The Effects of Institutional Distance and Headquarters’ Financial Performance on the Generation of Environmental Standards in Multinational Companies

This article combines institutional and resources’ arguments to show that the institutional distance between the home and the host country, and the headquarters’ financial performance have a relevant impact on the environmental standardization decision in multinational companies. Using a sample of 1...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Aguilera-Caracuel, Javier (Author) ; Aragón-Correa, Juan Alberto (Author) ; Hurtado-Torres, Nuria Esther (Author) ; Rugman, Alan M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2012
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2012, Volume: 105, Issue: 4, Pages: 461-474
Further subjects:B Natural Environment
B Multinational Company
B Environmental institutional distance between countries
B Financial Performance
B Environmental standardization
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Description
Summary:This article combines institutional and resources’ arguments to show that the institutional distance between the home and the host country, and the headquarters’ financial performance have a relevant impact on the environmental standardization decision in multinational companies. Using a sample of 135 multinational companies in three different industries with headquarters and subsidiaries based in the USA, Canada, Mexico, France, and Spain, we find that a high environmental institutional distance between headquarters’ and subsidiaries’ countries deters the standardization of environmental practices. On the other hand, high-profit headquarters are willing to standardize their environmental practices, rather than taking advantage of countries with lax environmental protection to undertake more pollution-intensive activities. Finally, we show that headquarters’ financial performance also imposes a moderating effect on the relationship between environmental institutional distance between countries and environmental standardization within the multinational company.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-011-0978-7