Stimulating environmental management performance (original) (raw)
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Journal on Chain and Network Science, 2009
This paper investigates the influence of the institutional and network context on the adoption of environmental management capabilities. The aim is to gain insight into the managerial drivers for environmental pro-activeness and learn lessons for environmental policy renewal. A longitudinal empirical study in the Dutch food and drink industry was performed focusing on the years 2002 and 2005. The effectiveness of ecological modernization, as a foundation for environmental policy, is questioned. Ecological Modernization Theory (EMT) proclaims that voluntary, market- and innovation-driven ambitions improve environmental sustainability. Surprisingly, public-private cooperation and business network influences appear to have limited success in pro-actively stimulating ecologically sustainable, long-term environmental initiatives. Especially in medium-sized companies the quality of the natural environment is not a strategic issue in most cases. This is in striking contrast to the expectat...
Nowadays, firms are increasingly challenged to bridge potentially conflicting economic interests of primary commercial stakeholders and sustainability demands from secondary non-commercial stakeholder groups. While a number of firms view investments in environmental management as disconnected from their value-creating activities, others have reported achieved cost efficiency and differentiation advantages. Prior research suggests that environmental innovation might be the missing link between environmental management and firm performance. However, the mediating effect of environmental innovation in the relationship between environmental management and a firm’s performance had not been empirically tested so far. Our paper provides a contribution by conducting an empirical investigation into this possible mediating effect. Although the presumed mediating role of environmental innovation suggests that it is influenced by internal environmental management, environmental innovation literature is especially concerned with the role of external stakeholders in environmental innovation. This study investigates the role of the engagement of stakeholders such as supply chain partners, industry, and public authorities in environmental impact reduction. We hypothesise that environmental innovation positively mediates the relationship between environmental management and firm performance, and that the engagement of stakeholders has a positive impact on environmental innovation. The research model was tested with a variance-based structural equation model using data from 90 Dutch food and beverage firms. The results confirm the positive mediating effect of environmental process innovation on the relationship between environmental management and cost efficiency advantage. Environmental product innovation contributes to a differentiation advantage but it is not significantly influenced by environmental management. So we could not support a positive mediating effect of environmental product innovation on the relationship between environmental management and differentiation advantage. Instead, environmental collaboration with supply chain partners has a strong positive impact on environmental product innovation. It also positively influences environmental process innovation but this influence is much weaker than the influence of internal environmental management. Our findings can assist managers in their decision making regarding the implementation of environmental innovations and environmental collaboration with external parties. The study is also relevant to policy makers as a tool to assess the appropriateness of their policy.
Business Strategy and the Environment, 2013
In this paper, we seek to enhance the understanding of the link between environmental management and firm performance, so contributing to the debate of being "green and competitive". Relying on the resource-based view, we study the effect of different environmental management capabilities on a firm's market and image performance. In particular, we analyze the capabilities to implement product and process-related environmental actions with different types of environmental focus (materials, energy, pollution) and the capabilities to develop environmental collaborations with different types of actors (both business actors and non-business actors). To this aim we conducted a survey on 122 Italian companies. Results show that market performance and image performance have partially different antecedents. Specifically, a firm's market performance is positively affected by the capabilities to implement environmental actions with a focus on energy and pollution and to develop environmental collaborations both with business and with non-business actors. On the other hand, a firm's image performance is positively affected by the capabilities to implement environmental actions with a focus on materials and to develop environmental collaborations with non-business actors.
Environmental Strategy and Competitive Advantage
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Greener Management International, 2003
Over the past two to three decades, corporate environmental management has gradually developed into a more mature discipline. Many companies have incorporated environmental considerations into their activities in order to eliminate or reduce the impact of these activities on the natural environment. The question is, however, whether managers perceive corporate environmental initiatives as a challenge leading to new strategic options and, eventually, increased competitiveness, or whether they regard it as yet another burden. Based on a number of surveys, this paper discusses contemporary trends in the implementation of environmental management systems in Danish industry up to the beginning of the new millennium in an attempt to identify any related effects on competitiveness.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 2015
Environmental innovation has been discussed from different approaches in the last decade, due to its increasing importance for business competitiveness and as an engine for the economic development of a country, especially in recessionary economic phases. However, the study of the factors that hinder the achievement of environmental innovations has been largely neglected. This paper focuses on the obstacles facing firms involved in environmental innovations and how they still manage to achieve these innovations. The data used comes from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) conducted in Spain in the year 2012, while the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test and binary logistic regression are the statistical techniques used. The findings show that the obstacles that companies involved in environmental innovations face are greater and different to those faced by companies which are not involved in them. Consequently, environmental innovation requires different action plans from those for nonenvironmental innovation; these actions include public funding, and cooperation, as well as other specific support measures. This research provides a systematic framework for environmental innovation and the ways to overcome the barriers to this innovation. Thereby supplying a roadmap for the creation of an innovation system that constitutes a favourable context for overcoming these obstacles, thus bringing about the success of the environmental innovation process through certain critical factors.
Firms' Environmental Performance: Voluntary Actions and Managerial Attitudes
This study considers Malaysian palm oil mills' Environmental Performance from two aspects: voluntary actions and firm's internal factors effects. Having a good understanding of the factors affecting the environmental performance of firm helps policy-makers develop more effective environmental policies. In fact, analyzing the factors helps the firm evaluate and improve the results of their voluntary actions. Environmental performance, in this study, is specified as a function of voluntary actions, managerial attitudes, and some control variables. Our findings show that voluntary actions have the highest contribution to a firm's environmental performance among others. Managerial attitudes toward improving environmental performance also have a significant effect on the firm's environmental performance. However, age and size seem to have negative effects. Our results reveal that public owned firms are more polluting than their privately owned counterparts.