This conceptual paper seeks to advance neo-institutional work that has traditionally portrayed environmental and social protection policies as constraints followed by businesses. Drawing from the policy sciences literature, we propose that in the United States businesses tend to show increasing...

This manuscript contributes to the organizations and natural environment literature by combining the policy process model with neo-institutional theory to develop a framework of propositions predicting business political environmental management strategies. This framework advances...

A controversy exists among economists who have found, based on aggregate data analysis, that environmental regulations tend to retard productivity, and business strategists who maintain, based on case analysis, that environmental regulations can enhance productivity. A key point often overlooked...

This paper builds an enactment theory to explain the continuing commitment of entrepreneurs to an emerging organizational field like energy efficiency and renewable energy, which is widely seen as being in the interests of society. We propose that when such a field is constrained by such factors...

Given an indifferent institutional environment, ongoing commitment to an emerging organizational field is critical. We build and test an enactment theory of commitment that holds that commitment is driven by institutional entrepreneurship, specifically actions to educate stakeholders, but that...

Given that firms have both business and social goals, an important unanswered question is whether a general dynamic capability breeds competencies in both these areas. In studies of the US retail food industry, we find that while a general dynamic capability affects firms' competence in supply...

This paper extends transaction costs economics to analyze relationships between firms and regulatory agencies. It compares the economic efficiency of firm-agency governance structures for dealing with pollution reduction. The transaction costs of three ideal type governance structures are...

Stakeholders play an increasingly active role in private governance, including development of standards for measuring sustainability. Building on prior studies focused on standards and stakeholder engagement, we use an innovation management theoretical lens to compare stakeholder engagement and...

This dissertation sought to develop a grounded theory explaining how ENGOs assess the environmental performance of firms, select target industries and firms, and influence those targeted industries and firms. A preliminary model based on research in the fields of social movements,...