Corporate Environmentalism Across Cultures

Abstract

This study explores the influence of national culture upon leaders' interpretations of corporate environmentalism. The first part of the paper reviews the theoretical and empirical premises for a common interpretation of corporate environmentalism across countries. Three dimensions of corporate environmental performance are distilled from the qualitative literature developed in North America: organizational embeddedness, capacity to undertake environmental actions, and responsibility for protecting nature. We develop a survey instrument to measure corporate environmentalism and collect data from two random samples of Chinese (Shanghai-based) and Japanese executives. Exploratory factor analyses suggest that North American, Chinese, and Japanese executives employ three similar dimensions to interpret the corporate environmental performance of their companies. Using these dimensions, the second part of the study compares the overall degree of corporate environmental performance reported on the average by Chinese and Japanese executives. The study also investigates the influence of national culture, environmental values and socioeconomic contexts upon firm-level greening in both countries.