A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Framework of Corporate Water Responsibility

Abstract

This article offers a conceptual framework that comprehensively describes essential aspects of corporate water responsibility. What heretofore has been essentially regarded as an issue to be tackled by governmental institutions, and therefore not perceived as an important component of the value that is created for the institutional and private owners of profit-driven companies, is explicitly treated here as a corporate responsibility. Bridging knowledge domains, I review major research works conducted by management, corporate sustainability, and (welfare) economics scholars and focusing on water management issues to unveil the conditions under which corporations are likely to manage, or to be challenged in managing, water in responsible/ sustainable ways. Three types of "tensions" that confront academics and managers alike are discussed: voluntary actions versus coercion, free riding versus cooperation, and economic versus corporate water responsibility motives. I propose a three-dimensional framework of corporate water responsibility for thinking through the managerial response patterns contemplated to address these tensions.

Why European Entrepreneurs in the Water and Waste Management Sector Are Willing to Go beyond Environmental Legislation

“…Some studies have confirmed that hypothesis and found an increase in productivity in companies that decided to implement environmentally-friendly practices [31]. Firms' response to public policy goes from defiance, to compliance, to voluntary engagement [36]. However, experience confirms that SMEs tend to comply with external pressures regarding environmental responsibility adaptation rather than adopting a proactive strategy [38], and regulation should be considered an important driver.…”

“…There are increasing public and legislative demands for water service providers to take action [7] by evaluating the "triple bottom line" and analyzing their responsibility and risks to people, the environment and financial benefits [4,5]. preservation of water has been largely underestimated in the preference of coercion through policy intervention [36].…”

Overhauls in water supply systems in Ukraine: A hydro-economic model of socially responsible planning and cost management

“…This paper also examines the further development of the existing outdated overhaul planning system in Ukrainian water supply companies. Such an effort allows water supply companies to make socially value-added decisions to asset management and modernize their WSS economy (Martinez, 2015;Hutton et al, 2007), as current economic approaches are the derivatives of the country's bureaucratic economic era.…”

Special issue of business, strategy, and the environment call for papers business, society, biodiversity, and natural capital deadline June 30, 2020 (see details of conference/workshop at the end of the call for paper)

“…Despite the development of a strand of biodiversity accounting research (Atkins & Maroun, ; Boiral & Heras‐Saizarbitoria, ; Cuckston, ; Cuckston, ; Gibassier & Arjaliès, ; Jones, ; Jones & Solomon, ), it has not percolated to wider organizational research. Research in management has been concerned with the environment (Aragón‐Correa, ; Etzion, ; Hoffman & Georg, ; Hoffman & Jennings, ), climate change (Ansari, Gray, & Wijen, ; Howard‐Grenville, Buckle, Hoskins, & George, ; Lefsrud & Meyer, ; Slawinski & Bansal, ), sometimes water (Baudoin & Arenas, ; Mariola, ; Martinez, ) but rarely examined the grand challenge of biodiversity loss (see the few exceptions, such as Reade et al, ; Winn & Pogutz, ). Issues related to sustainability standards (Boiral, Heras‐Saizarbitoria, & Brotherton, ), eco‐labelling (Delmas & Grant, ; Delmas & Lessem, ), and alternative movements (e.g., the Slow Food movement in van Bommel & Spicer, ) have occasionally been touched upon biodiversity, but questions about the broader corporate role in dealing with biodiversity remain unanswered (Hahn et al, ).…”