Understanding Firms’ Approaches to Voluntary Certification: Evidence from Multiple Case Studies in FSC Certification

Voluntary certifications, such as Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) in the forestry sector, are used to manage sustainable and socially responsible practices in firms. Even though the certifications are based on standards, it has been reported that adopting firms are nothing but a homogeneous cohort of adopters and in fact differ in their approaches to the certification. In this paper, we conceptualize firms’ approach to certification and link the approaches to various aspects of certification. Using an inductive approach and deriving our data from multiple case studies from forestry FSC certification, we argue that firms’ approach to certification is explained by their development of absorptive capacity, alignment of their organizational routines and their engagement in negotiations with FSC. We also argue that these approaches affect firm’s benefits from certification, their level of adherence to the requirements of the certification and their likelihood to withdraw from the certification. We discuss our findings in view of the literature on absorptive capacity, institutional literature and the literature on collective action and also discuss the implications of the study to voluntary certification literature in general.