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Applying institutional theory, we argue that environmentally legitimate firms incur less unsystematic stock market risk than illegitimate firms. Firms earn environmental legitimacy when their performance with respect to the natural environment conforms to stakeholders' expectations. This relationship was supported with the analysis of media reports and stock prices of 100 firms over a five-year period. The analysis also showed that firms with low environmental legitimacy can attenuate this effect by expressing commitment to the natural environment.

In this paper, we identify two important approaches to corporation reputation building: s ymbolic management and behavioral management . Within the fi rst approach, corporate communications are intended to generate positive impressions among ' media audiences ' . Within the second approach, corporate actions are changed to more closely align with the message being conveyed by corporation communications. Many corporate managers assume that the symbolic alignment between what is wanted by media audiences and what is said enhances corporate reputation and this, in turn, improves corporate profi tability. In this paper, we tested the relative effi cacy of the symbolic and behavioral management approaches to corporate reputation and profi tability. We found that symbolic management had a positive effect on symbolic reputation, whereas behavioral management had a positive effect on performance reputation. We also found that a positive reputation in the media did not contribute to corporate profi tability, whereas a positive performance reputation had a signifi cant effect on profi tability.We conclude that the behavioral management approach is more effective for reputation building and for contributing to profi tability. We also discuss implications of our fi ndings for reputation management and corporate performance. Corporate Reputation Review (2007) 10, 77 -98.The reputation of your business is, and will increasingly be, a major factor in its commercial success … In a globalized world reputational advantage from (environmental) sustainability cannot be extracted without genuine underlying performance (Arlo Brady, 1 author of The Sustainability Effect: Rethinking Corporate Reputation in the 21st Century (2006, p.25)) .As implied by the above quotation, management scholars and practitioners continue to

Central to the movement of organizations toward environmental sustainability is the financial viability and environmental effectiveness of the techniques for improving environmental performance. While waste-minimization practices (WMPs) have been touted as a key element in moving manufacturing organizations toward sustainability, we know little about their utilization and effectiveness across a range of industrial and organizational contexts. Using waste-minimization data collected as part of the Toxics Release Inventory, we studied 250 manufacturing firms to provide empirical evidence to enable plant managers to prioritize waste-minimization options. We found clear evidence of a corporate double bonus WMPs can provide through pollution reduction and enhanced operational efficiency relative to traditional end-of-pipe solutions. In the array of ecologically sustainable business practices, it appears that WMPs provide immediate environmental and operational benefits and build momentum for further steps toward environmentally sustainable economic development.

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Job performance aids (JPAs) were developed within an integrated personnel system framework in order to determine if JPAs (1) are accepted by technicians with low and high levels of aptitude and (2) are used as a source for maintenance information during task performance.The Enlisted Personnel Individualized Career System (EPICS) is an integrated personnel systems approach with emphasis on (JPAs) that incorporates advances made in many people related research and development areas. The goals of EPICS are reduced front-end training, increased relevance of formal training through early job assignment and distributed training, individualized career advancement, and improved personnel utilization.Job design, JPAs, and training modules were the major components used to achieve the EPICS goals.Two types of JPAs were developed: (1) a completely integrated pictorial/text format in which frequent use of pictorials allows the user to focus on the pictorial and use the text to supplement the pictorial, and (2) a more conventional format in which text was supported by pictorials when necessary. JPA use and acceptance were measured by two different types of questionnaires. For acceptance, JPAs were preferred over conventional documentation for at least some first time (both scheduled and unscheduled) and infrequent tasks by 77-81% of the respondents. When grouped according to electronics aptitude, however, a greater number of lower electronics aptitude personnel preferred JPAs when compared to the higher electronics aptitude personnel (67% vs. 38%). Data on how JPAs were actually used complement the acceptance data in that lower electronics aptitude personnel used JPAs more than the higher electronics aptitude personnel, 15% more for scheduled maintenance and 10% more for unscheduled maintenance. Similar results were found for a general aptitude measure. Although the JPAs were highly pictorial in format, there were no differences in JPA use according to reading level.Results are discussed in terms of how JPA design appears to be related to differential use by low and high aptitude technicians.

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