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Stephanie Bertels’ Article Accepted by the Journal of Business Ethics

Feb 16, 2009


Associate Professor Stephanie Bertels’ article titled, “Leaders and Laggards: The Influence of Competing Logics on Corporate Environmental Action” was recently accepted by the Journal of Business Ethics.

The abstract for the article is as follows:
We study the sources of resistance to change among firms in the Canadian petroleum industry in response to a shift in societal level logics related to corporate environmental performance. Despite challenges to its legitimacy as a result of poor environmental performance, the Canadian petroleum industry was divided as to how to respond, with some members ignoring the concerns and resisting change (i.e., laggards) while others took action to ensure continued legitimacy (i.e., leaders). We examine why organizations within the same institutional field responded differently, delaying the industry response. We found that one population of firms was aligned with increasing pressures from its stakeholders for improved environmental performance, and the other was influenced by local cultural, political, and economic ideals less demanding of environmental actions. Our results reveal that several factors both at the institutional field level and the organizational level affected how these two populations reacted to a changing societal logic. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.

The Journal of Business Ethics publishes only original articles from a wide variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives concerning ethical issues related to business that bring something new.

For more information on Dr. Bertel’s research please follow this link.