The impact of external institutional drivers and internal strategy on environmental performance

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Environmental sustainability literature provides extensive evidence that business organizations, societies, and governments all have a stake in green operations management. Despite the importance of a firm's effort to alleviate environmental damages and provide economic benefits to organizations, little is known about the external institutional drivers that enable firms to adopt internal proactive environmental strategies. This purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which an internal proactive environmental strategy (eco-design) and external institutional drivers (government regulations and incentives, customer pressures) motivate firms to adopt eco-deigns that influence environmental performance. Design/methodology/approach -Hypotheses are tested using data from a sample of 132 EMS ISO 14001 -certified manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Specifically, this study uses survey data to validate the major premises in our proposed model. Findings -Empirical tests of the hypotheses with structural equation modeling (SEM) support the posited explanation that external institutional drivers influence a firm's environmental performance both directly and indirectly through its internal proactive environmental strategy. These findings extend prior research by establishing the importance of the relationships among regulations/incentives, customer pressures, eco-designs, and environmental performance. Research limitations/implications -Although the research design incorporates extensive literature reviews, it does not capture every aspect of underlying constructs characteristics. Future efforts should establish a valid, reliable instrument for these constructs. Practical implications -This research provides rigorous empirical support of the contribution of eco-design to environmental performance. This finding helps managers recognize how to leverage their internally developed eco-designs capabilities by responding to external pressures and institutional concerns. The response to external institutional pressures provides a basis for creating an inimitable eco-design resource base, which is critical to environmental sustainability. Originality/value -This study examines a key ...

What Drives Substantive Versus Symbolic Implementation of ISO 14001 in a Time of Economic Crisis? Insights from Greek Manufacturing Companies

“…some scholars argue that external pressures lead to the symbolic implementation of the standard (Boiral 2007;Castka and Prajogo 2013), while others suggest that the intensity of external pressures increases the internalization of the standard (Christmann and Taylor 2006;Zailani et al 2012). Despite the fruitful insights it offers, this literature does not take into account that external pressures may have a qualified impact on firms' internal motivations to implement ISO 14001.…”

“…Research by Zailani et al (2012), for instance, identifies governments as among the main external drivers that increase the use of internal proactive environmental strategies such as ecodesign. However, other studies question the influence of external factors and maintain that government pressures might encourage firms to adopt ISO 14001, but may not be sufficient to make companies implement the standard in a substantive way (Lannelongue et al 2013).…”

“…Recent research shows that this is because firms often implement the standard in a symbolic way that is decoupled from business practices (Aravind and Christmann 2011;Gavronski et al 2008). This phenomenon has led to a growing number of studies that attempt to understand the implementation process of ISO 14001 by considering the external and/or internal motivations of firms (Boiral 2011;Zailani et al 2012).…”

Application of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to Solve Environmental Sustainability Problems: A Comprehensive Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Hanim Mohamad Zailani et al [274] EMS ISO 14001-certified manufacturing firms 132 Firms Institutional theory…”

“…The results of this paper found that GP practices affected firm performance and technical aspects. Table A7 (see Appendix A) mentioned the analysis of 28 studies [265][266][267][268][269][270][271][272][273][274][275][276][277][278][279][280][281][282][283] regarding green and sustainable operation management based on the author(s) names, year of publication scope and sample of study, area of study, number of sample, respondents, related theory, variables, study purpose, gap and research problem and results and outcome.…”