Adoption Of Environmental Management Research Articles

Efficacy of China’s strategic environmental management in its institutional environment

PurposeThe Chinese Government encourages firms to diffuse their operational-level environmental management (EM) into their organization’s mission and strategy to develop strategic EM to promote sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to utilize two concepts of institutional theory (isomorphic pressures and decoupling behavior) to assess how different institutional forces arising from Chinese macro-level factors (market pressure, business turbulence, legal voids, carbon policy, structural-level governmental interference and guanxi with government) influence the efficacy of strategic EM.Design/methodology/approachIn partnership with a major consulting firm in China, the authors collect multi-informant survey data from 183 manufacturing firms drawn from a variety of industries for testing the hypotheses posited.FindingsThe efficacy of strategic EM in the sampled firms is confirmed by the positive association with environmental performance. The authors also find that the efficacy of strategic EM is weakened by market pressure, business turbulence and legal voids, whereas it is strengthened by structural-level governmental interference. However, carbon policy and guanxi with government do not impact it significantly.Research limitations/implicationsTo extend the findings on the environmental importance of strategic EM, future research can develop and validate a management framework to guide the adoption of strategic EM. With regard to the four valid macro-level factors influencing the efficacy of strategic EM, future research can identify the reasons (e.g. conflict with corporate functions) behind them to aid manufacturers to mitigate their negative influence or enhance the positive influence on strategic EM.Social implicationsChina’s Government and its manufacturers (or those sharing a similar institutional environment) can expand the scope of their EM efforts from operational-level EM practices to strategic EM. The findings on the valid macro-level factors have led to practical suggestions for government bodies and manufacturers to improve the efficacy of strategic EM adoption. Overall, the implications help achieve the higher levels of firm-level environmental performance and alleviate the global pollution problem.Originality/valueA particular value of this work lies in the demonstration of combining institutional theory (organization decoupling, isomorphic pressures) with practical consideration such as guanxi with government in the particular institutional environment of China to help address an important and context-related problem, environmental performance.

Environmental practices and innovation performance of US small and medium-sized manufacturers

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to describe the adoption of environmental management and collaboration practices by US small and medium-sized manufacturers and explore whether there are discernible differences in product and process innovation that can be explained by differences in their adoption.Design/methodology/approach– This research uses descriptive statistics and probit regression analysis of survey data from 295 small and medium-sized US manufacturers in seven industries.Findings– There are significant industrial sector differences in the adoption of environmental management and collaboration practices, larger and older companies are more advanced in their adoption of these practices, and companies adopting these practices are outperforming their competitors in terms of product and process innovation.Originality/value– This research assesses US industry sector differences among small and medium-sized manufacturers in the adoption of environmental management and collaboration practices and differences in product and process innovation linked to this adoption.

A European perspective on country moderation effects: Environmental management systems and sustainability-related human resource benefits

Based on a large European dataset of the manufacturing sector, this paper analyses to what degree country-related interaction effects moderate the association of sustainability-related benefits to human resource management and the adoption of environmental management. Focusing on employee satisfaction, it confirms a positive association of the level of employee satisfaction benefits with environmental management system implementation thereby providing cross-national evidence for the frequent argument, that the degree to which environmental management system implementation is associated with human resource related benefits is partly moderated by country level factors related to national culture and regulation.