Frederik Dahlmann

Exploring and Explaining Patterns of Adaptation and Selection in Corporate Environmental Strategy in the USA

While the societal salience of environmental issues appears to have risen substantially in recent years, relatively little is known regarding how environmental responsiveness has evolved over time within business in general, or within particular private sector organizations. In this study we seek to address this deficit by exploring the evolving pattern of environmental strategy within a large sample of US companies over the period 1997 to 2006. Based on evolutionary theories of selection and adaptation as well as Burgelman’s strategic change processes, we characterize the pattern of evolving responses to natural environmental issues, distinguish between changes in the overall attention paid to environmental issues that are attributable to the forces of adaptation and selection, and examine the distinctive characteristics of those organizations that have exhibited the most dramatic improvements in their environmental strategy. Our findings indicate that while there is widespread inertia in respect of environmental responsiveness within our sample of companies, those companies that have achieved significant improvements in their environmental strategies do so as a result of a combination of autonomous and induced change processes. Such companies have often recently appointed a new CEO, are relatively strongly engaged in research and development, and have strong prior achievements in environmental strategy.

Barriers to proactive environmental management in the United Kingdom: implications for business and public policy

Existing conceptual and empirical contributions emphasise the significant payoffs available to companies who can manage the effect that they have on the environment (Porter and van der Linde, 1995; Christmann, 2000; Hart, 1997; Aragón-Correa et al., 2004). In spite of this, empirical evidence concerning the extent to which companies have embedded environmentally sensitive business practices within their different management functions remains very mixed (Hillary, 2000; Post and Altman; 1994; Ghobadian et al., 1995). In this study we explore this apparent puzzle by investigating corporate perceptions of the main barriers and obstacles to more effective management of their environmental impacts in the context of a sample of over 150 UK companies drawn from six industries. Using a mixed methodological approach incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methods, our findings suggest that both internal and external barriers play important roles in retarding the willingness and ability of British industry to become more proactive in managing its environmental impacts.

Emerging energy geographies: Scaling and spatial divergence in EUropean electricity generation capacity:

This paper presents an evaluation of the impact of the related EU internal energy market and renewable energy policies by exploring the (sustainable) energy transition in the EUropean electricity sector and drawing on the emerging literatures on energy geographies. We use evidence aggregated from plant-level data on installed electricity generation capacity in the EUropean electric utilities sector over the period 1990–2013 to demonstrate how the unintended interaction between EU policies on energy market liberalization and climate change have led to new renewable energy entrants and more widely dispersed ownership of total generation capacity. Our empirical results suggest that six energy geography concepts enable deeper insights into the spatiality of the EUropean energy transition. Specifically, we find that territoriality and scaling are key lenses for interpreting the differentiated change processes occurring at EUropean, subregional and national levels. The EUropean energy transition is unlikely to converge onto a single trajectory any time soon, but particularly subregional approaches are argued to offer policy-makers with more spatially cognizant and effective levers.