collaboration. This article establishes a conceptual four‐stage framework to analyse the collaborative mechanisms of supplier development practices, and presents an exploratory, qualitative analysis to identify the major contributors of sustainable supplier development practices, such as NGOs, industrial associations, consulting firms etc. Based on semi‐structured interviews about 63 organizations from different regions and industries, this article identifies three types of contributor: drivers, facilitators and inspectors. Instead of traditional stakeholder engagement processes, these contributors actively collaborate with buying firms and suppliers to design, implement and evaluate sustainable supplier development programs. The article then provides a matrix to describe the supply chain coverage and supplier performance of supplier development practices, given the absence or positive involvement of facilitators and inspectors. We conclude our study by suggesting future research directions as well as discussing managerial implications. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Yen or Yuan? The law of one price and economic integration in Asia

Using highly comparable local retail prices of 146 goods and services across 18 Asian countries over 1990–2014, we analyse price dispersion and test convergence to the law of one price (LOP ) for these prices around three price benchmarks—Asia‐average, Japan and China prices—to gain insight about market integration in overall Asia as well relative integration of Asian economies to Japan and China. Cross‐Asia price dispersion around China‐price benchmark, for both tradables and non‐tradables, diminishes significantly over the sample period whereas that around Japan‐price benchmark increases considerably, particularly after the 2008 crisis. There is convergence to the LOP for about half of goods and services in China‐ and Asia‐average price benchmarks. The percentage of convergent prices is significantly smaller in Japan‐price benchmark. Direct estimates of the convergence speed parameter also confirm these observations. Overall, our results show evidence of increasing economic integration in Asia in the last two decades. The process of price convergence appears to be driven by the emergence of China as the centre of economic gravity in the region. There is much room for improvement as economic integration in Asia is still far below that in Europe in the 1990s or USA in the 1980s.     

An examination of the effects of 2014 concealed weapons law in Illinois on property crimes in Chicago

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of ‘may issue’ Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) law implemented in early 2014 in Chicago. Based on the daily community-level crime data from January 2006 to December 2015, using zero-inflated negative binomial difference-in-difference specification with Philadelphia as the control group, the property crimes in Chicago declined after the implementation of ‘may issue’ CCW law. The findings are robust to alternate treatment windows and to a placebo test using time windows before implementation of the law.     

Environmental Policy,Sustainable Development,Governance Mechanisms and Environmental Performance

We investigate the effects of environmental policy (Climate Change Act – CCA), sustainable development frameworks (Global Reporting Initiative – GRI; UN Global Compact – UNGC) and corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on environmental performance (carbon reduction initiatives – CRIs; actual carbon performance – GHG emissions) of UK listed firms. We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to analyse data consisting of 2245 UK firm‐year observations over the 2002–2014 period. First, we find that the CCA has a positive effect on CRIs, and this effect is stronger in better‐governed firms. Second, we find that the GRI‐based framework is positively associated with CRIs. Third, we find that firms with poor CG structures have lower actual carbon performance compared with their better‐governed counterparts. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms can symbolically conform to environmental policy (CCA) and sustainable development frameworks (GRI, UNGC) by engaging in CRIs without necessarily improving actual environmental performance (GHG emissions) substantively. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The environmental sustainability of protected area tourism: towards a concession-related theory of regulation

Demand for Protected Area (PA) tourism continues to grow, raising concerns for its environmental sustainability. Numerous sustainable tourism guidelines and best practice examples exist for separate aspects of PA regulation and management. However, such efforts are insufficient to reliably and holistically understand how regulation can mediate the relationship between tourism development and PA environmental sustainability. This paper proposes a theory development project, to map the compatibility and interplays among various regulatory approaches, and their consequences for sustainable PA tourism. The project is initiated here by taking the first steps toward a concession-related theory of regulation. The focus on concessions has been chosen because concessions are the most under-researched aspects of PA tourism regulation. Four regulatory aspects are selected and conceptualized in this paper: the approaches to PA planning, the types of monitoring undertaken, the methods of concession allocation and the design of environmental requirements in concession contracts. Methodologically, grounded theory is used, with data collection relying on written sources. The paper develops two sets of narrative statements regarding the prospects for PA environmental sustainability, under particular examples of concession-related regulation. The conclusion articulates several research questions, as an immediate research agenda, and calls for an international research group to be formed.