Business Strategy and The Environment最新文献

Biodiversity is important to human's future survival and global sustainability. One way to achieve corporate sustainability is for firms to report its impacts on biodiversity. However, fear of litigation arising from reporting potentially deters corporations to disclose such information. Motivated by the importance of biodiversity and mixed evidence of shareholder litigation rights as a corporate governance tool, we explore whether the universal demand laws (UDLs) have any effect on corporate biodiversity reporting in the United States. Supporting our short-termism, risk aversion and agency hypotheses, we find that an exogenous decline in the threat of derivative litigation, reducing a chance for shareholders to file a lawsuit against top management and intensifying agency costs, economically and significantly decreases a corporate's biodiversity reporting by 87%. When the disciplining effect of shareholder litigation drops, the self-interest manager may want to live a quiet life and disclose less information of biodiversity impact. A proactive business strategy to mitigate litigation and reputational risks is to voluntarily disclose more biodiversity-related information. Regulators around the world should also promote rigorous reporting requirements to reverse biodiversity loss and save our humanity.

Greenwashing has become an important strategy for enterprises to cope with the intense pressure on environmental sustainability and to gain environmental legitimacy. Digital transformation has an important impact on enterprise decision-making and environmental management. Based on panel data of Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2011 to 2021, we empirically examine the relationship between digital transformation and greenwashing using a fixed-effects model. The results show that enterprise digital transformation can significantly inhibit greenwashing behavior. Second, the impact of enterprise digital transformation on greenwashing exhibits heterogeneous effects at the regional, industry, and firm levels. Furthermore, enterprise digital transformation suppresses greenwashing by alleviating financing constraints, improving information transparency, and enhancing internal control. In addition, we also find that there is an effective boundary to the impact of digital transformation on greenwashing. Specifically, digital transformation exerts a mitigating impact on enterprise greenwashing when the digital transformation level is lower than 10.2163 or higher than 15.7763. Our findings provide references for managers and policy makers to understand digital transformation and its impact on greenwashing.

A significant part of the literature postulates the importance of economic factors and, in particular, market pressure as the main motivation for the adoption of environmental management systems, such as ISO 14001 (International Organization for Standardization). Most of these studies are based on questionnaire surveys assessing the perceptions or opinions of company managers. Few studies have investigated the relationship between the adoption of the standard and economic and financial performance using objective accounting data. This study aimed to test the link between ISO 14001 adoption and economic and financial performance using accounting data from 374 agrifood small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Spain during the period 2013 to 2015. The results showed that ISO 14001 contributes to improved commercial and marketing performance through a positive effect on turnover in domestic markets and especially in export markets. However, no positive relationship could be found between ISO14001 and company results or profits. Therefore, ISO 14001 can be considered more as a means of entering and developing sales, particularly in export markets, than a tool to enhance financial profits.

The role played by leaders in the adoption of eco-innovations (EIs) by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is crucial, but there is still little evidence regarding the influence of leaders on EIs. Despite the extensive literature on EI, studies that empirically evaluate the association between the role of SME leaders (CEOs, top managers, and board members) on the delimitation of the barriers to EI are lacking. The relationship between combinations of leader personality traits and the adoption of EI from a sensemaking perspective is examined to address this research gap. In addition, fsQCA analysis was applied. The responses of 40 SME leaders revealed that configurations involving barriers and personal traits have led to several solutions in which conscientiousness, openness, and either the presence or negation of neuroticism by SME managers were relevant. Moreover, the offset between financial barriers and the lack of public funding for EIs emerges in all eco-innovative success solutions. These results show that different combinations of personality traits interact with different EI barriers. Therefore, the obstacles to EI depend on the interpretations of the leader rather than being one-size-fits-all. Based on sensemaking theory, as taken from organizational studies and the literature on microfoundations, these findings enhance our understanding of the influence of individual-level psychological traits on EI adoption. Furthermore, practical implications are presented for SMEs with the goal of adopting sustainable innovative strategies.

This study explores which stakeholders have more substantial influence than others and which combinations of stakeholders will have the greatest impact on small- and medium-sized enterprises' environmental practices. A quantitative survey of 150 manager-owners of SMEs found that while customers and suppliers significantly influence SMEs' sustainability behaviors, the demands and expectations set by regulatory bodies have a more substantial impact on how SMEs shape their environmental practices. Further, the presence of regulatory pressures does more than directly influence SMEs. Pressure from regulatory bodies also amplifies the effect of other forces on SMEs' environmental practices. In other words, when regulatory pressures exist, the impact of customer and supplier pressures on SMEs' sustainability behaviors becomes even more substantial. This synergistic effect underscores the pivotal role of regulatory pressures in shaping and enhancing SMEs' commitment to environmental sustainability.

To achieve the sustainable development goals and a transition to the circular economy, we need to tackle the problem of single-use packaging. As reusable packaging options are increasingly available, both from a technical and business perspective, most studies focus on its technical and value chain aspects while largely ignoring customer perspectives. In this paper, we present results from survey data, evaluating customer preferences on reusable food packaging of 40 food product categories, controlling for shopping preferences, personal characteristics and environmental orientation. Our results inform business strategies on market entry for a wide array of food products. Support for reusable food packaging can be mainly found among younger and environmentally conscious customers, which can be identified as first-mover customer segments. Awareness of the waste problem and the environmental impact of packaging, most specifically on the issue of ‘overpackaging’ food, are shown to be positively related to interest in reusable food packaging. Promising food product markets to introduce reusable packaging are eggs, dry food products and bread-based products. Reversely, interest in reusable food packaging is low for frozen food products, even among environmentally conscious customers. We formulate recommendations for product managers, designers and policymakers, stressing the importance of social learning by showcasing successful implementations of reusable packaging in classical grocery store outlets.

Positioning a brand as environment-friendly does not guarantee that customers will blindly accept it. While previous research has explored consumer responses to various green marketing claims, the search for the process under which consumers form positive or negative associations remains inconclusive. Based on the theoretical lens of signaling, this study examines the process of green brand trust where consumers form green brand associations after receiving the appropriate signal from the firms. In so doing we answer calls for more research on green brand trust and extend previous understanding by arguing for and confirming the mediating role of green brand associations. We further hypothesize that resultant mediation will be stronger for individuals with low green skepticism. Findings from 270 consumers indicate that green brand association mediates the relationship between green brand positioning and green brand trust. Further, green skepticism may weaken green brand association's effect on green brand trust. While firms tend to take extra effort to make their green offering trustworthy, they need to strengthen their signaling efforts that facilitate associating with a green brand to trust that brand.

People are increasingly aware of the extent to which enterprises either improve or harm social welfare, with a growing trend to use environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators to evaluate and describe efforts in this area. However, most research has neglected multinational enterprises, especially the significant impact of the radical and leapfrogging internationalisation of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) on sustainable development. This study discusses ESG in the context of the research and development (R&D) internationalisation of EMNEs and uses microdata from Chinese listed manufacturing enterprises from 2010 to 2020. Employing a propensity score matching (PSM) method and difference-in-differences (DID) estimation, this study empirically tests the effect of R&D internationalisation on the ESG performance of Chinese enterprises and their boundary conditions. This study finds that R&D internationalisation positively impacts enterprises' ESG performance through two pathways: improving green innovation and the quality of information disclosure. Furthermore, the study confirms the heterogeneous effects of institutional factors. Institutional deficits between home and host countries, along with the nature of private equity in enterprises, effectively enhance the value of the internationalisation of R&D for EMNEs on ESG performance. This study expands the exploration of the antecedents of ESG in the context of internationalisation, enriches the research on the impact effect and boundary conditions of EMNEs' R&D internationalisation and provides practical insights for EMNEs to enhance their ESG through R&D internationalisation.

Firms are increasingly operating in turbulent environments in which unpredictable change is driven by causes such as climate change and economic crises. In this paper, we study how firms perceive environmental turbulence and respond with four types of actions. We distinguish between actions creating economic value for the firm and actions creating sustainable value for society and the environment and between substantive and symbolic actions with only the former changing firms' strategies, structures, and processes. We built a unique dataset on large European firms and their 470 responses to turbulence from 2017 until 2022. We show that in volatile and complex environments, in which rapid change occurs but information is available, firms respond with substantive actions. In uncertain and ambiguous environments that lack information, firms respond with symbolic actions. These findings hold for responses that aim to create both economic and sustainable value. However, these findings change when firms acquire environmental, social, and governance (ESG) capabilities. With high and improving ESG capabilities, firms are more likely to respond with sustainable substantive actions, even when they perceive their environments to be uncertain. We contribute to the literature on organizational capabilities and corporate environmental responsiveness by showing that firms with superior and improving ESG capabilities increase their substantive commitments to sustainable development and are less inclined to base their responses on their perception of turbulence.

This study investigated the effect of low-carbon practices on business sustainability, delved into the underlying mechanisms that exist between them, and designed the recipes tailored toward promoting business sustainability in both high and low-level. Based on a sample of 681 firms with 1376 observations from 2020 to 2022 that disclose the low-carbon practices in MD&A, we employed a quasi-replication method comprising regression analysis and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to test hypotheses and explore pathways. Regression analysis results demonstrate that low-carbon practices significantly promote business sustainability and underscore the mediation effect of technological innovation capacity, alongside the moderating influence of R&D funding and government incentives and penalties. Additionally, fsQCA results reveal a pronounced synergistic impact emanating from multiple antecedent conditions, rather than a singular factor, in driving both high- and low-level business sustainability. The findings on sustainable business operations management are invaluable for decision-makers seeking to establish a low-carbon strategic initiative that adeptly addresses the diverse opportunities and complexities posed by global environmental concerns.