Abstract
The aim of the paper is to analyze if and in which way the national culture acts as a driver toward the implementation of corporate environmental strategy. An environmental proactive strategy seeks to reduce environmental impact and manage the interface between business and the nature beyond imposed compliance. It is recognized that the introduction of environmental protection can be used to develop successful strategy to reach a competitive advantage. The Organization and the natural environment literature identify several drivers able to push toward ecological engagement. One of the most important is the ethical attitude of organizations. Ethics could vary among different organizations because of different circumstance; in particular ethical values are strictly embedded to culture. The most of literature focused the analysis on the broader issue of Corporate Social Responsibility, analyzing the effect of national culture on Corporate Social Performance. Conversely, only few studies have analyzed the relationship that occurs between the national culture and the environmental proactivity, employing national environmental indicator rather than firms’ performance scores. Previous studies, which used Hofstede's framework, have found out that the national culture is able to influence the overall national environmental performances, missing to analyze cultural impact on company’s environmental behaviour. Does the national culture influence the company’s attitude to implement a proactive environmental strategy? Which cultural dimension is able to represent this pressure? The study is based on a quantitative analysis aimed at statistically measuring how national culture could influence corporate environmental proactivity, measured using the CDP Global 500 report.
Highlights
The trade-off existing between the goals of achieving an high and sustainable economic growth and to keep an high environmental standard is nothing new.At organization level, the environmental protection has become an important issue since pollution and natural resources’ depletion represent a wide source of costs
During the last years the Organization and Natural Environment (ONE) stream of research focused the attention on the linkage existing among environmental protection, business management and strategy
In order to understand how the national culture affects on the corporate environmental engagement and their ability to implement a proactive environmental strategies, this paper considers Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
Summary
The trade-off existing between the goals of achieving an high and sustainable economic growth and to keep an high environmental standard is nothing new. It is defined as the one that seeks to reduce the environmental impact and to manage the interface between business and the nature beyond imposed compliance (Sharma, 2000; Aragon - Correa and Sharma, 2003) It is characterised by the presence of four basic elements (Delmas et al, 2011): a environmental reporting; b operational improvements; c organisational changes; d regulatory proactivity. The most of literature focuses on the effects of the cultural values on the broader issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (Ho et al, 2012; Parboteeah, 2012; Ringov and Zollo, 2007), only few studies have analyzed the relationship that occurs between the national culture and the corporate environmental engagement These studies (Park et al, 2007; Husted, 2005), employ national environmental indicators, without focus on this connection at organization level.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
