George I. Kassinis

Location, Networks and Firm Environmental Management Practices

Firms face a multitude of barriers in their attempt to manage the environmental impacts of their operations. These may include economic, information- and knowledge-related, organizational and technical factors. To overcome such barriers, in-house resources and capabilities may need to be supplemented by external ones. This paper draws from the regional economic literature and the literature on networks to examine the role that firm location and participation in networks may play in enhancing a firms ability to engage in environmental management, thus implicitly overcoming some of these barriers. In a sample of 180 firms operating in Cyprus, a relationship was found between a firms location and participation in networks and the extent of use of environmental management measures by that firm. Specifically, there is a relationship between, first, firm location and the extent of use of end-of-pipe measures and, second, firm participation in networks and the extent of use of both end-of-pipe and pollution prevention measures. These findings are supported by the regional economic and network literatures.

Modeling the diffusion of strategies: an application to exporting

We examine whether the spread of an exporting strategy can be characterized as a diffusion process using a general framework that accounts for attrition and changes in the pool of potential adopters and allows the diffusion rate to vary according to firm and market characteristics. Our findings indicate that the diffusion of exporting is described well by the internal model of diffusion. Thus, this framework may be useful in modeling the spread of other strategies. The diffusion rate is found to be strongly related both to firm characteristics and to past adopter performance. Copyright 2009 The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Associazione ICC. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

Visuality as Greenwashing: The Case of BP and Deepwater Horizon:

We use a visual semiotic approach to explore how BP utilized the power of the visual after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. Through the careful construction and use of images on its corporate website, BP narrated a visual story that helped the company construct a “logic of representation” when its “logic of practice” became problematic and heavily scrutinized. We argue that the BP case has wider applicability in understanding how companies deploy the visual to create a reality that averts the limelight from risky practices, aid their post-disaster image restoration efforts, or even enhance greenwashing practices when decoupling is exposed. The study adds to a growing literature that raises the importance of visual literacy for both management practitioners and researchers of organizations. It also adds to the literature on greenwashing by showcasing the role of visual imagery in shaping green communication.

Generating tensions: A multilevel, process analysis of organizational change

Working within a Bakhtinian perspective of relational dialectical tensions, this study seeks to elaborate on current organizational change theories through a rich set of qualitative data collected on an Internet start-up that revolutionized the music industry. Following the company for 12 years, we focused on the tensions arising during the company’s development and on the responses to these tensions. Our results indicate that with a process model, tensions and decisions develop in a reflexive relationship, which shows that change happens, not in spite of unintended consequences, but because of the unintended consequences of the decisions enacted. We show that change is not always the result of deliberate intentions, conscious choices, and purposeful actions of individuals, but rather as an ongoing process that evolves through countervailing dynamics at multiple organizational levels. Tensions and responses to them are pivotal to this process of changing and should be analyzed as directional markers for future oppositional struggles. Consistent with the Bakhtinian position, we find that change occurs within the interplay of tensions as actors live out struggles and decisions in the midst of organizing.

Website stories in times of distress

Highlighting the uniqueness of websites as a specific form of interactive and visual communication tool, we explore how corporate websites aid storytelling in times of distress. Using the corporate website of BP as our empirical context, we analyze the visual story that unfolded before and after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster though a visual semiotic method, and argue that the changes in the story potentially mitigated the impact of the environmental catastrophe after the spill. We propose that our website analysis of a case of serious corporate misdoing, where a company’s stated and actual environmental practices were in dissonance, provides an insight to the construction of the ‘liquid organization,’ as well as to what Bauman calls ‘liquid power’ or ‘the art of escape from all forms of social responsibility.’ As such, we believe that mobilizing website study in management practice and education can provide a better understanding of ‘corporate hypocrisy’ in a liquid, modern world, as well as enable stakeholders’ responsibility and power to hold organizations accountable for their misdoings.

Paradoxes of Change

We build on the organizational paradoxes literature by elaborating on theory through a rich set of qualitative data collected on an internet start-up that revolutionized the music industry. Following the company for twelve years, we focus on how change happens “on the ground,” its generative mechanisms and outcomes. Specifically, we locate the tensions arising during the company’s development and the decisions made to address these tensions. Contrary to our expectation that we would confirm a stability-change paradox presented in previous literature, we find that our focal organization was characterized by a series of nested paradoxes: first, in analyzing change on three levels, individual, organizational and industry, we were able to illuminate the dynamic interplay of “changing while being changed” or what we call a changed-changing paradox. As the three levels interacted with and against each other, we also find that the decision bringing “resolution” to a tension is the same decision instigating a new...

Interest group pressures and US county-level toxic emissions

We address the relation between interest group characteristics and industry environmental performance. Using data on industrial activities from 2097 US counties, we show that there is an inverse relationship between variables proxying for pressures associated with varying levels of county income, population densities and environmental preferences and toxic emissions at the county level. Our results are broadly consistent with the notion that administrators are receptive to interest group pressures in shaping firm policies towards the natural environment.