Summary In the last decade, a rising number of firms have adopted voluntary international environmental management and product standards, such as the international ISO 14001 management standard or organic certification. Although emerging research analyzes the impact of these standards on environmental and financial performance, there is to our knowledge no empirical research on how they affect the productivity of employees. In this paper, we investigate the direct relationship between environmental standards and labor productivity, as well as two mediating mechanisms through which environmental standards influence labor productivity: employee training and enhanced interpersonal contacts within the firm. Our empirical results, based on a French employer–employee survey from 5220 firms, reveal that firms that have adopted environmental standards enjoy a one standard deviation higher labor productivity than firms that have not adopted such standards. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Abstract.In this article we investigate the relationship between quality system and innovation performance using the method of selective matching. We use two French microeconomic surveys, "Changement Organisationnel et Informatisation" (COI 1997) and "Enquête Communautaire sur l'Innovation" (CIS3 1998(CIS3 -2000. We highlight in a first hypothesis a positive relationship between quality (ISO 9000) and innovation but only for certain area of innovation performances, due we explain contradiction in the literature about their relationship. Furthermore, the second hypothesis indicates that innovation performance of firms with Top Quality Level is higher than that of Medium Quality Level firms for certain innovation activities. On the other side, we found that that there is low-impact difference on innovation performance between firms with Medium and Low quality levels. This induces that for great innovation performance improvement well established quality system is needed inside the firm. JEL Code. L15, O31, Q55

We propose a model that identifies the configurations of relations between environmental practices and other management practices that can improve employee performance, measured as labor productivity. To test our model, we use the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) methodology, which allows us to demonstrate empirically how different configurations of management practices, including environmental practices, quality management systems, teamwork, and interorganizational relations, contribute to work systems in ways that increase labor productivity. Our results, based on data from 4,975 employees from 1,866 firms, show that environmental practices are associated with higher labor productivity only when they are combined with other management practices.

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In this paper we analyze the factors that drive the adoption of innovative resource efficiency strategies to reduce energy and material use, under different market conditions. We uncover the "paradox" of lower adoption of resource efficiency strategies in an economic downturn and identify the characteristics of firms that adopt these strategies. Using data from a French survey with responses from 5,877 firms, we show that only 10% of the firms in our sample adopt resource efficiency strategies in perceived economic downturn as compared to 46% in perceived steady or growing market conditions. However, the probability of adopting such strategies in downturn conditions rises to 24% for firms that focus on cost leadership strategies, have adopted environmental standards, conduct their research internally and are vertically integrated. We provide recommendations to encourage more widespread adoption of resource efficiency strategies.

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