The dialectics of competency acquisition: pollution prevention in electric generation

The contingent influence of organizational capabilities on proactive environmental strategy in the service sector: An analysis of North American and European ski resorts

“…Therefore, our study focuses on the externally-focused capabilities that will help fi rms proactively detect evolving trends in the general business environment and engage stakeholders such as consumers, local communities, and NGOs to generate knowledge about balancing customer utility, economic development, community welfare, fi nancial performance, and ecological conservation. The environmental innovations in this industry are likely to focus on products and processes in close consultation with these stakeholders and often supported by technological innovations developed by suppliers (Marcus & Geffen, 1998). Due to the technological simplicity of services and the close interaction of stakeholders with the fi rm, stakeholders can more easily understand the environmental impacts of the fi rm's services, processes, and operations.…”

“…For example, the engagement of suppliers and customers enables a fi rm to jointly analyze product life cycles, design products and services for the environment, and become more effective stewards of the natural environment (Hart, 1995). Similarly, searching for outside talent, technology, and ideas to resolve environmental problems helps fi rms acquire capabilities from suppliers to develop proactive environmental practices (Marcus & Geffen, 1998). Even the engagement of adversarial, distant, and less visible stakeholders can generate insights and learning that may lead to proactive approaches for designing environmentally-friendly products, processes, and business models (Hart & Sharma, 2004).…”

“…Such exploration especially involves developing different interpretations of new and existing information in the light of new understandings of events (Marcus & Geffen, 1998;Sharma, 2000). Experimentation with new decision parameters (environmental impacts) can lead to major changes in norms, values, and frames of reference (Shrivastava & Mitroff, 1982).…”

“…Indeed, this argument has been supported empirically in both single industry and cross-industry studies (e.g. Christmann, 2000;Klassen & Whybark, 1999;Marcus & Geffen, 1998;Russo & Fouts;Sharma & Vredenburg, 1998). Even with the evidence accumulated over the last decade that proactive environmental strategies are likely to be accompanied by improved fi nancial performance, we still lack a well-developed understanding of why only some fi rms in an industry implement such strategies.…”

“…Another research stream has examined the direct infl uence of exogenous infl uences such as institutional forces (Hoffman, 1999), stakeholder pressures (Buysse & Verbeke, 2003;Henriques & Sadorsky, 1999, Kassinis & Vafeas, 2006, industry growth (Russo & Fouts, 1997), and regulations (Marcus & Geffen, 1998;Majumdar & Marcus, 2001) on the willingness of fi rms to develop a proactive environmental strategy. Recently, literature from the resource-based view of the fi rm (RBV) has called not only for an integrated analysis of the infl uence of exogenous variables on organizational capabilities (Barney 2001;Priem & Butler, 2001a, 2001b, but also for an examination of how such variables have a moderating effect on organizational capacity, via the deployment of organizational capabilities, to implement environmental strategies (e.g., Aragón-Correa & Sharma, 2003).…”