| Summary: | The pressure on corporations to manage their operations in an environmentally responsible
manner has increased rapidly in the last decade. These pressures are especially intense for
resource-based companies. In the province of British Columbia, environmental policy, which is
the basis of many forms of intervention by the provincial government, constitutes a significant
constraint on the operations of forest companies. Diverse environmental group campaigns
addressing issues such as preservation of temperate coastal rainforest, forest management
practices, and air and water pollution by pulp and paper mills, have contributed to intensifying
the environmental pressures on companies.
Yet it is apparent that forest companies in B.C. which face similar competitive conditions and
are regulated by the same environmental policies have responded differently. The research
question addressed in this study was "Why do corporate responses to government and
environmental group actions designed to protect the environment differ between corporations?"
The research question was examined through the use of a comparative case study research
strategy. Two B.C.-based companies which showed prima facie evidence of having divergent
responses to environmental pressures were chosen for the study. Data was collected on
government and environmental group actions on environmental issues for the period 1983 to
1997 to determine the substantive nature of the issues faced by corporations and to trace their
evolution over the period covered by the study. Data on corporate responses between 1983 and 1997 was collected through interviews, newspaper reports, and corporate documents.
The data was analyzed through a framework based on four theories of organization. Four models
were specified in terms of their unit of analysis, organizing concepts, dominant inference
patterns, and propositions: the rational choice model; the institutional model; the bureaucratic
model; and the leadership model.
The case studies demonstrated that while some government actions had distinct effects on the
companies, and though one was the target of interest group actions more intensively and
frequently than the other, the general operating and regulatory environment of the companies
was more similar than it was distinct. Analyzing organizational characteristics with the use of
the theoretical framework accounted for much of the difference in response. The rational model
was not generally supported except in limited decision-making situations. The institutional model
explained corporate stance in terms of the content and sources of institutional pressures. The
bureaucratic model explained organizational output by illustrating how structural characteristics
affected issues of goal setting and implementation of responses. The leadership model explained
the extent to which changes in corporate strategy resulted from different types of leadership
behaviour, subject to situational constraints. The four models were then integrated to derive
some theoretical implications for academic research and some managerial implications for
corporate managers. === Business, Sauder School of === Graduate
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