Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
action programs, and performance improvements.
They demonstrated that strategies, management
systems, and other factors including firm size,
collaboration and networking, industry sectors,
R&D intensity, IT and engineering equipment
investments, the ability to develop and exploit
technological and customer competencies, invest-
ments in human and knowledge capabilities, the
proportion of specialists employed, and size all
functioned as indicators of innovation, perfor-
mance and environmental management. It has also
been argued that a firm that expressly includes
environmental issues in its strategies is more likely
to be able to exploit some environmental aspects
for competitive advantage (Crowe and Brennan,
2007). Previous studies have shown that the pat-
terns of strategic behavior employed by firms to
achieve environmental objectives are aligned with
the characteristics of the firms' competitive strate-
gies (e.g. Aragon-Correa, 1998). However, owing
to the complexity of environmental issues, tech-
nological advances are required for the achieve-
ment of sustainable development (York and Rosa,
2003) and innovative firms are expected to lead
the way, inspiring a “win-win” condition (Drake
et al
., 2004). In this vein, innovative companies
tend to engage in or adopt new ideas, methods,
or behaviors that may result in new products,
services, or technological processes (Crowe and
Brennan, 2007).
Some of the previous relevant literature
has categorized environmental strategies from
a variety of perspectives. For instance, Hunt
and Auster (1990) proposed five categories for
environmental strategies: beginner, firefighter,
concerned citizen, pragmatist, and proactivist.
Roome (1992) also conceptualized five catego-
ries of environmental strategies: noncompliance,
compliance, compliance plus, commercial and
environmental excellence, and leading edge.
Hart (1995) delineated three types of resource-
based environmental approaches: the pollution
prevention approach, product stewardship, and
sustainable development. Henriques and Sador-
sky (1999) classified their strategies into four
categories: reactive strategy, defensive strategy,
accommodative strategy, and proactive strategy.
Buysse and Verbeke (2003) referred to the study
by Hart (1995) and proposed three new groups:
reactive strategy, pollution prevention, and envi-
ronmental leadership. Murillo-Luna
et al
. (2008)
divided proactive strategies into four types of
environmental response pattern: passive response,
attention to legislation response, attention to
stakeholders' response, and total environmental
quality response. The descriptions are illustrated
in detail in Table 1.
Institutional Theory and
Stakeholders
Recent research in institutional theory has as-
sessed the causes of isomorphism, the factors that
induce organizations to adopt similar structures,
strategies, and processes (DiMaggio and Powell,
1983). The institutional perspective argues that
in modern societies in which organizations are
typified as systems of rationally ordered rules and
activities, organizational practices and policies
are readily accepted as legitimate and rational to
the extent that they allow for the attainment of
organizational goals (Teo
et al
., 2003). In other
words, organizational legitimacy is at the center
of this theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), and
it assumes that appropriate behavior is necessary
for the maintenance of competitive advantage
(Scott, 2001). Institutional theory posits that
organizations face pressures and must compete
for resources, customers, political power, and
economic and social fitness in terms of conformity
to the shared notions of appropriate forms and
behaviors, as violating them may call into question
the organization's legitimacy and thereby affect
its ability to secure resources and social support
(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Organizations
are subject to pressures to become isomorphic
with their environment, which incorporates both
