Scale matters:The scale of environmental issues in corporate collective actions

Abstract

Research Summary: Much of the research on corporate collective action to manage common pool resources is focused on coordinated actions, such as voluntary programs, rather than collaborative actions, such as technology sharing. In this article, we examine inductively the collective actions taken by a consortium of 12 oil sands companies to address three environmental issues of different scale. We identified a set of organizing rules that determined whether the relationship among industry members would be collaborative or competitive, and found that the organizing rules for collaborative collective action were more effective for smaller scale issues (i.e., tailings ponds and water) than the larger scale issue (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions). Our findings contribute to research on the competitive dynamics of collaborating with competitors and on industry self‐regulation. Managerial Summary: Many environmental issues, such as climate change, water quality, and contaminated land, are caused by the overexploitation of commonly shared natural resources. Firms will often overuse resources because their cost of use is less than the benefit that accrues. In Alberta’s oil sands, 12 of the major oil sands operators, all competitors, have agreed to collaborate by sharing technology, which goes against the received wisdom of competition. This multiparty collaboration among competitors, while still relatively rare, is becoming increasingly commonplace. In this article, we outline the rules that allow this collaboration to flourish. Our most important finding is that the rules are shaped by the scale of the issue being managed, not the size of the collaboration.

Partnering for good? An analysis of how to achieve sustainability-related outcomes in public–private partnerships

“…Albareda et al 2007). For ecological sustainability, previous research has shown that regulation is an important determinant (Christmann 2004;Eberlein and Matten 2009), as is industry self-regulation (Bowen et al 2018;Hoffman and Georg 2013), depending on the respective industry. Based on our case, we found that both regulation and self-regulation were included as strong influences on internal elements of the public-private partnership.…”

“…In addition to or in replacement of regulation, private actors are often found to establish industry self-regulation. Industry self-regulation is used as an umbrella term for initiatives, often led by industry associations, to establish rules and standards to regulate corporate behaviour and competition, while industry members decide independently about their participation and extent of commitment (Barnett and King 2008;Bowen et al 2018;Grabosky 2013;Hart 2010;Hoffman and Georg 2013). Industry self-regulation can generally be proactive or reactive and is expected to complement regulation (Gupta and Lad 1983).…”

“…Industry self-regulation can generally be proactive or reactive and is expected to complement regulation (Gupta and Lad 1983). However, empirical research has shown that industry self-regulation often falls short of desired economic and environmental outcomes and thereby does not convincingly fill regulatory voids (Bowen et al 2018;Hoffman and Georg 2013;King and Lenox 2000;King et al 2012).…”

Coopetition for sustainability: Between organizational benefit and societal good

“…Those studies that take an explicit interest in coopetition for sustainability do discuss different types of outcomes on a general level (Bowen, Bansal, & Slawinski, 2018;Christ et al, 2017;Limoubpratum et al, 2015;Meehan & Bryde, 2015;Peloza & Falkenberg, 2009;Planko, Chappin, Cramer, & Hekkert, 2019;Stadtler, 2017;Volschenk et al, 2016). Still, there is a lack of a systematic unpacking of what these possible outcomes of coopetition for sustainability may actually be.…”

Managing Value Tensions in Collective Social Entrepreneurship: The Role of Temporal, Structural, and Collaborative Compromise

“…Yet many forms of social entrepreneurship involve collective organizing efforts that depend on voluntary participation rather than formal employment and that pursue a triple rather than double bottom line. Examples include community transformation initiatives in the developing world (Haugh and Talwar 2016;Pless and Appel 2012), sustainability alliances (Bowen et al 2018), and cross-sector partnerships (Nicholls and Huybrechts 2016;Sharma and Bansal 2017). Indeed, some scholars have argued that collaborative partnerships are required to produce effective solutions to large-scale social problems (Sud et al 2009).…”