Organizing for Environmental Destruction

Abstract

Organizations are the most intensive and effective environmental destroyers. Organizations in a competitive unregulated market such as the United States and emerging Asian and former Soviet countries are more likely to be destructive because externalizing environmental costs increases profits and competitiveness, but organizational properties encourage destructive practices even in command economies. In the United States, a fully wage-dependent workforce makes whistle-blowing risky, structural interests of employees limits the reform efforts of even an environmentally sensitive executive, decentralization limits accountability, consultants and public relations staffs are available to reassure executives that trade-offs are in society's interests and that regulations mean waste, and organizations socialize all employees, making whistle-blowing even rarer.