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Organization & Environment (O&E), December 2013; 26 (4)

Editorial

J. Alberto Aragon-Correa

Opportunities for Research and Future Publications in Organization & Environment, Organization & Environment, December 2013, 26: 363-364.

http://oae.sagepub.com/content/26/4/363.full.pdf+html

Articles

Javier Aguilera-Caracuel and NataliaOrtiz-de-Mandojana

Green Innovation and Financial Performance: An Institutional Approach, Organization &Environment, December 2013, 26: 365-385.

                        http://oae.sagepub.com/content/26/4/365.abstract

Green innovation incorporates technological improvements that save energy, prevent pollution, or enable waste recycling and can include green product design and corporate environmental management. This type of innovation also contributes to business sustainability because it potentially has a positive effect on a firm's financial, social, and environmental outcomes. However, the specific effect of green innovation on these outcomes can be highly influenced by the national context in which firms develop their activities. Using an institutional approach and employing a sample of 88 green innovative firms and 70 matched pairs (green innovative and non–green innovative firms), we find that green innovative firms are situated in contexts characterized by more stringent environmental regulations and higher environmental normative levels. Nevertheless, when compared to non–green innovative firms, we observe that green innovative firms do not experience improved financial performance. In focusing on green innovative firms, we note that the intensity of green innovation is positively related to firm profitability. Finally, we study whether national institutional conditions (stringency of environmental regulations and normative levels) impose a moderating effect on the relationship between green innovation intensity and the financial performance improvement of innovative firms. Our results show that regulatory and normative dimensions do not have the same influence on that relationship, creating implications for academia, managers, and policy makers.

Martina K. Linnenluecke and Andrew Griffiths

The 2009 VictorianBushfires: A Multilevel Perspective on Organizational Risk and Resilience, Organization &Environment, December 2013, 26: 386-411.

                       http://oae.sagepub.com/content/26/4/386.abstract

One of the expected consequences of climate change is an increase in the frequency and intensity of weather extremes such as heat waves, droughts, and large-scale bushfires. The possible escalation in the frequency and magnitude of resulting impacts has led to arguments that future strategies for emergency management should be based on achieving organizational and community resilience. However, relatively little is known about the limits to conventional emergency management approaches and factors leading to resilience. Drawing on the 2009 Victorian Bushfires as an analogue for a "more-severe-than-expected" event likely under a future, changed climate, this article analyzes the limits to emergency management approaches under unfamiliar conditions. Our assessment focuses on three organizations involved in the Victorian Bushfires emergency response. Results show how events that occur with unprecedented severity are well beyond the routine emergency management capacities of emergency organizations. We discuss how the long-term promotion of organizational and societal resilience could be achieved and outline implications for research and practice.

James Rice

Controlled Flooding in the Grand Canyon: Drifting Between Instrumental and Ecological Rationality in Water Management,  Organization &Environment, December 2013, 26: 412-430.

                        http://oae.sagepub.com/content/26/4/412.abstract

Construction of the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona was motivated by the conviction that a river running to the sea is a resource forsaken. Since 1963, it has provided water storage, recreational opportunities, and electricity for millions. It has also generated far-reaching ecological changes, and controlled flooding hasbeen employed since 1996 to restore ecological habitat downriver in the Grand Canyon. The present study situates these high-flow experiments at the Glen Canyon Dam within a neo-Weberian theoretical perspective attuned to a posthumanist critique. The objective of high-flow experiments is to attain greater balance between ecological and instrumental rationalization processes. They are not simply an experiment in habitat renewal but an operational shift signaling a greater resolve to evolve with nature, but they also illustrate the challenges inherent to large-scale ecological restoration. Nonetheless, controlled flooding illustrates important lessons with regard to the need to reflect on, learn from, and adjust socionatural relations in response to ecological degradation and change.

Elisabeth Albertini

Does EnvironmentalManagement Improve Financial Performance? A Meta-Analytical Review, Organization &Environment, December 2013, 26: 431-457.

http://oae.sagepub.com/content/26/4/431.abstract

The relationship between corporate environmental performance and financial performance has received a high degree of attention in research literature and the results are still contradictory. Most of the findings have shown that environmental performance improves financial performance while others have suggested that the relationship is neutral or even negative. Our article integrates prior research studying this relationship and identifies the potential moderators that may have played arole in the apparent inconsistent results observed to date. We conducted a meta-analysis of 52 studies over a 35-year period that confirms a positive relationship between environmental performance and financial performance. Moderators' analysis reveals that the relationship is significantly influenced by the environmental and financial performance measures, the regional differences, the activity sector and the duration of the studies. After discussing the theoretical and managerial implications, this meta-analysis tries to answer the question: "When and how does it pay to be green?