Frank Wijen

Overcoming Inaction through Collective Institutional Entrepreneurship: Insights from Regime Theory

Studies on institutional change generally pertain to the agency-structure paradox or the ability of institutional entrepreneurs to spearhead change despite constraints. In many complex fields, however, change also needs cooperation from numerous dispersed actors with divergent interests. This presents the additional paradox of ensuring that these actors engage in collective action when individual interests favor lack of cooperation. We draw on complementary insights from institutional and regime theories to identify drivers of collective institutional entrepreneurship and develop an analytical framework. This is applied to the field of global climate policy to illustrate how collective inaction was overcome to realize a global regulatory institution, the Kyoto Protocol.

Stakeholder Power and Organizational Learning in Corporate Environmental Management

The literatures on stakeholder engagement by companies and organizational learning give little consideration to the power (or influence) of stakeholders to affect the process or content of organizational learning. These literatures generally assume that common ground between companies and their stakeholders can be established as a prerequisite for learning, that learning is a quasi-autonomous process unaffected by the motives or power of stakeholders, and that actors have the power to fulfil roles that are critical in fostering learning. The paper seeks to address these omissions, examining how and why stakeholder power and organizational learning interact, drawing on comparative case studies of the environmental management practices found in two major companies. The evidence from these cases suggests a complex relationship between the ambition of company goals, the structure of learning, and the influence of stakeholders on the process and outcomes of learning. Exploitative learning routines were effective when stakeholder influences converged, whereas explorative learning took place without convergence but the implementation of this learning was hampered. We suggest that this raises important issues for companies that seek to undertake both exploitative and explorative learning and that future studies of organizational learning should take more explicit account of the effects of stakeholder power.

Fiddling While the Ice Melts? How Organizational Scholars Can Take a More Active Role in the Climate Change Debate

Organizational scholars have so far remained relatively passive around the debate on climate change. We argue that organizational scholars could and should get more involved and show how this could be done through the lenses of institutional, stakeholder, and complexity theories.

Globalisation and National Environmental Policy: An Overview

After outlining the scope, target audience, and structure of the book, we review the literature on globalisation and environmental policy, especially the impact of globalisation on the environment and changes in environmental governance in relation to increasingly global spheres of influence. This is followed by a succinct representation of the essential points of all contributions to this volume. While each chapter has its own distinct focus and perspective, common themes have been identified in major outcomes and future directions: the delicate and multifaceted relation between economic globalisation and environmental protection, changes in the prioritisation of environmental issues, shifts in governance mechanisms, dealing with reduced sovereignty, prospects for existing and new policy instruments, and finding a balance between globalisation and national environmental policy. These findings lead to conclusions with respect to the commensurability of different governance levels and the compatibility of different policy areas.

Globalisation and National Environmental Policy: Update and Overview

After outlining recent developments and the scope, target audience, and structure of the book, we review the literature on globalisation and environmental policy, especially the impact of globalisation on the environment and changes in environmental governance in relation to increasingly global spheres of influence. This is followed by a succinct representation of the essential points of all contributions to this volume. While each chapter has its own distinct focus and perspective, we identify common themes in major outcomes and future directions: the delicate and multifaceted relation between economic globalisation and environmental protection, shifts in domestic environmental issues, evolving governance mechanisms, dealing with changed sovereignty, the promotion of self-enforcing mechanisms, prospects for existing and new policy instruments, and finding a new balance between globalisation and national environmental policy.

Structural Antecedents of Corporate Network Evolution

While most network studies adopt a static view, we argue that corporate social networks are subject to endogenous dynamics of cognitive path dependence and self-reinforcing power relations. Over time, these dynamics drive corporate networks to become increasingly focused (i.e., more homogeneous, stable, and tightly knit). More focused networks induce organisations to perpetuate existing routines, at the expense of developing new capabilities. We examine the role of organisational structure in maintaining balanced, rather than focused, networks, so that business organisations can realise progressive and timely adjustments to their evolving environments. We develop a theoretical argument, illustrated with the divergent network adjustment patterns of two large, mature companies, suggesting that business organisations with the following structural antecedents are likely to maintain balanced networks: the concurrence of centralisation and decentralisation; a high degree of differentiation and an intermediate level of integration; and an intermediate degree of formalisation.

THE DARK SIDE OF GLOBALIZATION FOR MATURE EUROPEAN MULTINATIONALS: AN EXTENDED NETWORK PERSPECTIVE

Purpose – While previous studies have highlighted opportunities, this chapter sheds light on the negative effects of globalization that mature European multinational enterprises (MNEs) encounter. Design/methodology/approach – We develop an extended network perspective to argue that globalization has resulted in several network-related threats for mature European MNEs. Findings – European MNEs encounter three types of negative effects. First, globalization has caused local problems to increasingly spill over to other parts of MNE networks. Second, globalization has bred or strengthened countervailing powers, such as emerging-market MNEs, supranational governmental bodies, and international non-governmental organizations, which have eroded the power of mature European MNEs by entering their networks. Third, while globalization has caused the economic networks of MNEs to expand, it has made critical production factors scarcer since the availability of labour, land and natural resources has not increased accordingly. We conclude that globalization acts as a double-edged sword, which has not only offered opportunities for mature European MNEs but has also led them to experience important new and intensified threats. Social implications – Earlier studies have shown that globalization can have positive effects for MNEs and negative effects for the sovereignty of nation states, domestic employment and the natural environment. The findings of the present study imply that globalization can also backfire on mature MNEs, thereby undermining their competitive position or even jeopardizing their continuity. Originality/value – The negative effects of globalization for MNEs have remained understudied. Our contribution is to systematically analyze the neglected yet important ‘dark side of globalization’ that mature European MNEs encounter.

Architecture of the Kyoto Protocol and Prospects for Public Climate Policy

Options for governments future climate policy are discussed as a function of the architecture of the present regime; the latter is anchored in the Kyoto Protocol, which is aimed at reducing the human impact on climate change. We describe the basic tenets of this agreement, and explain how it was realised despite the widely divergent interests. The strengths and weaknesses of the Kyoto regime, and related future opportunities and threats, are presented. The degrees of collective decision-making and international participation were the basis for exploring four scenarios (local market, local collectivity, global market, and global collectivity) and concomitant policy instruments and actors. The possibilities of enhancing participation by linking issues and creating bandwagons are discussed. We conclude that the main flaw of the Kyoto regime is its lack of appropriate incentives. To realise a more effective regime, future climate policy should be geared towards making participation more attractive and rendering compliance self-enforcing.

CSR Needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics:

Corporate sustainability has gone mainstream, and many companies have taken meaningful steps to improve their own environmental performance. But while corporate political actions such as lobbying can have a greater impact on environmental quality, they are ignored in most current sustainability metrics. It is time for these metrics to be expanded to critically assess firms based on the sustainability impacts of their public policy positions. To enable such assessments, firms must become as transparent about their corporate political responsibility (CPR) as their corporate social responsibility (CSR). For their part, rating systems must demand such information from firms and include evaluations of corporate political activity in their assessments of corporate environmental responsibility.

Governmentts Green Grip: Multifaceted State Influence on Corporate Environmental Actions in China

Emerging economies such as China enjoy economic expansion but also face dramatic environmental challenges. China’s government is a central actor in both stimulating economic activities and pursuing environmental protection. Drawing on panel data and in-depth interviews, we examined the influence of the Chinese state at multiple levels on the environmental actions of publicly listed firms. The results show that corporate environmental actions follow an inverted U-shape as control of environmental practices moves from the central government to the most decentral administrative level. This curvilinear relationship is positively moderated by the stringency of environmental regulation and negatively moderated by environmental monitoring capacity. We conclude that state influence on corporate environmental actions in China is multifaceted and subject to ‘policy-policy decoupling’.