Strategic inter‐organizational environmentalism in the US: A multi‐sectoral perspective of alternating eco‐policy roles

During the last several decades, numerous policies and programs intended to advance environmental goals have been formulated in the US by governmental bodies and implemented by businesses and nongovernmental organizations. This article forwards a multi‐sectoral perspective that business and nonprofit organizations have also been significantly involved in environmental policy and program formulation, as well as implementation, and that governments have also fulfilled the latter strategic role in US environmental policy. In this article, nine US environmental initiatives are described and categorized according to which of the three sectors' organizations were significant formulators of the programs and which were significant implementors. Implications for future research include investigation of other environmental dyadic program combinations in addition to those presented, extension of the present analysis beyond dyads into environmental policy networks, inclusion of the strategic environmental program evaluation stage to complement formulation and implementation and exploration of effectiveness variables in cross‐sectoral, inter‐organizational collaborations. Implications for educators and practitioners are also presented. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.     

A relational view of climate adaptation in the private sector: How do value chain interactions shape business perceptions of climate risk and adaptive behaviours?

Studies exploring climate change adaptation in the private sector have seldom investigated the effect of business network interactions on climate vulnerability and adaptation outcomes. This paper proposes a novel theoretical framework to explore how business–network dynamics affect risk perceptions and adaptive behaviours in business firms. The framework is empirically grounded in a comparative analysis of business–network dynamics from three agricultural value chains in Jamaica that are vulnerable to climate change impacts. The results illustrate how the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of value chain actors are influenced by business interdependencies and interfirm relationships. We find that the level of formality of business exchanges (contractual or noncontractual), the level of resource interdependency, and the ability to diversify access channels to critical resources can influence the propagation of climate‐related risks and influence actors' exposure and sensitivity to those risks. The study also offers evidence of the role played by bonding and bridging relational ties on adaptive capacity. The framework and findings provide a foundation for a new research agenda exploring a relational view of firm adaptation strategy in response to climate risks.     

Strategic HRM as social design for environmental sustainability in organization

A strategic model of human resource management is proposed as a framework to support sustainable adaptation to the disruptive and dynamic challenges in the business context related to environmental sustainability. The implications of a whole‐systems ecological approach to the design and implementation of human resource systems are explored, and the literature on best HR practices to support environmental sustainability is summarized. Implications for practice and research are presented.     

Environmental visibility: a trigger of green organizational response?

This paper develops a typology of visibility in an environmental context. Although visibility has been neglected and ill defined in contemporary environmental management research, environmental visibility can be a useful construct for predicting green organizational response. As such, it might prove a useful tool for environmental management researchers, policy‐makers and business strategists. The paper derives a conceptual typology of visibility from previous organizational theory research. Visibility is considered both as a characteristic of an organization and as a characteristic of an issue, and at both the corporate and operating unit levels. Data collected in a recent series of interviews in 24 business units in UK PLCs are analysed to provide examples of the types of visibility in an environmental context. The resultant environmental visibility typology is used to discuss the relationship between environmental visibility and green organizational responses. This study's findings suggest that considering environmental visibility as a predictor of green organizational response should be fruitful for future empirical research, and useful for policy‐makers and business strategists. Copyright © 2000 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.     

Environmental Management of End‐of‐Life Products: Nine Factors of Sustainability in Collaborative Networks

The paradigm of the green economy has contributed to raising the attention paid to developing sustainability‐oriented strategies for supply chain (SC) management. The responsibility of producers to extend and reverse SCs is a critical and timely topic that captures increasing concerns over the way firms can adapt their business models to interlinking technical, socio‐economic and environmental frameworks. This is particularly true when producers are not also reuse/recycle actors. By performing a critical review of the scientific literature on this field, this article develops nine elemental factors that can be considered for assessing the impacts of collaborative strategies as a means to implement extended producer responsibility (EPR) in open‐loop SCs. The resulting conceptual framework provides EPR implementation guidance under different market conditions. Inter‐organizational relationships are found to present both opportunities and threats that can be profitably managed under a systemic perspective. Implications for management and needs for further research are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

“I like it,but I don't use it”: Impact of carsharing business models on usage intentions in the sharing economy

Carsharing is often promoted as a potentially environmental‐friendly alternative to individual car ownership. However, various carsharing programs have displayed limited success in the past. An initial field study of a new carsharing service is such a story of failure: The introduction of this new service at a medium‐sized German university generated unexpectedly low adoption rates so that the service was eventually scaled down and then suspended. Quantitative field study results as well as additional qualitative focus groups reveal that missing compatibility is a key barrier to adoption. Drawing on extant conceptual frameworks of user participation in sharing business models, a factorial survey identifies the importance of different dimensions of carsharing business models for their acceptance. The results reveal that a set of convenience and lifestyle dimensions influences usage intentions, including mode of drive, pickup and drop‐off mode, service level, price model, availability, and type of market mediation. In contrast, vehicle fleet does not appear to influence carsharing models' acceptance. These findings contribute to research on business model configuration as well as the attitude–behavior gap in the sharing economy by determining relevant dimensions of a carsharing business model that can bridge the gap between basically positive attitudes and usage resistance. Thereby, they also serve for concrete managerial recommendations.     

Environmental management beyond the boundaries of the firm: definitions and constraints

When firms look outward and consider how issues related to the natural environment are likely to affect them directly they can distinguish two main forms of influence. One is environmental and related regulation which comes in a variety of forms. The other partly overlapping form is market influences. As firms try to adapt to these influences, either they can take an internally focused approach or they can accept that environmental impacts are related to all the stages of life a product passes through and take the inter‐organizational consequences in terms of required co‐operation. Pursuing inter‐organizational environmental management, however, involves a choice of approaches, which are likely to vary greatly in terms of the degree of physical exchange and the cost of arranging and maintaining inter‐organizational relations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Defining Eco‐efficiency: A Case Study on the Finnish Forest Industry

Environmental reporting is a tool of corporate environmental management that can also be used as research material. The aim of this paper is to produce a comprehensive definition of eco‐efficiency based on the literature and then compare it with definitions identified in the environmental reports published by selected companies. In addition, this paper presents a conceptual framework of the relationship between environmental and economic performance in the companies. Three Finnish companies in the forest industry are selected as case companies. This analysis reviews environmental reports published by the companies from 1998 to 2007. In short, eco‐efficiency can be seen either as an indicator of environmental performance, or as a business strategy for sustainable development. The case companies very seldom give an exact definition of eco‐efficiency in their environmental reports. However, different aspects of eco‐efficiency are often referred to. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Uncovering the Value of Green Advertising for Environmental Management Practices

This paper extends previous environmental management research by building and empirically testing a model of the contingency effects of green advertising on the relationships between environmental management practices in terms of environmentally conscious manufacturing and product stewardship, environmental reputation and financial performance. We examine the value of green advertising in sharing and publicizing information about organizational achievements in environmental preservation in a business‐to business context with the Taiwanese electronics manufacturing industry. The theoretical propositions are largely confirmed by structural path analyses of survey responses collected from 122 Taiwanese electronics manufacturers. Green advertising delivers financial benefits only for those manufacturers that do not have an established environmental reputation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Market Orientation and FIRMS' Environmental Innovation: The Moderating Role of Environmental Attitude

Drawing on market orientation theory, innovation theory and the theory of reasoned action, this paper integrates market orientation, environmental attitude and firms' environmental innovation into a model to establish a relationship among these three variables. By taking 247 manufacturing firms in China as the research sample and by analyzing the data using SPSS19.0, we found that customer and competitor orientation have a significant and positive impact on firms' environmental innovation, while the effect of inter‐functional coordination is not significant. Furthermore, environmental attitude plays a positive moderating role between customer orientation and firms' environmental innovation, as well as between competitor orientation and firms' environmental innovation. Finally, the results of the study are discussed, and the theoretical and practical significance of this study is clarified further. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Global Standardization of Organizational Forms and Management Practices? What New Institutionalism and the Business‐Systems Approach Can Learn from Each Other*

abstract The debate as to the effects of globalization on organizational forms and management practices is well known. Our paper focuses on two institutionalist traditions in organization theory which make a significant contribution to this discussion: new institutionalism and the business‐systems approach. Both emphasize the adaptation of organizations to their institutional environments but come to very different conclusions as to the global standardization of organizational forms and management practices. Our paper aims to move them beyond the convergence‐divergence dichotomy to account for signs of both global standardization and continued persistence of national differences. We do so by systematically comparing the two traditions, suggesting how they can be cross‐fertilized and developing an agenda for future empirical research. We also highlight that they cannot learn from each other on the issue of agency and point to structuration theory as a way in which they can integrate agency into their accounts of the global standardization debate.     

Pollution Prevention and Service Stewardship Strategies in the Third‐Party Logistics Industry: Effects on Firm Differentiation and the Moderating Role of Environmental Communication

A growing number of firms are considering the incorporation of environmental thinking into their business strategies, hoping to improve their competitiveness. In this paper, we analyze the effects of pollution prevention and service stewardship capabilities on firm differentiation advantage in the third‐party logistics industry. Since prior research claims that complementary assets play an important role in fully understanding the environmental‐management‐competitiveness link, we furthermore examine the moderating role of environmental communication on the pollution‐prevention‐differentiation and the service‐stewardship‐differentiation linkages. We theoretically base our research in natural‐resource‐based thinking. Drawing on survey data, we apply multivariate regression and moderation analysis. The results highlight that pollution prevention and service stewardship capabilities can help third‐party logistics providers to achieve a differentiation advantage. Also, the results show that environmental communication moderates the effect of pollution prevention on differentiation advantage and can hence be considered a valuable complementary asset. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Environmental accounting: an essential component of business strategy

Environmental accounting is on an expansion path. With increasing social focus on the environment, accounting fills an expectation role, to measure environmental performance. The status of environmental awareness provides a dynamic for business reporting its environmental performance. Examining the integration of environmental policy with business policy is the focus of this research. The business firm's strategy includes responding to capital and operating costs of pollution control equipment. This is caused by increasing public concerns over environmental issues, and by a recent government‐led trend to incentive‐based regulation. This paper describes the environmental component of the business strategy, producing the required performance reports and recognizing the multiple skills required to measure, compile and analyze the requisite data. Special emphasis of the research is on generation of reports and their standards, for the range of business and regulatory purposes. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Being ‘Green and Competitive’: The Impact of Environmental Actions and Collaborations on Firm Performance

In this paper, we seek to enhance the understanding of the link between environmental management and firm performance, so contributing to the debate of being “green and competitive”. Relying on the resource‐based view, we study the effect of different environmental management capabilities on a firm's market and image performance. In particular, we analyze the capabilities to implement product and process‐related environmental actions with different types of environmental focus (materials, energy, pollution) and the capabilities to develop environmental collaborations with different types of actors (both business actors and non‐business actors). To this aim we conducted a survey on 122 Italian companies. Results show that market performance and image performance have partially different antecedents. Specifically, a firm's market performance is positively affected by the capabilities to implement environmental actions with a focus on energy and pollution and to develop environmental collaborations both with business and with non‐business actors. On the other hand, a firm's image performance is positively affected by the capabilities to implement environmental actions with a focus on materials and to develop environmental collaborations with non‐business actors. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Knowledge‐intensive firms: the influence of the client on HR systems

HR systems play a critical role in growing knowledge‐intensive firms (KIFs) by facilitating the conversion of human capital into intellectual capital, which has market value. However, the choice of HR system is constrained by the relatively small number of clients they have in business‐to‐business relationships. This article seeks to understand how and why these client relationships affect the choice of HR practices in these firms. We address this issue by drawing on extensive empirical research currently under way in KIFs. Our research shows that HR practices can be influenced strongly by the client, both directly and indirectly. However, some KIFs will use their HR practices as a means of managing the relationships they have with their clients by shaping their boundaries with their clients and building organisational, professional and client identities. The varying client influence can be understood by examining the nature of the power relationship between the client and supplier, which is influenced by the uniqueness of the services provided. This has implications for our understanding of the factors affecting the exercise of a constrained choice of HR systems.     

Circular Business Model Innovation: Inherent Uncertainties

Circular business models based on remanufacturing and reuse promise significant cost savings as well as radical reductions in environmental impact. Variants of such business models have been suggested for decades, and there are notable success stories such as the Xerox product–service offering based on photocopiers that are remanufactured. Still, we are not seeing widespread adoption in industry. This paper examines causes for reluctance. Drawing on a hypothesis‐testing framework of business model innovation, we show that circular business models imply significant challenges to proactive uncertainty reduction for the entrepreneur. Moreover, we show that many product–service system variants that facilitate return flow control in circular business models further aggravate the potential negative effects of failed uncertainty reduction because of increased capital commitments. Through a longitudinal action research study we also provide a counterexample to many of the challenges identified in previous studies, which could be overcome in the studied case. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Recasting Enterprise Strategy: Towards Stakeholder Research That Matters to General Managers

As well as specifying functional, business unit, and corporate levels of strategy, early strategy scholars delineated enterprise level strategy as the uppermost level of strategy. Enterprise strategy articulates how the firm engages with actors in its economic, social, and political environment to ensure long‐term corporate performance. As a growing body of evidence shows, heterogeneity in how firms identify, and engage with, their stakeholders can explain why some firms outperform their peers. However, my literature survey of more than three decades of published research reveals that enterprise strategy has stayed firmly in the shadows behind business and corporate strategy. Furthermore, many theories of firm–stakeholder relationships are normative (i.e. explain how firms should act) and do not inform strategy effectively. In this paper, I argue why enterprise strategy research is required as a cohesive body of work that connects with research in business and corporate strategy. I finish by proposing three research domains – strategic goals, organization design, and organization boundaries – that hold the potential to link stakeholder issues with mainstream concerns in strategy research and, thus, to revive a coherent research programme in enterprise level strategy.