How does a business firm manage its relationship with the natural environment? What are the factors that influence the choice of such strategies? Does industry type matter? The authors introduce and operationalize the concept of corporate environmentalism in an effort to answer these questions. Using stakeholder theory, the authors identify four important antecedents to corporate environmentalism, namely, public concern, regulatory forces, competitive advantage, and top management commitment. The authors then use a political-economic framework to develop testable hypotheses. To test the hypotheses, the authors perform multigroup path analysis on data gathered from more than 240 firms. They find that corporate environmentalism is related to all hypothesized antecedents and that industry type moderates several of those relationships. In the high environmental impact sector, public concern has the greatest impact on corporate environmentalism, followed by regulatory forces. In the moderate environmental impact sector, competitive advantage has the greatest impact on corporate environmentalism, followed by regulatory forces. There are strong direct and mediating influences from top management commitment, which is the antecedent with the greatest impact on both industry groups. The influences of regulatory forces, public concern, and competitive advantage are all significantly mediated by top management commitment and moderated by industry type. The empirical findings and the ensuing discussion will be of interest to managers and public policy officials.

No abstract

No abstract

More and more communities have instituted recycling programs and consumer recycling is no longer a new fad; it is here to stay. However, consumer commitment to recycling and participation rates have leveled off. Whereas lack of access to recycling facilities was cited as a key inhibitor to participation in the early days of recycling, that is generally not the case anymore. Thus there is an imperative to revisit consumer recycling by focusing on behavioral issues that reflect today's context. In this study we review the past literature and propose a comprehensive model of consumer recycling. We identify two intervention mechanisms -incentives or information -that are believed to increase recycling participation. We, then, describe a longitudinal field experiment to evaluate the relative merits of these intervention programs. We conclude that either intervention program is effective, although informational programs appear to have more long-term effects than incentive programs. We also create a new measure of social class, one that includes other influential actors' characteristics, and show its relationship to recycling attitudes and behaviors.

Alliances are being used by environmental organizations to achieve their mission of improving the natural environment. Many of these alliances have been formed within the nonprofit sector, whereas others have been formed across economic sectors with government agencies and businesses as partners. The authors discuss two studies that examine differences among alliances formed by environmental organizations with (1) government agencies, (2) for-profit businesses, and (3) other environmental organizations. In Study 1, which is based on a national survey of environmental organizations, they examine the relative effectiveness, formality, influence, and political position associated with different types of alliances. In Study 2, they further explore these relationships through in-depth telephone interviews of a subsample of respondents drawn from Study I. Both studies contribute to the understanding of nonprofit alliance relationships and their role in influencing environmental policy and market behavior.