Environmental Issues and Theory of Management

Abstract

In environmental economics, activities aimed at reducing environmental pressure are covered by the expression ‘Internalization of external diseconomies’. However, management studies has no defined terminology for corporate activities tackling environmental problems. This paper therefore introduces new terminology — ‘the greening of management’ and ‘spontaneization’, meaning the self-generated and spontaneous involvement of companies with environmental issues — and discusses them in a contemporary context. The paper further notes five changes in social awareness of environmental problems that have accompanied the increasing gravity of environmental problems from pollution to potential breakdown, and explores the roles and limits of technological and economic countermeasures. Corporate activity is seen as requiring evolution towards environmentally conscious management, comprising measures such as corporate social responsibility, higher product durability and eco-business, and realizing the importance of longer perspectives and plurality in decision-making principles. It notes in conclusion that, in spite of the high competitive power of productive or ‘artery’ industries, supportive or ‘vein’ industries are not sufficiently developed in Japan's industrial structure; as a result, the possibility is raised that global economic growth led by Asian interests will cause a worldwide environmental crisis that is Asian in origin.