Japanese firms’ environmental strategy: Examples from electronics-related industries

Abstract

Japanese firms began to recognise the importance of environmental issues in the mid-1980s, and have since found that environmental protection and management measures offer opportunities in terms of corporate strategy, hence the emergence of Environmental Strategy. Presented here are the results from a case analysis of five Japanese firms from electronics-related industries. The process of new strategy formation resembles a four-stage life cycle. Factors likely to influence environmental strategy depend on the stage, and we therefore propose an analytical framework for each stage. The results show that there are three routes to becoming a ‘Pro-active Environmental Strategic Firm’: a pioneering firm with a technologically advanced firm tends to follow with adoption and application of environmental strategy by top-down directive, followed in technologically advanced firms by the adoption and application of environmental strategy, and a venture firm independently starts an environmental strategy. Some firms have already embarked upon long-term environmental strategies, and our results suggest that domestic environmental strategy will permeate throughout Japan's industries, and expand overseas through Japanese subsidiaries.