Suchergebnisse

The motivation for concern about the environment beyond one's neighborhood is still relatively poorly understood. This article examines the determinants of feelings of responsibility at a regional watershed level. Using demographic, attitudinal, self-reported behavior and neighborhood mapping measures from four cities in Australia, five hypotheses were derived. These were that wider environmental concerns would depend on (a) the physical and social characteristics of the respondents' neighborhoods, (b) the size of their perceived neighborhoods, (c) the length of residence at their localities, (d) educational level and attitudes toward environmental moral responsibility (and the interaction between them), and (e) the level of reported environmentally friendly behavior. Support was gained for all hypotheses except length of residence and the role of general moral attitudes toward the environment. It is concluded that to explain community action at the regional level, it is important to include both spatial and psychological insights and methodologies in research.

There is increasing social and political awareness of the importance of developing environmental responsibility at a corporate level. When focusing on issues of responsibility, large companies are frequently perceived to be more responsible for driving climate change and resource depletion. However, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute significantly to the use of resources such as material and energy and produce approximately 64% of the pollution in Europe. Drawing on evidence from "The Eurobarometer 381 Survey on SMEs, Resource Efficiency and Green Markets", we analyze the environmental responsibility of European SMEs, studying their compliance with environmental legislation and how several factors drive environmental orientation among SMEs. Our sample consists of 3647 SMEs operating in 38 countries. Only around a fifth of the firms go beyond environmental regulations, showing the highest levels of environmental responsibility. We conduct OLS regressions to analyze the factors that affect a positive environmental attitude among European SMEs (internal drivers being more significant than external ones) and then, to observe the positive effect of environmental responsibility and firm's experience in offering green services/products on performance, although a conjoint effect was not found. Implications for practitioners, academics, and policy-makers are outlined.

AbstractDue to the public/private funding debate and their social and physical presence in the community, the most visible touch‐points for environmental responsibility (ER) are arguably seen among public assembly facilities. However, while cost savings and perceptual benefits are considered the most salient outcomes of 'going green', little attention has been paid to the resource‐worthiness of ER. Applying facility manager perceptions to the Resource‐based View of the Firm (RBV), various ER impacts and outcomes were assessed. The RBV dimensions were theorized to influence stakeholder and local impacts, the outcomes of which are image enhancement and economic reward. The structural model results confirm our assertions; however, not all paths were in the hypothesized directions. The results show that as a resource, ER is perceived as valuable and to a lesser extent, rare, by facility managers, but it may not necessarily substitute for other organizational resources. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

AbstractUsing a large panel of listed firms in China from 2010 to 2015, this study investigates the valuation effect of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and firm characteristics that influence such an effect. We implement the ordinary least squares and the fixed effects panel regressions as well as the two‐stage least squares regressions that control for potential endogeneity. We find that CER has a significantly positive effect on firm performance. The positive effect is more pronounced for firms in highly polluting industries, with high asset tangibility and with low state ownership. Furthermore, firms with high ownership concentration and low managerial ownership tend to benefit more from their environmentally responsible activities, suggesting that enhanced environmental engagement may serve as a strategic tool in reducing the negative effects of agency cost and weak corporate governance on firm valuation. Our results are robust to alternative measures of performance (Tobin's Q and return on assets).

In this paper we examine the issue of environmental responsibility in the Russian Federation by engaging in responsibility narratives with environmental nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). We do so to examine in more depth the impact of the deinstitutionalisation of environmental responsibility in Russia throughout the transition period. We find that while NGOs regard the state and other key actors to have abdicated in their responsibility for protecting the natural environment, Russian environmental NGOs appear unable to substitute for these actors. Consequently, the Russian environment remains largely unprotected and thus subject to continuing irresponsibility in the field of environmental protection and pollution control.