Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T09:54:37.112Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Managerial Drivers of Environmental Sustainability Strategy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2019

Sanjay Sharma  and
Pramodita Sharma
Sanjay Sharma
Affiliation:
University of Vermont
Pramodita Sharma
Affiliation:
University of Vermont
Get access

Summary

A firm’s managers have the most intimate understanding of the firm’s business, customers, processes, and capabilities. The managers’ decisions are influenced not only by institutional forces, stakeholders, and organizational governance and leadership but also by their personal values toward sustainability, attitudes toward their roles in solving environmental sustainability challenges, cognitive frames, and interpretations of environmental issues as threats or opportunities. Managers remain locked into everyday routines, patterns of thinking, and cognitive biases that may stifle creativity.Firms that develop successful PES strategies create the opportunities for employees to apply fresh ideas and strategic thinking to address sustainability challenges by enabling them to overcome their biases and everyday routines. Family firms have some unique features that influence strategic decision-making by managers (which includes the family members) differently as compared to non-family firms. Managers in family firms that aim for trans-generational continuity of their enterprise will make decisions differently when addressing environmental issues.

Keywords

Managerial valuesattitudes and interpretationsCognitive frames and biasesOpportunity framing of environmental issuesOrganizational context and designLegitimization in corporate identityDiscretionary slackInformation flowControl systemsChampioning Sustainable ideas and innovations
Type
Chapter
Information
Patient Capital
The Role of Family Firms in Sustainable Business
 , pp. 150 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Accenture. 2013. The UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study on Sustainability 2013: Architects of a Better World.Google Scholar
Albert, S. and Whetten, D. 1985. Organizational identity. Research in Organizational Behavior. 7: 263–295.Google Scholar
Allouche, J. and Amann, B. 1997. Le retour de capitalisme familiale. L’expansion: Management Review, 85: 92–99.Google Scholar
Anderson, R. C. and Reeb, D. 2004. Board composition: Balancing family influence in S&P 500 firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 49: 209–237.Google Scholar
Aragon-Correa, A. and Sharma, S. 2003. A contingent natural-resource based view of proactive environmental strategy. Academy of Management Review, 28(1): 71–88.Google Scholar
Argyris, C. and Schön, D. A. 1978. Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Arkes, H. and Blumer, C. 1985. The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, 35: 124–140.Google Scholar
Anderson, R. C., Mansi, S. A. and Reeb, D. M. 2003. Founding family ownership and the agency cost of debt. Journal of Financial Economics, 68(2): 263–285.Google Scholar
Andersson, L. M. and Bateman, T.S. 2000. Individual environmental initiative: Championing natural environmental issues in U.S. business organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4): 548–570.Google Scholar
Bansal., P. 2003. From issues to actions: The importance of individual concerns and organizational values in responding to natural environmental issues. Organization Science, 14(5): 510–527.Google Scholar
Basco, R. and Rodriguez, M. J. P. 2009. Studying the family enterprise holistically: Evidence for integrated family and business systems. Family Business Review, 22: 82–95.Google Scholar
Ben and Jerry’s. 2015. www.benjerry.com/values (accessed October 7, 2015).Google Scholar
Bourgeois, L. J., III. 1981. On the Measurement of Organizational Slack. Academy of Management Review, 6: 29–39.Google Scholar
Branzei, O., Ursacki-Bryant, T. J., Vertinsky, I. and Zhang, W. 2004. The formation of green strategies in Chinese firms: matching corporate environmental responses and individual principles. Strategic Management Journal, 25: 1075–1095.Google Scholar
Bubolz, M. 2001. Family as a source, user and builder of social capital. Journal of Socio-Economics, 30: 129–131.Google Scholar
Cabrera-Suárez, K., De Saá-Pérez, P., García-Almeida, D. 2001. The succession process from a resource- and knowledge-based view of the family firm. Family Business Review, 14: 37–46.Google Scholar
Cabrera-Suárez, M. K., García-Almeida, D. J. and De Saá-Pérez., P. 2018. A dynamic network model of the successor’s knowledge construction from the resource-and knowledge-based view of the family firm. Family Business Review, 31(2): 178–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, J. and Justis, R. 2009. The development of successors from followers to leaders in small family firms: An exploratory study. Family Business Review, 22(2): 109–124.Google Scholar
Cohen, A. R. and Sharma, P. 2016. Entrepreneurs in Every Generation: How Successful Family Businesses Develop Their Next Leaders. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler.Google Scholar
Confino, J. 2013. Interview: Unilever’s Paul Polman on Diversity, Purpose and Profits. The Guardian, October 2, 2013. www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/unilver-ceo-paul-polman-purpose-profits (accessed November 8, 2013).Google Scholar
Cordano, M. and Frieze, I. H. 2000. Pollution reduction preferences of U.S. environmental managers: Applying Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4): 627–641.Google Scholar
Daily, C. M. and Dollinger, M. 1992. An empirical examination of ownership structure in family and professional managed firms. Family Business Review, 5(2): 17–36.Google Scholar
Danes, S. M., Stafford, K., Haynes, G. and Amarapurkar, S. S. 2009. Family capital of family firms: Bridging human, social, and financial capital. Family Business Review, 22(3): 199–215.Google Scholar
Davis, J., Schoorman, R., Mayer, R. and Tan, H. 2000. The trusted general manager and business unit performance. Strategic Management Journal, 21: 563–576.Google Scholar
De Clercq, D. and Belausteguigoitia, I. 2015. Intergenerational strategy involvement and family firms’ innovation pursuits: The critical roles of conflict management and social capital. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 6(3): 178–189.Google Scholar
Dierickx, I. and Cool, K. 1989. Asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage. Management Science, 35(12): 1504–1511.Google Scholar
Discua Cruz, A., Howorth, C. and Hamilton, E. 2013. Inter-family entrepreneurship: The formation and membership of family entrepreneurial teams, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 37(1): 17–46.Google Scholar
Dutton, J. E., Ashford, S. J., O’Neill, R. M., Hayes, E. and Wierba, E. E. 1997. Reading the wind: How middle managers assess the context for selling issues to top managers. Strategic Management Journal, 18(5): 407–415.Google Scholar
Egri, C. P. and Herman, S. 2000. Leadership in North American environmental sector: Values, leadership styles and contexts of environmental leaders and their organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4): 571–604.Google Scholar
Gallo, M. and Vilaseca, A. 1996. Finance in family business. Family Business Review, 9: 387–401.Google Scholar
Giovannoni, E., Maraghini, M. P. and Riccaboni, A. 2011. transmitting knowledge across generations: The role of management accounting practices. Family Business Review, 24(2): 126–150.Google Scholar
Goel, S. and Jones, R.J., III. 2016. Entrepreneurial exploration and exploitation in family business: A systematic review and future directions. Family Business Review, 29(1): 94–120.Google Scholar
Goetz, K. 2011. How 3M Gave Everyone Days Off and Created an Innovation Dynamo. Co-design. www.fastcodesign.com/1663137/how-3m-gave-everyone-days-off-and-created-an-innovation-dynamo (accessed October 8, 2015).Google Scholar
Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Haynes, K., Nuñez-Nickel, M., Jacobson, K. J. L. and Moyano-Fuentes, J. 2007. Socioemotional wealth and business risks in family-controlled firms: Evidence from Spanish olive oil mills. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52: 106–137.Google Scholar
Gomez-Mejia, L. R Cruz, C., Berrone, P. and De Castro, J. 2011. The bind that ties: Socioemotional wealth preservation in family firms. The Academy of Management Annals, 5(1): 653–707.Google Scholar
Hahn, T., Preuss, L., Pinkse, J. and Figge, F. 2014. Cognitive frames in corporate sustainability: managerial sensemaking with paradoxical and business case frames. Academy of Management Review, 39(4): 463–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hambrick, D. C. and Finkelstein, S. 1987. Managerial Discretion: A Bridge between the Polar Views of Organizational Outcomes. In Staw, B. M. and Cummings, L. L. (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior 4, pp. 369–406. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Hart, S. L. 1995. A natural-resource-based view of the firm. Academy of Management Review, 20: 874–907.Google Scholar
Haugh, H. M. and Talwar, A. 2010. How do corporations embed sustainability across the organization? Academy of Management Learning and Education, 9(3): 384–396.Google Scholar
Holliday, C. 2001. Sustainable Growth the DuPont Way. Harvard Business Review (September 2001): 129–34.Google Scholar
Howard-Grenville, J. A. 2007. Developing issue-selling effectiveness over time: Issue selling as resourcing. Organization Science, 18(4): 560–577.Google Scholar
Hoy, F. and Sharma, P. 2010. Entrepreneurial Family Firms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Jaskiewicz, P., Combs, JG. and Rau, S. B. 2015. Entrepreneurial legacy: Toward a theory of how some family firms nurture transgenerational entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(1): 29–49.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2): 263.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. 1984. Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist, 39(4): 341–350.Google Scholar
King, A. 2000. Organizational response to environmental regulation: Punctuated change or autogenesis? Business Strategy and Environment, 9: 224–238.3.0.CO;2-X>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
König, A., Kammerlander, N., and Enders, A. 2013. The family innovator’s dilemma: How family influence affects the adoption of discontinuous technologies by incumbent firms. Academy of Management Review, 38(3): 418–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotlar, J. and De Massis, A. 2013. Goal setting in family firms: Goal diversity, social interactions, and collective commitment to family-centered goals. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 37(6): 1263–1288.Google Scholar
Kotter, J. P. 1996. Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Maletz, M. C. and Nohria, N. 2001. Managing in the white space. Harvard Business Review, 79(2) February.Google Scholar
Miller, D. and Le Breton-Miller, I. 2006. Family governance and firm performance: Agency, stewardship, and capabilities. Family Business Review, 19: 73–87.Google Scholar
Miller, D. and Le Breton-Miller, I. 2005. Managing for the Long-Run: Lessons in Competitive Advantage from Great Family Businesses. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press.Google Scholar
Morck, R., and Yeung, B. 2003. Agency problems in large family business groups. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 27: 367–382.Google Scholar
Nordqvist, M., Wennberg, K., Bau, M. and Hellerstedt, K. 2013. An entrepreneurial process perspective on succession in family firms. Small Business Economics, 40: 1087–1122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patagonia. 2015. www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=2047 (accessed October 5, 2015).Google Scholar
Pearce, F. 2013. Unilever Plans to Double its Turnover While Halving its Environmental Impact. The Telegraph, July 23. www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10188164/Unilever-plans-to-double-its-turnover-while-halving-its-environmental-impact.html (accessed October 7, 2015).Google Scholar
Portugal, E. and Yukl, G. 1994. Perspectives on environmental leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 5: 271–276.Google Scholar
Ramus, C. A. and Steger, U. 2000. The roles of supervisory support behaviors and environmental policy in employee “ecoinitiatives” at leading-edge european companies. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4): 606–625.Google Scholar
Sharfman, M. P., Wolf, G., Chase, R. B. and Tansik, D. A. 1988. Antecedents of organizational slack. Academy of Management Review, 13(4): 601–14.Google Scholar
Sharma, P. and Sharma, S. 2011. Drivers of Proactive Environmental Strategy in Family Firms. Business Ethics Quarterly, 21(2): 309–332.Google Scholar
Sharma, S. 2000. Managerial interpretations and organizational context as predictors of corporate choice of environmental strategy. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4): 681–697.Google Scholar
Sharma, S. 2014. Competing for a Sustainable World: Building Capacity for Sustainable Innovation. UK: Greenleaf Publishing.Google Scholar
Sharma, S. and Nguan, O. 1999. The biotechnology industry and biodiversity conservation strategies: The influence of managerial interpretations and risk propensity. Business Strategy and the Environment, 8(Jan–Feb): 46–61.Google Scholar
Sharma, S., Pablo, A. and Vredenburg, H. 1999. Corporate environmental responsiveness strategies: The role of issue interpretation and organizational context. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 35(1): 87–109.Google Scholar
Sharma, S. and Vredenburg, H. 1998. Proactive corporate environmental strategy and the development of competitively valuable organizational capabilities. Strategic Management Journal‚ 19: 729–753.Google Scholar
Sonenshein, S., DeCelles, K. A. and Dutton, J. E. 2014. It’s not easy being green: The role of self-evaluations in explaining support of environmental issues. The Academy of Management Journal, 57(1): 7–37.Google Scholar
Sorenson, R. L. and Bierman, L. 2009. Family capital, family business, and free enterprise. Family Business Review, 22(3): 193–195.Google Scholar
Sorenson, R. L., Goodpaster, K. E., Hedberg, P. R., and Yu, A. 2009. The family point of view, family social capital, and firm performance. Family Business Review, 22(3): 239–253.Google Scholar
Tapies, J. and Ward, J. L. 2008. Family Values and Value Creation: The Fostering of Enduring Values within Family-Owned Businesses. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tenbrunsel, A. E., Wade-Benzoni, K. A., Messick, D. M. and Bazerman, M. H. 2000. Understanding the influence of environmental standards on judgments and choices. Academy of Management Journal, 43(5): 854–866.Google Scholar
The Body Shop. 2015. www.thebodyshop-usa.com/about-us/about_thebodyshop.aspx (accessed October 5, 2015).Google Scholar
Thorndike, E. L. 1920. A constant error in psychological ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 4(1): 25–29.Google Scholar
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1974. Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157): 1124–1131.Google Scholar
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1986. Rational choice and the framing of decisions. The Journal of Business, 59(S4): S251.Google Scholar
Ward, J. L. 1987. Keeping the Family Business Healthy: How to Plan for Continuing Growth, Profitability, and Family Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. 1988. Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations. Journal of Management Studies, 24: 305–317.Google Scholar
Winn, M. 1995. Corporate leadership and politics for the natural environment. In Collins, D. and Starik, M. (eds.), Sustaining the Natural Environment: Empirical Studies on the Interface between Nature and Organizations, pp. 127–161. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Woodfield, P. and Husted, K. 2017. Intergenerational knowledge sharing in family firms: Case-based evidence from the New Zealand wine industry. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 8(1): 57–69.Google Scholar
Zahra, S. 2018. Entrepreneurial risk taking in family firms: The wellspring of regenerative capability. Family Business Review, 31(2): 216–226.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×