System‐Spanning Values Work and Entrepreneurial Growth in Family Firms

Culture and values are key drivers of corporate entrepreneurship in early stages of family firm development, but value conflicts often arise over time that progressively inhibit their entrepreneurial efforts. How can family firms reconcile conflicting values to sustain corporate entrepreneurship over time? Our 45‐year longitudinal case study of a large global family firm shows that family business leaders’ practices of invoking and flexibly using family and business values were crucial to achieve sustained entrepreneurial behaviour and growth over an extended period of time. We theorize these efforts as system‐spanning values work enfolding through specific family, business, and temporal mechanisms. By identifying and elucidating three types of values work (i.e., rooting, revitalizing, and spreading), our study advances current understanding of the micro‐foundations underpinning the relationship between values and entrepreneurship in family firms.     

Environmentally driven mode of business development: a management control perspective

A prerequisite for successful business development is that the control system is designed and used in such a way that strategically important areas can be planned and followed up. Thus, it must be possible to relate results on the quality front, for example, to the company's strategy, which is why quality systems are often integrated with the overall system of control. Environmental management systems, on the other hand, often tend to lead a life of their own, quite disconnected from the overall control system with its routines for strategic planning and follow-up. This can perhaps explain why environmental work has not become a natural part of corporate business development, despite the market for environmentally friendly products. In this article, we therefore focus particularly on control systems and their role in the promotion of an environmentally driven mode of business development. It appears that the integration of environmental management systems with other control systems has been found to be important. The tentative model presented here indicates the conditions under which such integration is possible. It also shows how a company's approach to environmentally driven business development can fall into various phases. The model includes three dimensions: (1) strategy, (2) control systems, and (3) attitude to environmental work. A number of hypotheses are formulated regarding the importance of these dimensions for the successful promotion of an environmentally driven mode of business development in large companies. The article concludes with some suggestions as to how the model can be used in further research.     

Eco‐efficiency and dematerialization: Scenarios for new industrial logics in recycling industries,automobile and household appliances

The environmental field has been continuously overloaded with new concepts in the area of environmental impact such as environmental space, ecological backpack, carrying capacity, ecological footprint, dematerialization and eco‐efficiency. The latter two concepts have a particular relevance to corporate environmental management. This article discusses the concepts of dematerialization and eco‐efficiency with respect to their implications for industry logics. It is based on a project that was initiated by the Swedish EPA. Within the project we used the scenario technique to explore the future industry logics of recycling industries related to the automobile industry and household appliances. One scenario, ‘business as usual’, indicates a focus on products with incremental improvements and a stepwise departure from today's practices. The other scenario, ‘dematerialization’, indicates a focus on functions and needs, and a significant departure from today's practices. Concluding from the empirical analysis of present industry logics, based on interviews and data analysis in specific industries, we realized that changes in industry logics and business systems are inevitable, if industry takes a responsibility for the whole life cycle seriously. Accordingly, we propose the transformation of business systems as a research agenda for the future. Such an agenda follows ecologically motivated transformation and translation processes throughout the whole system of actor networks and action nets of society and creates an enhanced understanding of the emerging processes of corporate environmental management. It also considers different institutional arrangements between those actors that constitute the system as a whole. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The Sustainability Balanced Scorecard – linking sustainability management to business strategy

The Balanced Scorecard of Kaplan and Norton is a management tool that supports the successful implementation of corporate strategies. It has been discussed and considered widely in both practice and research. By linking operational and non‐financial corporate activities with causal chains to the firm's long‐term strategy, the Balanced Scorecard supports the alignment and management of all corporate activities according to their strategic relevance. The Balanced Scorecard makes it possible to take into account non‐monetary strategic success factors that significantly impact the economic success of a business. The Balanced Scorecard is thus a promising starting‐point to also incorporate environmental and social aspects into the main management system of a firm. Sustainability management with the Balanced Scorecard helps to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches to environmental and social management systems by integrating the three pillars of sustainability into a single and overarching strategic management tool. After a brief discussion of the different possible forms of a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard the article takes a closer look at the process and steps of formulating a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard for a business unit. Before doing so, the basic conventional approach of the Balanced Scorecard and its suitability for sustainability management will be outlined in brief. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

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.     

Paving the road toward eco-effectiveness: Exploring the link between greenhouse gas emissions and firm performance

Climate change has increasingly attracted business attention over the last decade, focusing particularly on the eco-efficiency debate. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we contribute to the ongoing debate on the effects of environmental strategies on firm performance. We investigate this relationship by considering the relative greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as a predictor of the eco-efficiency of firms' environmental strategies. GHG emissions are a direct indicator of the environmental performance and effectively measure the firm's efforts in mitigating the impacts related to its processes and products. Second, we investigate the drivers that lead to an increase in the firm's environmental impact under the conditions of increasing market performance by the firm, therefore paving the road to the concept of eco-effectiveness of corporate environmental strategies. To test our hypotheses, we use a sample of worldwide listed companies derived from the S&P 1200 list. A longitudinal analysis is run through generalized least squares regression models over the period 2004–2016. Results offer evidence of the direct relationship between the level of absolute emissions and market performance of the firm. Therefore, the findings have significant implications on the way we conceptualize corporate environmental sustainability and environmental strategies, shedding new light on the relation between environmental pressures and corporate growth.     

What We Know About Environmental Policy: An Inductive Typology of the Research

Environmental performance is a multidimensional concept that is difficult to measure since it concerns the pollution generated by companies, their energy consumption and their different environmental policies. Academic research has used objective and/or non‐objective indicators to measure this performance, dealing with both its managerial and measurement dimensions. This paper provides an inductive typology of the academic work concerning environmental policy through a computerized content analysis of 151 articles from 1992 to 2014 related to the management and measurement of environmental performance. The results highlight four major themes around which the academic research is organized: the relationship between environmental and financial performance, environmental performance under stakeholder engagement and institutional pressures, the strategic management of environmental performance, and increasing awareness of the sustainable development issue. Environmental performance research has evolved from a quantitative towards a more managerial dimension, highlighting the integration of performance within the management of a corporate business strategy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

汽车零部件企业业务流程设计影响因素分析

从企业外部环境因素和企业内部环境因素两个方面,提出了汽车零部件企业业务流程设计的影响因素;具体分析了这些因素对业务流程设计的影响。在此基础上,应用模糊决策法对这些因素的重要度进行评价,提高了业务流程设计过程中决策的科学性。应用案例分析了各因素对某汽车零部件企业业务流程设计的不同影响程度,为该企业的业务流程设计提供了重要的依据。     

Traders as sustainability governance actors in global food supply chains: A research agenda

Corporate actors are rapidly gaining ground as nontraditional forms of authority that shape sustainability governance efforts in global food supply chains. This paper highlights the critical, but underresearched role of traders—companies whose core business lies in the movement and exchange of agricultural commodities between producers and manufacturers—in linking corporate sustainability ambitions to on-the-ground impacts. Drawing on a systematic analysis of the major transnational corporations trading cocoa, coffee, and palm oil, we present advantages and potential pitfalls of relying on traders as implementers of sustainability governance and outline a future research agenda that focuses on producer-level impacts, changes in supply chain organization and power dynamics, and traders' interactions with state and other nonstate actors. At the intersection of supply chain management, political economy, geography, and global governance, research on traders as key sustainability governance actors also provides novel opportunities for interdisciplinary work and stakeholder engagement.     

Adjusting for cultural differences,a new DEA model applied to a merged bank

The usefulness and application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) efficiency measurements is usually limited by the requirement of consistent operating circumstances. However, in many real world situations this is not the case, so to overcome this problem, this paper reports on a new strategy by inventing a Culturally Adjusted DEA model to benchmark business units that operate under different cultural (business) environments. This is especially useful when these environmental factors are partial causes of inefficiency and can not be simply incorporated into a DEA model as inputs or outputs. A simulation analysis is conducted to examine the effectiveness of the CA-DEA model for controlling these environmental effects. This model is applied to a real life efficiency study of two major financial firms in Canada in 2000, when the two entities started to consolidate and merge their branch networks. Two cultural indices are identified to represent a firm’s unique operating environment, one to capture the nature of a firm’s corporate strategies (Corporate Index), and the other to estimate the effectiveness of a firm’s operational systems (Service Index). The results show that a firm’s corporate culture has a significant influence on its branches’ efficiency and this, we found, is often neglected in such studies. This paper also makes a contribution to the bank merger literature by providing an internal view of the potential benefits that may result from sharing cultural advantages while identifying the true managerial inefficiencies.     

The influence of managerial satisfaction on corporate environmental performance and reputation

Organizational studies have widely debated the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Some papers have dealt with managerial satisfaction and businesses' performance adopting agency theory to interpret the results. However, no studies have yet considered the relationship between the satisfaction levels of an environmental manager and corporate environmental performance. This paper thus analyses the role played by the environmental manager's satisfaction in enhancing corporate environmental performance and reputation. The paper uses data from a survey of 412 Eco Management and Audit Scheme registered organizations. The results show a positive relationship between managerial satisfaction and environmental performance, whereas no such positive relationship was found when considering eco‐innovation performance. In addition, the environmental manager's satisfaction has a positive and indirect influence on the corporate environmental reputation. These results contribute to the literature on agency theory and aim to extend the debate between job satisfaction and job performance to the sustainable business field.     

Corporate engagement in processes for planetary sustainability: understanding corporate capacity in the non‐renewable resource extractive sector,Australia

In recent years corporations have come under increasing pressure from governments, consumers, investors, competitors, business partners and communities to balance their pursuit of economic gain with environmental and social concerns. Non‐renewable resource extractive corporations in particular, due to their profile, visibility and activities, have come under mounting pressure to embed the concept of ecological sustainability into strategic decision‐making processes and operations. In this regard, there is a growing base of evidence that describes efforts, successes and failures in the sector to meet mounting societal expectations. However, to date there has been limited explanatory research into corporate capacity to engage in processes for ecological sustainability. This paper presents an emergent explanation of the internal factors mediating corporate engagement in ecological sustainability in non‐renewable resource extractive corporations in Australia. It identifies the five factors of leadership, resources, structures, culture and understanding and conceptualizes these internal factors as capacity for engagement. While all of the factors are seen as interdependent and essential, leadership is identified as the most critical. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate sustainability,ecological modernization and the policy process in the South African automotive industry

In the past decade, the plea for corporate sustainability has gathered momentum and protecting the environment is one aspect for organizations to address if they are to conduct business in a sustainable manner. In this paper, we present the results of a questionnaire survey on the state of corporate sustainability within the South African automotive industry. The survey focused on the meaning and relevance of sustainability to South African automotive companies, and their use of different approaches to implement sustainability in corporate practice. On this score, the paper seeks to analyze and compare the levels of voluntary environmental initiatives between large and small and medium‐sized enterprises within the automotive milieu. Survey results reveal that a majority of automotive companies have sought to improve their environmental performance by integrating environmental considerations into their core activities. Although the majority of these companies have standardized EMSs, our analysis reveals considerable differences between companies' approaches to corporate sustainability. In particular, they varied in the extent to which procedures were formalized and documented behind the corporate rhetoric of a high commitment to sustainability. The paper concludes by prescribing a number of recommendations as to how to engage and promote more widely the South African automobile manufacturing companies in environmental change. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Engaging Hong Kong businesses in environmental change: drivers and barriers

Hong Kong's businesses have been slow to embrace environmental management principles, particularly in the SME sector. This article analyses key barriers and incentives to engaging Hong Kong businesses with voluntary environmental initiatives and compares their relevance for companies of different sizes. As in other countries, SMEs show a much lower uptake of such activities than larger companies. Their approach towards environmental management is predominantly reactive, and legislation remains the key driver for engaging them with environmental change. Inadequate government policy and support, societal attitudes and corporate culture all contribute significantly to the comparatively poor development of corporate environmental management among Hong Kong companies. As long as most SMEs regard voluntary environmental activities as costly and unnecessary ‘extras’ that endanger their competitiveness and detract resources from their core business without offering any tangible benefits, fundamental improvements in their environmental performance will be difficult to achieve. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Board gender diversity and corporate environmental performance: The moderating role of family and dual‐class majority ownership structures

While prior work has investigated the impact of (a) ownership structure and (b) board gender diversity separately on corporate environmental performance, researchers have not studied the potentially important relationship between ownership control and female board diversity in influencing corporate environmental performance jointly. We do so in the context of majority ownership in family‐controlled and dual‐class firms whose motives and influence are theoretically different from that of the firm's minority shareholders. Drawing on resource dependency, socioemotional wealth theory, and secondary agency theory, we hypothesize that majority family owners and dual‐class owners likely choose women directors to help advance their personal preferences for environmental corporate social responsibility. Our empirical tests utilizing 2,755 U.S. firm years over the 2010–2015 show that, as hypothesized, these two majority ownership types interact with board gender diversity to positively influence corporate environmental performance.     

How to define an environmental policy to improve corporate sustainability in developing countries

Continual efforts to work with government and society are crucial to persuade businesses to become even better engaged in sustainability practices in developing countries. This study rebuilds the SCP (structure–conduct–performance) paradigm to incorporate environmental variables and to address the environmental strategy choices. Grounded theory was adopted in a systematic collection of data in petrochemical, textile and beverage companies established in different Brazilian states. In‐depth personal interview, site visit and documentary evidence were coded and analysed. The empirical results demonstrate that environmental regulation and enforcement, environmental risk and demands from stakeholders play a central role in increasing the corporate commitment to the natural environment. The study defines four strategic generic types of organization, termed variously as sleeper, reactor, defender and innovator, owing to their solutions to environmental issues. This typology contributes as a roadmap for business decision makers to choose the appropriate environmental strategy in a global economy. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The 100 plus corporate environmental report study: A survey of an evolving environmental management tool

An emerging environmental management tool is the corporate environmental report, a free-standing document, analogous to the corporate annual report, but which covers environmental and often health and safety issues. This study examines the nature of the corporate environmental reports of large, public, US companies to determine which companies produce reports, what type of information is reported, how this information is presented, and who might be the audiences for this information. This study also seeks to identify state of the art practice in corporate environmental reports, drawing on the US reports and leading environmental reports from Europe and Canada. Over 100 US companies now publish corporate environmental reports. These companies are primarily from the manufacturing sector, although they are increasingly part of the service sector. Report issuers identified employees and shareholders as their primary audiences. Both overall report organization and composition as well as report distribution, including the use of the Internet for environmental reporting, were examined. Topics which reflect leading edge environmental practice are identified and examples from reports are given. These topics include integrating business and environmental performance, environmental policy, goals and measurement, management and organizational structure, environmental and resource data presentation, third-party verification, disclosure of negative information, and sustainability. The paper discusses trends in reporting and makes recommendations to improve reports.© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate discourse and environmental performance in Argentina

There is substantial research and policy interest in the relationship between firms and the natural environment, including how this relationship is influenced by regulators, international pressures, rival firms and stakeholder demands. With some exceptions, the ‘softer’ dimensions of environmental aspect management – how attitudes, beliefs and perceptions and the human factors drive corporate behaviour – have been understudied. The work that exists tends to be informal, and allows little scope for the statistical validation that is required for robust inference. This paper examines whether corporate values towards the environment affect a firm's environmental performance. It uses survey methods as well as content and discourse analyses of interview text and corporate reports and web sites to explore the links between managerial ‘mindsets’ and the environmental performance of the firms of which they are a part. Though the application is Argentina, the lessons learned can be generalized to other developing and industrialized countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

From market failure to organisational failure

In this paper, we argue that environmental economists who have dedicated their attention to problems of market and regulatory failure have been remiss in ignoring the potential for failure in the one institution that actually manages environmental resources - the business firm. Traditionally the firm has been modelled as a unitary, rational, optimising persona ficta. There is, however, abundant empirical and theoretical evidence to suggest that the business firm is an imperfect institution in that there are systematic deviations between the environmental objectives of the firm's leaders (principals) and the actions of the firm's employees (agents) which determine environmental performance. In the paper, we draw parallels between the causes of market failure and public policy tools to correct them on one hand and the causes of organisational failure and the management tools suited to their remedy on the other. Although much of the paper is concerned with the interrelationship between public policy that promotes sustainability and business policy to fashion a sustainable enterprise, our work is relevant irrespective of the reason why a firm's principal may want to improve environmental performance. No matter what the reason, the principal must concern him- or herself with operationalising objectives in management systems. It is consistent with the precautionary principle to assume that employees will do what the firm measures and rewards, not what its principal says is important. We build a verbal model, based on the language of principal-agent theory, to analyse how different management instruments might be employed to improve the firm's environmental performance. The model is one of three decision makers in a vertical hierarchy. Each of the first two has various instruments at its disposal to influence the behaviour of the agents subordinate to it. In the end, the goal is to ensure consistency between social, economic, and personal objectives. The specific management tools we analyse, with reference to the formal modelling which has appeared in the literature, include the compensation system, quantification and monitoring of non-financial objectives, internal pricing, horizontal task restructuring, centralisation vs. decentralisation of decision making, and corporate sanctions of agents for negligence. We conclude the paper by reiterating that the corporate policy statements to the effect that the firm should respect the environment are insufficient to ensure that result. In addition, firms' principals must operationalise that goal in the systems of measurement and control which govern the behaviour of those who really matter - the employees.