Correlations between senior executives' perceptions of corporate environmental orientation and corporate strategy focus, and corporate environmentalism and corporate environmental practices

This dissertation sought to ascertain whether there is a statistically significant positive correlation, with respect to senior managers' perceptions of corporate environmental orientation and their perceived corporate environmental strategy focus, and if there is a statistically significant positive correlation, with respect to senior managers' perceptions of corporate environmentalism and their espoused environmental activities. An extensive survey of environmental management literature revealed corporate environmentalism to be composed of two constructs: an overall corporate environmental orientation wherein environmentalism is internalized as a corporate value, and an environmental strategic focus involving the integration of environmental issues into the strategic planning process (Banerjee, 1998). Corporate environmentalism may also be viewed as the combination of a firm's environmental orientation coupled with their environmental strategy focus and espoused environmental activities. The research data were gathered through a self-reporting mail survey questionnaire sent to senior executives and functional managers in 480 multinational corporations. The analysis of the data included nonparametric tests for correlations using Kendall's tau_b and Spearman's rho, with significance set at p < .001.; The findings appear to support the notion that there is a positive correlation between corporate environmental orientation and corporate environmental strategy focus, and also between corporate environmental activities and corporate environmentalism. The positive outcomes from this research suggest that corporate environmental awareness (i.e., environmental orientation) and environmental strategic focus among multinational firms exists. The data from this research further suggest that firms who espouse an environmentally friendly orientation and strategy focus tend to be more environmentally proactive. The findings of this study help to advance the understanding of the phenomenon of corporate environmentalism. Recommendations are made for future studies to examine issues such as, corporate environmentalism's impact on the financial well being of the firm and whether a corporate environmental strategy focus provides better competitiveness than a functional strategy focus, and whether an environmental strategy focus may be more effective in the long run than a more narrow functional strategy focus. Replication of the present study is recommended with replication carried out focusing on multinational corporations' overseas operations in order to determine if the multinational corporations' domestic environmental policies are mirrored in their overseas environmental policies.