Mark Starik

Should trees have managerial standing? Toward stakeholder status for non-human nature

Most definitions of the concept of “stakeholder” include only human entities. This paper advances the argument that the non-human natural environment can be integrated into the stakeholder management concept. This argument includes the observations that the natural environment is finally becoming recognized as a vital component of the business environment, that the stakeholder concept is more than a human political/economic one, and that non-human nature currently is not adequately represented by other stakeholder groups. In addition, this paper asserts that any of several stakeholder management processes can readily include the natural environment as one or more stakeholders of organizations. Finally, the point is made that this integration would provide a more holistic, value-oriented, focused and strategic approach to stakeholder management, potentially benefitting both nature and organizations.

Introduction to the Special Research Forum on the Management of Organizations in the Natural Environment: A Field Emerging From Multiple Paths, With Many Challenges Ahead

An increasing amount of high-quality research has been conducted in the past decade on the topic of managing organizations in the natural environment. The authors trace this evolution using path an...

Business responses to environmental and social protection policies: toward a framework for analysis

This conceptual paper seeks to advance neo-institutional work that has tradi- tionally portrayed environmental and social protection policies as constraints followed by businesses. Drawing from the policy sciences literature, we propose that in the United States, businesses tend to show increasing resistance as the protective policy process moves from initiation to selection and growing cooperation thereafter. Most importantly, we also contribute to the neo-institutional theory literature by positing that this inverted U-shaped policy process-business response relationship proposed for the U.S. context may be moderated by variations in the level of democracy, system of interest representation, regulatory approach, and national income.

GROWING AN ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY

Environmental management is becoming increasingly accepted as a key feature of business strategy. However, academic and practitioner publications on the subject develop few guides as to which processes to follow to integrate environmental concerns and strategy. A three-step strategic management process is proposed which incorporates concern for the natural environment throughout a firms operations. This can result in the growth and nurturing of an organizational environmental strategy.

Initial environmental project characterizations of four US universities

Universities and colleges, as societal educational institutions, have relatively recently attempted to begin to upgrade their multiple relationships with their natural environments, as have other institutions. However, “greening” initiatives of higher education institutions appear to have received far less attention in various bodies of academic literature than have the environmental policies and practices of these other institutions. This article highlights four US universities’ “campus ecology” projects, initially characterizing major elements of each, using a common organizational effectiveness model which has been widely employed in organization‐related academic fields.

Practicing What We Teach (and Research) Paradoxes on the Paths to Advancing Sustainable Academic Careers and Lifestyles

Colleagues and Other Dear Readers — an introductory note on this editorial: a couple of years ago, in an early editorial after J. Alberto Aragon-Correa and I officially became Co-Editors-inChief of this journal at the start of 2013, I provocatively titled that piece “Sustainability Management Academics: How’s That Going?”, implying that academic sustainability management as a profession is a challenging one. And, I mentioned, though barely so, that, in my opinion, one of the aspects of being a successful sustainability management academic, at least from a leadership standpoint, was practicing sustainability, not only in our professional but also in our personal lives. We each have the potential to influence many stakeholders beyond our official research, teaching, and service job responsibilities, including our family members, friends, neighbors, community residents, and even complete strangers whom we happen to meet in the course of our daily lives. A few years before that, I wrote an essay titled “Sustainable Living Beyond 9-to-5” (Starik, 2004) in which I humbly but more directly asserted that to be true to our profession of sustainability management, we needed to practice the principles of that profession outside of our jobs, and I suggested a number of ways some Academy of Management leaders (each associated with the Academy’s Organizations and the Natural Environment, or ONE, Division whom I knew personally) were actually trying to do just that. This idea of “personal academic sustainability management” became painfully salient for yours truly when several months ago I accepted an open term (or “continuing”) research faculty position with the University of Technology, Sydney, in downtown Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, necessitating a reassessment of all, and a relocation of most, of my worldly belongings from San Francisco, California, where I had been researching and teaching sustainability management at San Francisco State University. That cross-oceanic move inspired me to address this topic in my own personal/professional life in this issue’s editorial. Happily, though, as the result of several trips outside Australia, I met two of my friends and veteran ONE colleagues (Kate Kearins and Eva Collins) in New Zealand, had great visits with them, and eventually asked Eva to join me in developing a collaborative guest editorial on the general issue of personal academic sustainability management. [Some of Kate’s work was featured in an O&E issue in 2013 (Tregidga, Kearins, & Milne, 2013)]. So, after a brief introduction to the excellent articles in this

Corporate Environmentalism in a Global Economy: Societal Values in International Technology TransferCorporate Environmentalism in a Global Economy: Societal Values in International Technology Transfer, by BrownHalina Szejnwald, DerrPatrick, RennOrtawin, and WhiteAllen L. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1993.

The article reviews the book “Corporate Environmentalism in a Global Economy: Social Values in International Technology Transfer,” by Halina Szejnwald Brown, Patrick Derr, et al.