Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1. continued
Author(s)
Categories
Descriptions
Murillo-Luna et al. (2008) Proactive by passive response
The environmental objective is not an objective currently pursued by
a firm; a firm hardly dedicates any time and/or financial resources to
environmental protection; a firm does not adopt any type of technical or
organizational environmental protection measures; a firm does not plan
to obtain environmental certifications; a firm has no individuals who are
responsible for dealing with environmental issues.
Proactive by attention to legisla-
tion response
The environmental objective of the firm consists only of complying with
legislation on environmental matters; the firm dedicates to environmental
protection only the time and financial resources necessary to comply with
legislation; the environmental measures adopted by the firm are not certi-
fied; the firm involves external professionals and/or internal personnel who
are not dedicated exclusively to the environment
Proactive by attention to stake-
holders' response
The environmental objective of the firm is not limited strictly to compli-
ance with environmental regulations, but also considers stakeholders'
requirements; the firm dedicates the necessary time and resources to envi-
ronmental protection, the environmental measures require production and
work method modifications and or different organizational structures; some
environmental measures are certified or in the process of certification; the
firm regularly requests the services of external professionals specializing
in environmental matters and/or has qualified internal personnel to take
care of these matters.
Proactive by total environmental
quality response
The environmental objective is one of the priority objectives of the firm;
the firm dedicates important budgets to environmental protection; the
environmental measures adopted by the firm are highly relevant to con-
ditioning both production processes and organizational structure and how
work is performed at the firm; environmental measures are certified; the
responsibility for environmental matters is assigned clearly to a certain
group of people.
(Burt, 1987). DiMaggio and Powell (1983) dis-
tinguished three types of isomorphic pressures:
coercive, mimetic, and normative. Mimetic pres-
sures cause an organization to change over time
to become more like other surrounding organiza-
tions, whereas coercive pressures are defined as
formal or informal pressures that are exerted on
organizations by other organizations upon which
they depend, and normative pressures manifest
themselves via the interrelational channels of
firm-supplier, firm-customer, professional, trade,
business, and other salient organizations (Powell
and DiManggio, 1991).
With regard to the natural environment, the is-
sue of legitimacy (which is particularly related to
stakeholder legitimacy) should be viewed from a
strategic rather than an ethical perspective (Haigh
and Griffiths, 2009). Murillo-Luna
et al
. (2008)
key stakeholders and appraising the pressures on
them when assessing the environmental response
patterns of firms. This is related to the notion of a
“desirable social good”, and primary stakeholders
are the ones that truly count in this regard (Mitch-
ell
et al
., 1997). These primary stakeholders bear
some form of risk due to their prior investment
of some form of capital, human or financial, or
something of value to a firm (Clarkson, 1994, p.
5). Henriques and Sadorsky (1999) have identified
four stakeholder groups that influence firms to
protect the natural environment: regulatory stake-
holders, organizational stakeholders, community
stakeholders, and the media. Buysse and Verbeke
(2003) re-categorized these classifications into the
following: regulatory stakeholders, external pri-
mary stakeholders, internal primary stakeholders,
and secondary stakeholders. On the basis of these
