Beyond Compliance: An Event History Analysis of Environmental Stewardship

Abstract

This study investigates what causes businesses to increase their environmental stewardship beyond the governmental standards. This “beyond compliance behavior” is examined by analyzing the influence of organizational slack and institutional pressures in the European paper and paperboard industry. Beyond compliance behavior is measured as the adoption of a sustainable forestry certificate issued by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The longitudinal (10-year period) dataset consists of adoption events per company, their business characteristics and historic socio-economic data per region in the respective European countries. Examination was done by means of an event history analysis using the program “R.” The results show differences between antecedents of compliance and beyond compliance behavior. The authors discuss the results in the light of institutional and stakeholder theories. Due to institutional shifts in environmental demands, adoption of an FSC certificate has become an off-the-shelf compliance answer to legitimacy issues disguised as a progressive environmental stewardship program.

Citation

Pitsakis, K., Gössling, T. and Vink, R. (2023), "Beyond Compliance: An Event History Analysis of Environmental Stewardship", Andersen, T.J. (Ed.) Responding to Uncertain Conditions: New Research on Strategic Adaptation (Emerald Studies in Global Strategic Responsiveness), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 131-155. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80455-964-220231007