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0 Academy of Management Review 1995, Vol. 20, No. 4, 908-935.

WEAVING AN INTEGRATED WEB: MULTILEVEL AND MULTISYSTEM

PERSPECTIVES OF ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONS

MARK STARIK

George Washington University

GORDON P. RANDS

The Pennsylvania State University

This article explores the concept of ecological sustainability and applies it to

organizations by utilizing a systems framework and multiple levels of analysis.
The implications for ecological sustainability of dyadic relationships between the
organization and entities at the individual, organizational, political-economic,
social-cultural, and ecological environment levels are examined. Critical factors
that influence the degree to which an organization's behaviors are ecologically
sustainable are examined, and behavioral and structural elements that are likely
to be manifested by ecologically sustainable organizations (ESOs) are suggested.

The concept of ecological sustainability has been applied to various processes and
sectors, including development, agriculture, communities, economies, energy
consumption, forestry, resources, societies, soils, tourism, and urban
environments (Mannion & Bowlby, 1992). The notion of an "ecologically
sustainable organization" (ESO), although not widely discussed, has received
increased attention (Gladwin, 1993a; Starik, 1992).

In this article we assert that ecological sustainability is a critical emerging

management concept. We believe that this concept can and, in fact, must be
analyzed on multilevel and multisystemic bases. This article incorporates these
multiple levels and systems into a framework or relationships web (Peters, 1992),
upon which a theory of ecologically sustainable organizations can eventually be
woven.

DEFINITIONS AND DESIRABILITY OF ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY

The Definition of Ecological Sustainability

No shortage of definitions of sustainability exist in the environmental literature

(Carpenter, 1993; El Serafy, 1992; Gladwin, 1993b; Pezzey, 1989). The
Brundtland Commission (World Commission on Environment and De-
velopment, 1987) defined sustainable development as "development that meets
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs."

This definition is problematic for several reasons. It can be perceived as

(a) anthropocentric;

(b) indefinite on what "needs" are and whose "needs" have priority;

(c) silent on changes in technology, resource distribution, and quality; and

(d) unclear regarding the benefits, costs, and strategies of intergenerational

sacrifice and transfers.

Given the numerous political interests that have used the term sustainable
development, the ability of a single definition of the concept to satisfy everyone
appears severely limited (El Serafy, 1992). The lack of a precise definition may
have been helpful in the past by facilitating development of a general consensus
on the critical nature of the basic concept (Daly, 1991).

Among the specific concepts that need to be included in a more comprehensive

definition are

irreplaceability,

biodiversity, and

carrying capacity

{ Gladwin, 1993b; Goodin, 1992; Hawken, 1993; Meadows, Meadows, &

Randers, 1992; Nijkamp & Soeteman, 1988; Postel, 1994; Throop, Starik, &
Rands, 1993; Wilson, 1992);

socioeconomic and

ecological system resilience

(Corson, 1994; Costanza, Daly, & Bartholomew, 1992; Gladwin, 1993b;

Milbrath, 1989; Sitarz, 1993);

and futurity

(Goodin, 1992; Kinlaw, 1993; Stead & Stead, 1992).

Several authors have suggested (and we agree) that sustainability and sustainable
development have multilevel and multisystem characteristics (Costanza et al.,
1992; Kinlaw, 1993; Yanarella & Levine, 1992) and that the achievement of
sustainability requires an effective integration of these multiple levels and
systems. For us, integration involves the assumptions that

(a) an ecologically sustainable world requires ecologically sustainable societies,

cultures, political and economic systems, organizations, and individuals and that
(b) achievement of sustainability by an entity at any one of these levels requires
simultaneously recognizing and addressing the actions of and interactions with
entities at each of these levels.

We suggest the following definition:

ecological sustainability is the ability of one or more entities, either individually

or collectively, to exist and flourish (either unchanged or in evolved forms) for
lengthy timeframes, in such a manner that the existence and flourishing of other
collectivities of entities is permitted at related levels and in related systems.

The test of an organization's ecological sustainability is the degree to which its

activities can be continued indefinitely without negatively altering the limiting
factors that permit the existence and flourishing of other groups of entities,
including other organizations. Limiting factors determine the carrying capacity of
a given ecosystem for a type of entity (and, thus, its population size), and these
include food, water, shelter, breeding and rearing sites, predators, competitors,
disease organisms and other toxins (Odum, 1989) for living species. Sustainable
organizational activities would not alter physical, chemical, and biological factors
(or political, economic, social or cultural conditions) such that the carrying
capacity for otherwise sustainable entities would be dramatically reduced or
eliminated.

Although analyses of global carrying capacity are extremely complex and their
findings are tentative and open to criticism, many scientists believe that we are
closely approaching (or have even exceeded) the thresholds at which natural
systems are degraded, such that global carrying capacity actually declines (Brown
& Kane, 1994; Meadows et al., 1992). Human carrying capacity can be increased
by diverting food, water, and habitat to humans from other species, but at a cost
to those species. Scientists have estimated that humanity already appropriates
some 40% of all terrestrial net primary production (NPP)biomass produced
by green plantsand 25% of total NPP (Vitousek, Ehrlich, Ehrlich, & Matson,
1986). The potential implications of this increased appropriation are enormous.
It is apparent that two more doublings of the human scale will give 100 percent
[of NPP]. Since this would mean zero energy left for all nonhuman and
nondomesticated species, and since humans cannot survive without the services
of ecosystems, which are made up of other species, it is clear that two more
doublings of the human scale is an ecological impossibility ... . Total
appropriation of the terrestrial NPP is only a bit over one doubling in the future.

Assuming a constant level of per-capita resource consumption, the doubling

time of the human scale would be equal to the doubling time of population, which
is on the order of forty years. Of course economic growth currently aims to
increase the average per-capita resource consumption and consequently to reduce
the doubling time. . . . Unless we awaken to the existence and nearness of scale
limits, then the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, and acid rain will be just
a preview of disasters to come, not in the vague distant future, but in the next
generation. (Daly, 1991: 246)

As ecosystems provide the foundations of existence for both biological entities

and organizations, sustainability of ecosystems must have higher priority than the
economic sustainability of specific organizations. We assume, however, that the
sustainability of both is possible and de-sirable.

**The Desirability of Ecological Sustainability

Ecological sustainability is desirable for many reasons. Ecological processes

provide the biophysical context for human existence (Shrivas- tava, 1995).
Human economic pursuits such as agriculture, forestry, mining, and
manufacturing all depend on "resources" originating and continuing to exist in
the natural environment (Brown, 1995; Starik, 1993). Sustained ecosystem
processes are necessary for humans to continue to reap the aesthetic benefits of
nature (Goodin, 1992), thereby contributing to improvement of the human
condition (Gore, 1992). Finally, many observers believe that ecosystem health
has intrinsic value apart from its human utilitarian benefits (Nash, 1989) and that
ecosystems have a right to exist with or without humans. Even the most
challenging critiques of ecological sustainability question whether sustainable
limits have begun to be approached, rather than whether sustainability itself is
desirable (Ray, 1993; Simon, 1990). We conclude that ecological sustainability is
desirable and necessary for other species and for humans and, thus, for
organizations. Nevertheless, we expect that the concept of ecological
sustainability and its advantages and disadvantages will continue to be debated.

Several factors explain why so few organizations have begun to achieve

sustainability, despite its desirability. First, dramatic negative impacts on natural
systems are relatively recent, and our understanding of the bases, severity, and
scope of these impacts is still limited. Second, appreciation of the benefits derived
from healthy, diverse ecological systems is underdeveloped. Third, there is
insufficient public understanding of both ecological principles and the urgency of
bringing humanity's col-lective behavior into congruence with these principles.
Fourth, reversing these impacts and approaching sustainability requires
substantial change, much of it antithetical to short-term economic self-interest.
Finally, a lack of understanding exists about what practices are required at
various levels to act in a sustainable manner. Progress in each area is needed
before we can expect to see widespread ecologically sustainable behavior.

This article addresses the final factor regarding the organizational level. Our goal
is to describe some of the more salient characteristics of an ESO. This description
has two purposes: (a) to provide organizations that intend to move toward
ecological sustainability with a useful and research-based diagnostic tool and (b)
to provide researchers with a guide that can be used to assess the degree to which
an organization has achieved or is approaching ESO status and to serve as a basis
for hy-pothesis development regarding organizational ecological sustainability.

MULTIPLE LEVELS, MULTIPLE SYSTEMS, AND SUSTAINABILITY A

Multilevel Approach
A multilevel perspective on ecological sustainability is necessary for both
theoretical and practical reasons. Organization theory literature has addressed the
issue of levels in organizational research and has identified several types of
approaches in considering multiple levels in the same study (Rousseau, 1985).
Among the models of multilevel theory and research that have received significant
attention are cross-level, mixed effects, mixed determinants, and multilevel
models (Klein, Dansereau, & Hall, 1994). The latter type, multilevel models, has
been described as "uniquely powerful and parsimonious" (Klein et al., 1994: 223),
as independent and dependent variable relationships in these models are gen-
eralizable across organizational levels.

Support for the necessity of addressing ecological sustainability at

multiple levels also can be found throughout the practitioner literature on this
topic. For example, one prominent executive asserted:

Sustainable development will obviously require more than pollution prevention

and tinkering with environmental regulations. Given that ordinary people
consumers, business people, farmersare the real day-to-day environmental

de-cision makers, it requires political and economic systems based on the

effective participation of all members of society in decision making. It requires
that environmental considerations become a part of the decision-making
processes of all government agencies, all business enterprises, and in fact all
people. (Schmidheiny, 1992: 7)

We have identified five levels of analysis that bear upon the presence or absence
of ecological sustainability: the individual, organizational, political-economic,
social-cultural, and ecological levels. Small group, department, and strategic-
unit levels are included within the organizational level because of space
constraints. A fine-grained analysis of the implications for ecological
sustainability of interactions between multiple levels within organizations
remains the subject of future research. A basic depiction of our multilevel,
multisystem framework is shown in Figure 1.

The Concept and Elements of Open Systems

As we utilize an open-system framework, we briefly review the central elements

of open systems below. Although numerous open-system models exist (Scott,
1992), we primarily use the model developed by Katz and Kahn (1978), which
lists 10 characteristics of open systems. Four of these characteristics describe
conditions over which systems or entities have little if any control: systems as
cycles of events, negative entropy, steady-state/dynamic homeostasis, and
equifinality. Our application of the system concept focuses on the elements over
which social-system entities can exercise a fair amount of control.

A system imports inputs from its external environments, uses throughput

processes to transform these inputs into outputs, and exports these outputs to its
external environments. Natural, human, and financial "resources" are the
fundamental organizational inputs. Organizational throughput processes include
research and development, production, distribution, marketing and
administration. Organizational outputs include products, services, and by-
products. These by-products include matter, such as solid waste, liquid and
gaseous pollutants, and energy emitted in the form of heat and noise.

A system also receives feedback in the form of information. Organizational

feedback mechanisms can be either negative (self-limiting), which suggests that
a current action should be eliminated or decreased in order to maintain or attain a
certain steady-state condition, or posi-tive (self-reinforcing), which suggests that
a current action should be

FIGURE 1

The Multilevel/Multisystem Relationships Web

|0
5 OT

O CO

w O O cc O

continued or increased. Feedback regarding ecological sustainability can be either

pro-sustainability in nature, which directs the system toward an ecologically
sustainable steady state, or anti-sustainability, which di-rects it away from such a
condition. Combining these two dimensions

yields four types of feedback: negative/pro-sustainability (decrease or reverse

current unsustainable practice), positive/pro-sustainability (continue or increase
current sustainability-oriented practice), negative/antisustainability (decrease or
reverse current sustainability-oriented practice), and positive/anti-sustainability
(continue or increase current unsustainable practice). Examples of the four
respective types are boycotts of environmentally harmful products, awards for
environmental excellence, cost disadvantages incurred as a result of
environmental improvements, and governmental failure to enforce a regulation
that a company is disregarding.

Open systems are also differentiated, creating the need for the specialized
components of the system to function effectively together. This is accomplished
through integration mechanisms such as roles, norms, and shared values, and
through coordination devices such as strategies, objectives, plans, schedules, and
rules and regulations (Katz & Kahn, 1978). Integration and coordination are
systemic elements that are fundamental to understanding the ecological
sustainability of organizationsthey are included in our framework and are
referred to as values and strategies.

Walmsley's (1972) list of systemic elements also specifically includes

environments. Each of the various levels shown in Figure 1 serves as an
environment for entities at other levels. Thus, the environments of indi-viduals
include relevant organizations, their political-economic environment, their
social-cultural environment, and their ecological or natural environment.

Analytical Assumptions and Approach

A basic assumption for this analysis is found in the notion of fit. Drazin and Van
de Ven (1985) identified three approaches to fit in contingency theory: selection,
interaction, and systems. The selection and interaction approaches "tend to focus
on how single contextual factors affect single structural characteristics and how
these pairs of context and structure factors interact to explain performance"
(Drazin & Van de Ven, 1985: 519).

The systems approach, however, takes the perspective that fit entails consistency
between many contingencies and organizational characteristics. The degree of
such consistency affects performance, with the highest performing organizations
predicted to be those that most closely approach an ideal type having a high
degree of fit on multiple dimensions. This approach suggests that "two basic
choices confront the organizational designer: (1) to select the organizational
pattern of structure and process that matches the set of contingencies facing the
firm, and (2) to develop structures and processes that are internally consistent" (
Drazin & Van de Ven, 1985: 521).

The preceding discussions of carrying capacity and the desirability of ecological

sustainability explain why ecological sustainability generates important
contingencies for organizations and why these may be seen as

increasingly critical in the future. Not only do organizations depend on ecological

resources directly, but they also depend on resources provided by members,
customers, investors, suppliers, and governments. Organi-zational reputations
among each of these stakeholders, and the consequent flow of resources to
organizations, are increasingly influenced by the extent of organizational
ecological sustainability (Gladwin, 1993b). From a resource-dependence
perspective (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978), we might therefore expect organizations
to manage these critical contingencies by becoming more ecologically
sustainable in their practices.

As Drazin and Van de Ven (1985) noted, however, organizations will experience
multiple competing contingencies. Ecological contingencies often appear to
conflict with economic ones. Given the criticality of eco-nomic contingencies, we
would not be surprised if most organizations gave insufficient attention to
ecological contingencies until they became too dramatic to ignore.

We regard a strict resource-dependence perspective as overly deterministic and

hold a strategic-choice perspective (Child, 1972), in which managers are
boundedly rational (March & Simon, 1958) and are influenced by their values.
Our view of organizations as entities that are able to foresee and adapt to
environmental conditions based on the strategic decisions of organizational
leaders is consistent with Andrews' (1980) view of strategy: Leaders develop
strategies based on consideration of external threats and opportunities, internal
strengths and weaknesses, obligations to society, and their own values and
preferences. Thus, we expect some organizations to move toward ecologically
sustainable performance before the need to do so is widely apparent. We expect
the early ESOs to be led by individuals who (a) understand and are sensitive to
ecological realities, (b) are effective analysts of various external environments,
(c) are astute observers of their own organizations, and (d) are effective managers
of change, able to achieve the multiple internal consistencies between structural
and processual elements necessary to bring their organizations into sufficient fit
with their external contingencies on a sustainability-oriented basis. We also
believe that some of these leaders will attempt to address contextual factors that
make it difficult for all organizations to achieve the status of an ESO.

In this article we will identify conditions that indicate that an organization is

ecologically sustainable, factors that make it difficult to achieve this status, and
resulting characteristics that an organization will exhibit as it achieves this
condition and works to overcome these factors.

Organizations can achieve ecological sustainability by different means and in

different configurations, consistent with the concept of equifinality. Accordingly,
we neither specify particular paths for an organization to achieve ESO status,
nor do we argue that an organization will exhibit all of the characteristics that we
identify. Thus, our description of ESOs may be viewed as an "ideal type" (Doty
& Glick, 1994; Drazin & Van de Ven, 1985).

We identify these conditions, factors, and resulting characteristics (see Table 1)

by examining the relationships between the organization and entities at the various
levels identified in Figure 1, using the open- system components discussed
previously to highlight the interactions. We begin with the relationships of an
organization with entities in the ecological level of our framework. The nature of
these interactions forms the foundation for organizational ecological
sustainability and provides the context within which all other organizational
activities and relationships must be understood, assessed, and built. Then, as do
the orb webbuilding spiders (Preston-Mofham & Preston-Mofham, 1984), we
move from the outside foundation of the framework to the center and back out

TABLE 1

Multilevel-Relationship-Induced Characteristics of Ecologically

Sustainable Organizations (ESOs)

Ecological Level

Utilization of natural resource inputs at sustainable rates

Processes designed for maximization of conservation and minimization of waste

Development of goods and services for sustainable use and disposal/recycling
Generation of only assimilable outputs, which are ecologically useful or neutral
Effective mechanisms for sensing, interpreting, and responding to natural
feedback Promotion of values of environmental protection, sensitivity, and
performance Development of principles, strategies, and practices for ecosystem
viability

Individual Level

Inclusion of sustainability considerations in job design, selection, and training

Promotion of sustainability-oriented innovation by systems and structures
Reinforcement of a sustainability orientation by cultural artifacts

Organizational Level

Initiation of and involvement in environmental partnerships

Absence of targeted protests by environmental activists

Utilization of environmental conflict-resolution practices

Participation in industrial ecology and other waste-exchange arrangements

Allocation of extensive resources to interorganizational ecological cooperation

Political-Economic Level

Encouragement of pro-sustainability legislation Promotion of market-based

environmental policy approaches

Encouragement and development of full-environmental-cost accounting

mechanisms Promotion of peak organization support for sustainable public policy
Promotion of peak organization sustainability-oriented self-regulatory programs
Participation in peak organizations specializing in promoting sustainability
Opposition to anti-sustainability and/or promotion of pro-sustainability subsidies

Social-Cultural Level
Involvement with social-cultural elements to advance sustainability values
Involvement in educational institutions' environmental literacy efforts Provision
of environmental information to various media

Dissemination of sustainability information from culturally diverse stakeholders

Attention to environmental stewardship values of organizational members

again, weaving a web of an organization's sustainability relationships with

individuals, other organizations, political-economic entities, and social-cultural
entities. Although we assume that the ability of organizations to become
ecologically sustainable also depends on the interactions of entities at other levels
(such as individuals and social-cultural entities), space prevents us from
considering most bi- and multilevel relationships.

AN ORGANIZATION-BASED MULTILEVEL WEB OF RELATIONSHIPS

Organizations' Ecological Relationships with Nature

Central to the concept of organizational ecological sustainability is the

organization-natural environment dyad. Organizations receive a number of inputs
from various ecosystems, including air, water, land, minerals, energy, animals,
plants, and microbial life. Organizational ecological sustainability is shaped by
the quantities and types of natural resources, including energy, extracted and used.
ESOs will use natural resources no faster than either (1) rates of renewal, (2) rates
of recycling, or (3) rates at which ecosystems' regenerative capacities will not
have been exceeded by the time technological change and conversion to
sustainable resources has occurred (Brown et al., 1993).

Organizations employ numerous natural processes in the creation, manufacturing,

and marketing of their products and services, including photosynthesis,
bioremediation, evaporation, and energy conversion. Natural processes ensure
that matter and energy are conserved to the maximum degree possible and that
by-products and "wastes" become usable inputs rather than simply unusable or
harmful residuals (Odum, 1989). Ecological sustainability requires that the total
"life cycle" (extraction, production, distribution, use, disposal/recycling) of
products and services be similarly sustainable (Henn & Fava, 1994). Procurement,
man-ufacturing, and distribution processes in ESOs will be designed to
maximize material and energy conservation and to minimize the release of by-
product outputs that will have harmful ecological impacts. Among the specific
manufacturing throughput process approaches we would expect to see ESOs
apply are the redesign of material and energy flows into essentially closed-loop
systems that mimic natural ecosystems. Such approaches have been referred to
as examples of "industrial ecology" (Tibbs, 1992). The ability of customers to
sustainably use and dispose/ recycle products and services is limited by their
attributes. Accordingly, sustainability requires that producers take some
responsibility for downstream environmental impacts by exercising "product
stewardship" (Henn & Fava, 1994). Research and development and administrative
processes in ESOs will facilitate the development andlor redesign of goods and
services that will have sustainable use and disposal/recycling characteristics.

Organizational products, by-products, and services embody material and energy,

and all return to the ecological environment eventually. Large amounts of waste
can overwhelm the assimilative capacity of the environment, overloading
biochemical cycles and causing localized or widespread harm. ESOs will generate
outputs in forms and amounts that are assimilable and either useful or ecologically
neutral.

The disposition of this matter and energy output determines feedback emanating
from the ecological environment. Although this feedback is sometimes difficult
to interpret, it inherently has pro-sustainability attributes. Positive ecological
feedback, such as reappearance of species and improvements in worker health and
productivity because of the removal of pollutants, generally should cause
organizations to respond by con-tinuing pertinent practices. Negative feedback,
such as the declining quality of process water, the disappearance of animal and
plant species, and the increases in workplace illnesses should act as signals for
organizations to impose self-limiting controls to modify organizational inputs,
processes, and/or outputs. Too often, however, feedback from nature is
misinterpreted by organizations: Decline in the availability of large trees can
increase the pressure to use the remaining trees and result in non- sustainable
harvesting, rather than a decline in overall consumption levels. ESOs will design
and utilize mechanisms that sense, accurately interpret, and promote corrective
action upon negative!pro-sustainability feedback from nature.

Differentiation in organizations via creation of specialized units and roles can

have conflicting sustainability results. Differentiation can prompt the creation of
environmental management positions designed to focus on ecological
relationships and impacts. However, specialization also can increase
identification with the goals and approaches of the specialized unit, decrease
communication regarding organizational practices and their impacts, and
diminish acceptance of personal responsi-bility for correcting organizational
problems (Waters, 1978). Each of these results of differentiation can decrease the
likelihood of ecologically sustainable throughput processes. Thus, a need exists
for mechanisms to unify and orient organizational units toward sustainability.

Values and other integrative mechanisms can link different individualized units
together to achieve common purposes (such as ecological sustainability); they can
also link them to the ecological environment. ESOs will promote the value of
environmental protection and sustainable organizational performance, instill
norms for environmental sensitivity in all decisions, and develop role-specific
expectations for environmental performance.

Values can be promoted via a variety of methods, including written

communications, environmental-improvement activities, and educational
activities. Norms can be instilled by organizational leaders who incorporate
environmental considerations into decisions, consistently questioning the
environmental impact of proposed actions and refusing to approve proposals that
will have a significant negative impact on the environment. Environmental
expectations can be built into roles via for-mal job descriptions and performance-
appraisal systems.

Unification of unit action also depends on formal coordinating mechanisms such

as objectives, plans, and strategies. ESOs will consider all of their principles,
policies, and practices from the standpoint of long-term ecosystem viability and
vitality and will develop and implement strategies so that they act in ecologically
sustainable ways. This coordination entails developing environmentally oriented
missions and objectives, ecologically sensitive strategies, and specific plans for
implementing pollution control and the prevention of the depletion of natural
resources (Starik, Throop, & Joyce, 1995). ESOs can go beyond addressing
technologically related impacts and develop more complex organizational
objectives and strategies for reducing population and consumption (Sitarz,
1993). Such efforts, particularly the latter, will require grappling with significant
conflicts between economic and ecological contingencies. Ap-parently, some
organizations, such as Espirit and Patagonia, already have begun to take steps in
this direction.

The previous discussion has introduced the various system components and
suggested how they relate to the establishment of congruent organizational
relationships with the ecological environment. In the sections that follow, we
consider some of the implications of these requirements for organizations'
relationships with individuals, with other organizations, and with entities at
political-economic and social-cultural levels.

Organizations and Their Ecological Relationships with Individuals

Individuals can relate to organizations as consumers, citizens, or some type of

member. We focus next on this third generic role and address the citizen and
consumer roles somewhat in subsequent sections. Individuals affiliated with
organizations as owners, managers, employ-ees, members, and volunteers bring
critical ideas and energy to the "greening" of their organizations. A variety of
environmental features have been incorporated into organizations' throughputs
and outputs by entrepreneurs. John Schaeffer's Real Goods Trading Company
offers en-ergy conservation and alternative energy products to an international
mail-order market. Sally Fox's Natural Cotton Colors markets organically grown,
naturally brown and green cotton to clothing manufacturers.

Managers often have taken the lead in introducing sustainability concepts and
practices into their organizations. Bill Foley, research director of Herman Miller,
championed the furniture manufacturer's re-placement of rosewood and
mahogany from tropical rainforests with far more plentiful cherry and walnut
(Makower, 1993). Nonexecutive employees have been prolific in developing
sustainability-related ideas for their respective organizations. Gail Mayville began
Ben & Jerry's recycling efforts while an administrative assistant, and later she
went on to direct the organization's entire environmental program. Heather Bell,
an American Airlines flight attendant, began recycling soda cans on one route
and spread the effort throughout the rest of the company. Literally hundreds of
3M employees have initiated and implemented several thousand Pollution
Prevention Pays (3P) projects.

Individuals clearly bring enormous innovative resources to organizations in

terms of ideas that can help increase ecological sustainability. Creation of ESOs
will require that this ecologically innovative potential be attracted to, fostered and
enhanced by, and unleashed within organizations. This innovative potential will
be applied not only to popular areas (e.g., pollution prevention and total quality
environmental management) (Milliman & Clair, 1994), but also to all impacts
of all the organizations' products and services. Doing so will likely require far-
reaching approaches such as life-cycle assessment, design for the environment,
product stewardship, and cradle-to-cradle management (Henn & Fava, 1994).
How can organizations accomplish these tasks?

First, organizations will orient their human resources management systems

toward ecological sustainability in order to improve the quality of individual
inputs. ESOs will include ecological sustainability considerations and criteria in
job design, recruitment and selection, and training and development systems.
Upgrading environmental knowledge among organizational members through
formal programs and by increasing individual members' exposure to feedback
from environmental stakeholders will advance in-house environmental literacy
and promote an atmosphere of ecological sensitivity (North, 1992).

Second, individuals throughout the organization will be encouraged and

empowered to improve organizational throughputs and outputs by being
ecologically innovative in finding new "green" alternatives to wasteful products
and processes. ESOs will design their budgeting and reward systems,
communication systems, organizational structures, and decision-making systems
in order to empower individuals to engage in sustainability-oriented innovation.
To this end, managers will need to better understand the factors involved in the
translation of individual knowledge about the environment into actual behavior
(Rands, 1990).

Third, and perhaps most important, ESOs will develop a deep and widespread
commitment to ecological sustainability among their members, so that members
can integrate their activities toward sustainable practices. This capacity requires
development of cultures based on shared environmental values, in which strong
norms for pro-sustainability behavior exist and ecological expectations are built
into roles throughout the organization (Callenbach, Capra, Goldman, Lutz, &
Marburg, 1993; Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Starik & Carroll, 1992). ESOs will be
characterized by numerous cultural artifacts such as slogans, symbols, rituals and
stories which serve to articulate and reinforce for their members the importance
of ecologically sustainable performance. Such artifacts might include Earth Day
celebrations, environmental-service

projects, ecological "mascots," catchy acronyms for environmental programs,

inclusion of environmental nonprofits in employee-giving campaigns,
environmental-performance competitions and awards, and ceremonies honoring
environmentally innovative members. These items will be publicized in
organizational communication media and through the personal involvement of
organizational leaders.

Organizations' Ecological Relationships With One Another

In this section, we discuss interorganizational relationships that are directly

oriented toward improving a focal organization's ecological sustainability. In the
next two sections we address relationships that can affect broader contexts and,
thus, indirectly affect an organization's ecological sustainability.

One interorganizational source of sustainability inputs are consultants who have

provided advice, audits, and other services to help "green" their client
organizations. The availability of such services is mushrooming, and a recent
guide listed over 5000 companies providing environmental-performance
services and products in the United States (Environment Today, 1994).

Environmental partnerships are a popular interorganizational device which

combine the environmental efforts of businesses, governments, and/or nonprofit
organizations (Schmidheiny, 1992). Some of the more widely publicized
examples of environmental partnerships include the effort of the Environmental
Defense Fund and McDonald's to reduce the latter's waste by 80%; the debt-for-
nature swaps initiated by environmental groups, financiers, and Third World
countries to trade outstanding international financial obligations for commitments
to protect ecologically sensitive areas; technical assistance provided by
government agencies to small businesses that want to improve their
environmental performance; and agreements between suppliers and their
customers to improve the environmental practices of one party in order to improve
the upstream or downstream performance of the organization initiating the
partnership (Cramer & Schot, 1993; Dillon & Baram, 1993; Gladwin, 1993b).
ESOs will initiate and be involved in numerous environmental partner-ships of
different forms, which will involve different issues and various external
stakeholder organizations.

Not all interorganizational environmental interactions are collaborative.

Numerous clashes have occurred involving international and local environmental
activist organizations, including many which espouse sus-tainability values.
Greenpeace, for one, has been involved in many protests against the anti-
sustainability practices of whalers, hazardous- waste firms, energy generators, and
other organizations (Day, 1989). Because their activities will have few
unsustainable impacts, ESOs will be the target of few, if any, protests by
environmental activists.

Many approaches to resolving environmental conflicts do exist, including

conflict anticipation, mediation, joint problem solving, policy dialogues, and
binding arbitration (Westman, 1985). Such approaches appear to increase the
likelihood of win-win solutions for all parties, including the ecological
environment. Accordingly, ESOs will frequently utilize conflict-resolution
practices regarding the natural environment.

The notion of industrial ecology mentioned previously can involve a network of

interorganizational arrangements, by which two or more production systems
attempt to recycle material and energy by-products to one another as inputs
(Tibbs, 1992). This maximum-recycling and waste- minimization approach can
be accomplished at multiple levels, from interplant to international. One well-
known Danish industrial ecology system is recycling nearly a dozen waste
products among four major manufacturers and a host of smaller organizations,
apparently resulting in substantial economic and environmental benefits (Cowan,
1993). ESOs will participate in industrial ecology and other waste-exchange
arrangements. Most organizations that adopt such efforts primarily focus on only
cost reduction and pollution prevention, and they have not addressed issues of
resource depletion, overconsumption, or habitat destruction, enhancement, or
restoration. Many ESOs may adapt the industrial ecology approach to address
these neglected issues and ensure a closer link between nature's processes and
those of their respective organizations. Such efforts will involve focusing on the
''ecology aspect of industrial ecology and moving away from the "industrial
paradigm.

Coordination across units is even more complex on an interorganizational basis,

and this will require clear mechanisms devoted to such accomplishments. Public-
private strategies for sustainability (Throop et al., 1993) can be formulated,
implemented, and encouraged by organizations involved in all industries or
sectors. In addition to establishing these interorganizational environmental goals,
public organizations also act as conveners, arbiters, and network builders to
enhance the information transfer on environmental technologies between private
organizations (Cramer & Schot, 1993). ESOs will devote extensive
administrative resources to developing and implementing sustainability strategies
in-volving interorganizational cooperation. In addition to yielding formal
coordinating mechanisms that will facilitate implementation, involvement in
cooperative networks is likely to advance the adoption of shared pro-sustainability
values by the participating organizations.

Organizations' Ecological Relationships With the Political-Economic Level

In the following two sections, we address the implications for ecological

sustainability of relationships involving, respectively, the broader political-
economic and social-cultural levels (environments). The focus of these
relationships is not directly the sustainability of the activities of one or two
organizations. Rather, the focus is on affecting broader contexts in which a given
organization operates. By providing critical contingencies, these contexts strongly
affect the ability of both the focal organization and

of others in its industry or sector to perform in an ecologically sustainable manner.

Organizations receive numerous important inputs from the political- economic

environment, including financial capital, actual or potential demand for goods or
services, and laws and regulations that both constrain the organization and
provide it with some degree of guidance and stability by constraining the actions
of others. Although these factors are commonly viewed in terms of their economic
impacts upon organizations, they have a significant impact on individual
organizations' abilities to achieve ESO status. One of the most insidious negative
effects of economic markets occurs when organizational members decide they
cannot risk taking actions that, although leading them toward ecological
sustainability, might place them at a competitive disadvantage because
competing organizations might not follow their lead (Buchholz, Marcus, & Post,
1992). This positive/anti-sustainability feedback is perhaps the most critical
element of market relationships that must be addressed if global society is to
progress toward ecological sustainability. Six major approaches exist to address
this problem, and the first three require political action by governments.

First, regulations can be adopted and supported by environmentally oriented

organizations requiring all competing organizations to undertake pro-
sustainability actions. An example of corporate promotion of environmental
regulations was Cummins Engine's proposed extension of clean air legislation to
diesel truck engines in the 1970s. ESOs will take political action to promote the
adoption of laws and regulations that "raise the floor" of environmental
performance.

Traditionally, government has relied upon "command-and-control" regulations

that specify control technologies or levels of pollution reduction. Such
regulations can be economically inefficient and ecologically suboptimal, because
they retard flexibility and impose penalties only for violations of standards. An
alternative is the use of market-based regulatory approaches, such as emissions
taxes and tradeable permits, which instill economic costs upon firms in proportion
to the amount of environ-mentally harmful outputs they generate (Anderson &
Leal, 1991). Such approaches provide incentives for reducing every unit of
pollution possible, thus encouraging continuous technological innovation
(Breheny, 1992; Schmidheiny, 1992). ESOs will promote market-based
governmental environmental-policy approaches over traditional command-and-
control approaches.

A related market-oriented policy approach is the development and utilization of

national income accounts that include the environmental costs associated with
economic activity (Daly & Cobb, 1992; Gore, 1992). The inclusion of pollution
and depletion as economic costs, for example, would significantly alter GNP
figures, would likely change public and private organizations' political and
economic decisions based on this information, and would encourage similar
modification of organizational accounting procedures. ESOs will encourage
national and international governmental bodies to adopt national income accounts
that incorporate environmental impacts; also, they will develop and institute full-
environmental-cost accounting procedures.

The actions described previously may be taken by either single organizations or

"peak organizations" (Maitland, 1985), such as trade associations, councils, and
other umbrella organizations. Traditional business peak organizations, such as
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Keidenren, the Confederation of British
Industries, and the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers often have been
involved in issues related to clean air and water (Callenbach et al., 1993), although
often in ways that fail to foster sustainability. ESOs will work to move peak
organizations to support pro-sustainability governmental policies.
Such peak organizations also may adopt, as a fourth approach, direct collective
responses to this problem of anti-sustainability feedback flowing from markets.
For example, in many nations, trade associations in the chemical industry have
adopted versions of the Responsible Care Program. Program requirements of
member companies include adhering to a set of extensive standards of practice,
involving local citizens in commu-nity advisory panels, and issuing periodic
progress reports (Mullins, 1994). Failure to meet these requirements is grounds
for expulsion from the respective association. The aim of these programs is to
"promote a self-regulatory compliance consciousness . . . [and encourage] a
culture that is responsive to public concerns about environment, safety, and health
risks and motivates continuous improvement" (Simmons & Wynne, 1993: 211).
Similar programs are being instituted by peak organizations in other industries,
including petroleum and forest products. ESOs will attempt to create
sustainability-oriented self-regulatory programs within their respective peak
organizations.

A fifth approach to reducing the disincentives to sustainability- oriented behavior

has been undertaken by new peak organizations, such as the Social Ventures
Network and Businesses for Social Responsibility. These peak organizations were
established to provide encouragement and advice for organizations that attempted
to exercise proactive social and environmental leadership. Members are typically
small organizations that have been willing to proceed with such action, despite
the risks of competitive disadvantage that were previously discussed. These peak
organizations bring together leaders for mutual instruction, encouragement, and
improvement regarding their social and economic activities, in order to expand
the successful practice of such activities. ESOs will participate in peak
organizations designed to encourage and assist other organizations to
simultaneously adopt sustainability-oriented actions and achieve economic
success.
New peak organizations such as the Business Council for Sustainable
Development (BCSD) have been formed specifically to help and to encourage
companies from many industries to adopt sustainability-oriented

behaviors and to bring about supportive change in the political-economic

environment (Schmidheiny, 1992).

A final approach to changing the disincentives noted previously involves the

creation of new demand for more sustainable products. One means of doing so
involves changing customers' expectations and preferences regarding products.
"Green marketing," the offering of products or services with one or more
ostensibly environmentally beneficial characteristics (Henion, 1972), is a
growing topic in the marketing field, exemplified by an increasing number of
conferences, publications, and companies involved with this issue. Organizations
such as the Body Shop, Ben & Jerry's, Wal-Mart, Church & Dwight, Dow, and
PG & E have aggressively cultivated "the green consumer," betting that some
consumers will pay a premium for products and services perceived as
environmentally benign (Gladwin, 1993b).

A second means involves creating stable markets for such products. Large
organizations with concerted purchasing power such as governments, as well as
buying cooperatives of small organizations, have begun to institute purchasing
programs stipulating product criteria such as recycled content and energy
efficiency. Although this action clearly improves the purchasing organizations'
own sustainability, an important rationale for many of these efforts is to provide
stable and profitable markets for such products and, thus, reward organizations
that are en-gaging in sustainability-oriented practices. ESOs will adopt marketing
and procurement policies emphasizing sustainable products, in part to create and
enlarge markets for such products.

A second major sustainability disincentive in the political-economic environment

is the existence of direct and indirect government subsidies for nonsustainable
products and services. Examples of such subsidies include deficit sales of
government-owned timber, below-market-rate grazing fees, limitations placed on
liability in case of a nuclear power plant accident, and tax-deductibility of
organization-paid employee parking (Donahue, 1994; Kosmo, 1987). Such
subsidies lower the price of non-sustainable products and services and encourage
their consumption; they also discourage provision and consumption of more
sustainable alternatives and substitutes. These subsidies, therefore, provide
negative/antisustainability feedback for producers and consumers of subsidized
products and services. Providing pro-sustainability feedback requires that these
subsidies be removed or that countervailing subsidies, which provide pro-
sustainability feedback, be instituted. Such subsidies could encourage use of
lumber made from recycled plastics, reclamation of degraded lands, installation
of alternative energy systems, and use of mass transit. ESOs will work to remove
anti-sustainability subsidies, andlor to institute pro-sustainability subsidies.

We have outlined a variety of approaches to changing the nature of political-

economic conditions that currently provide anti-sustainability feedback to
organizations. We believe that in order to overcome these political-economic
disincentives, widespread support by organizations for approaches such as those
described previously are needed. Thus, leaders will adopt effective strategies that
produce sustainability impacts. These strategies will likely include maintaining
or acquiring the credibility to influence peak organizations; using traditional and
nontra- ditional lobbying and legal arena approaches to convince legislators,
regulators, and courts to move toward ecological sustainability; identifying first
for their own companies and then for their respective industries and economies,
"how much [consumption] is enough (Durning, 1992), and acting on this
information; and interacting with global entities in an attempt to shape political-
economic conditions fostering sustainability.

Organizations' Ecological Relationships with the Social-Cultural Level

The social-cultural environment also provides a context that further constrains and
influences the ability of organizations to engage in sustainable practices. Social-
cultural conditions and institutions serve as key determinants of the values that
motivate individuals' actions as organizational members, consumers, and
citizens. Individuals' fundamental values and assumptions about the natural
environmenttheir environmental worldviews (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978)
play a fundamental role in influencing environmental attitudes and, subsequently,
behaviors (Rands, 1990; Samdahl & Robertson, 1989). Environmental
worldviews differ widely, both across and within nations (Milbrath, 1985). A
worldview that highly values environmental protection and believes ecological
limits are being approached or exceeded (the "new environmental paradigm,
or NEP) appears to increasingly be expressed in the United States and other
Western nations. This worldview questions elements of the traditional Western
worldview (the "dominant social paradigm [DSP]) that value material
abundance, economic growth, and technological advance (Dunlap & Van Liere,
1978).

Some observers believe these two viewpoints are antithetical: NEP adherents will
choose nonmaterialistic, low-consumption, cooperatively based lifestyles (Plant
& Plant, 1991), and DSP adherents give little or no thought toward the
environmental impact of their behavior. In fact, however, a majority of the U.S.
population appears to espouse elements of both worldviews (Milbrath, 1985).
Widespread interest in "green products is a manifestation of a desire for both
economic abundance and high environmental quality, and it provides the impetus
for organizations to attempt to develop environmentally sustainable processes and
outputs. If such success is to be achieved, pro-sustainability feedback from
political- economic systems is needed. It is likely that such feedback will require
direct appeals to individuals to express their environmental values in their political
and economic choices, as well as more firmly and widely establish such values
through their inculcation and promotion by social- cultural systems. ESOs will
attempt to affect social-cultural elements in order to increase the strength of pro-
sustainability values.

Educational systems, news and entertainment media, the arts and humanities,
religions, ethnic traditions and histories, and other social- cultural elements both
influence and are influenced by organizations, and these have enormous
ecological implications (Simmons, 1989). The relationship among cultural
factors, organizational technologies, population growth, and environmental
degradation is increasingly recognized by policy makers (Gladwin, 1993b).

A key element in changing individual values, attitudes, and behaviors about the
natural environment is the provision of information about ecology and about
environmental problems. A major source of such in-formation has been
educational systems. Schools in many countries have upgraded their
environmental curricula during the past 25 years, in part due to the curriculum
materials that have been developed by businesses, governments, and nonprofit
organizations. Collegiate business schools are among those dramatically
increasing ecological information in their course offerings. ESOs will become
involved with educational institutions in activities designed to increase
"environmental literacy ." Guest speak-ers, site visits, internships, scholarships,
and career days are other common mechanisms for this involvement (Starik,
1993).

Ecological information is also provided by the media. Many newsletters,

magazines, radio and television programs, movies, electronic bulletin boards,
and other media channels are used to address diverse environmental issues. Most
large environmental groups publish magazines or newsletters, a rapidly growing
number of businesses develop and distribute environmental reports (Delloite,
Touche, & Tomatsu, 1993), and many government agencies offer significant
public education and public information programs. Individuals from these
organizations have been sought out by the public media as opinion leaders on
environmental issues. As a shaper and transmitter of cultural values, the media
play a central role regarding environmental values. ESOs will provide
information to various media about their own environmental performance and
other environmental issues in order to encourage people to adopt pro-
environmental values. As media technologies have advanced, the provi-sion of
information about foreign issues and cultures has mushroomed. Citizens of many
nations commonly provide information to and receive information from
environmentally oriented computer networks. Along with more information about
environmental problems, attention to different cultures' perspectives on human
and nature relationships has increased and is frequently incorporated in
environmental education efforts (Bredt & Running-Grass, 1991; Ratner, 1991;
Russell, 1991). Input from var-ious ethnic and cultural perspectives will
increasingly occur and be sought. For example, indigenous Amazonian tribal
representatives were included in many of the proceedings of the 1992 United
Nations "Earth Summit" in Brazil. ESOs will seek out and disseminate
information from stakeholders with diverse cultural backgrounds.

A final relevant cultural element involves the religious or spiritual dimension.

Calls for organizations to show respect for and nurture the spiritual attributes of
their members' lives has resulted in an increase in attention to the role of
spirituality in organizations (Berry, 1988; Vaill, 1991). The spirituality of
members, in turn, can have an impact that extends far beyond the organization's
physical premises. Organizational encouragement of spiritually based values such
as stewardship and respect for nature may have far-reaching environmental
impacts (Peeren- boom, 1991), and may likewise serve to reinforce member
commitment to their employing ESOs. ESOs will increase attention to the overall
"spiritual well-being of their members and will include attention to
environmental stewardship as part of this effort.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION Implications for Practice

As we have attempted to demonstrate, organizations have environmentally

oriented interactions with other levels and systems, and these are integrated in
what we call a web of relationships. These multilevel interactions exist, whether
planned and/or recognized. Managers who wish to create ESOs can use the ideas
we have presented as a guide to their efforts to understand what conditions they
must meet to be ecologically sustainable, what factors they may need to
overcome to do so, and what characteristics they might exhibit as an ESO.

A fundamental step in achieving and maintaining ESO status will be the adoption
of sustainable strategies (Starik, Throop, & Joyce, 1995). Developing and
implementing such strategies at enterprise, corporate, business, and functional
levels (Carroll, 1993) are critical tasks for managerial practice.

At the enterprise level of strategy (Freeman, 1984), managers need to ask "what
does our organization stand for?" and "what is our role in society?"; then they
need to attempt to act on the results. Enterprise strategies thus direct attention
toward the political-economic, social-cultural, and ecological environments.
Managers might answer the societal role question with "we stand for ecological
sustainability and cooperation" and, thus, set the tone for organizational
fulfillment of this role. For ex-ample, enterprise-level strategies might address
whether an organization adopts more institutional and collaborative problem-
solving approaches or individualistic and adversarial postures (Miles, 1987) in
relation to the natural environment and other emerging ESOs.

Corporate-level strategies determine major lines of business with which the

organization is involved, and they link the organization with its peers, investors,
and suppliers. Managers will need to adopt sustainable corporate-level strategies
that develop lines of business that have low depletion and pollution impacts, and
divest lines of business that have the opposite effects. Business-level strategies
address which customer or market values will be maximized (cost leadership or
differentiation) and whether product lines or target markets will be broad or
narrow (Hofer & Schendel, 1978). Managers' business-level strategic decisions
would address whether to offer customers low-environmental-cost products or
services or those with high environmental benefits and whether to offer these
environmental values on a few or many products (or services) or to a few or many
customers (Starik & Carroll, 1992).

Functional-level strategies tie the skills of various functions, departments, teams,

and individuals into the other levels of strategy. Managers' functional strategic
choices could include or promote the use of closed- system and "appropriate"
technologies, renewable energy systems, and material and energy conservation
features. They would also address the host of issues regarding management of
individual organizational members for ecological sustainability. These
throughput-oriented strategies would be complemented by functional strategies
used to focus on specific modifications in inputs and outputs to enhance
organizational sustainability.

Implications for Management Research

The concept of environmentally sustainable organizations is extremely rich in

potential management research topics. First, although this article has attempted to
outline a number of characteristics that ESOs will likely exhibit, most of these
suggestions could be both broadened and deepened. For example, our supposition
that ESOs, at the ecological level of interaction, will use natural resources at
sustainable rates prompts many potential research questions. What are sustainable
organizational rates of utilization of different natural resources? How do or can
managers make these determinations? How do these rates, and their calculation,
change as either technology or behavior changes? To what extent are natural
resources substitutable among one another and with other types of resources?
What short-term variations in natural resource use rates are possible within long-
term sustainable ranges? What feedback mechanisms can guide managers who
will make these decisions?

Second, we hope our ideas will provoke a substantial development of propositions

and hypotheses derived from various theories. For instance, our assertion that
ESOs will include sustainability considerations in their respective human-
resource-system components should be further ex-plored from the perspectives of
different schools of HRM thought. What particular mix of financial and
nonfinancial incentives should be offered to influence employees' sustainability-
oriented behavior? In what amounts, at what time intervals, and for what
particular behaviors should these incentives be offered? To what extent should
organizational environmental policies reward compliance versus innovation?
Competing propositions and hypotheses regarding such questions can serve as
the basis for both descriptive as well as prescriptive research.

Third, it is likely that different contextual and organizational factors will cause
ESOs to exhibit differences regarding core characteristics. Researchers need to
investigate the impacts of these factors. In what ways, for example, will initiation
and involvement in environmental partnerships be affected by differences in an
organization's history, scale, sector, location, environmental munificence, and
core competencies? How will differences in organizational and national culture,
functional backgrounds, and reward systems influence the design and
effectiveness of systems designed to sense and interpret negative/pro-
sustainability feedback?

Finally, even though we explored a number of ESO-related dyads, the

sustainability implications of linkages between and among all of the levels needs
to be further explored. Such linkages need to be examined using various
organization theories. As can be seen from our examination using open-systems
and strategic-choice perspectives, the concept of an ESO can produce a
cornucopia of intriguing relationships and potential research topics. We hope that
by identifying conditions, factors, and characteristics related to ESOs, we have
provided a basis for subsequent researchers to apply their own perspectives and,
in essence, spin and discover new webs of organizational relationships with the
natural envi-ronment.

Conclusion

This article has described some of the connections ESOs might forge with
individuals, other organizations, and political-economic, social- cultural and
ecological environments. In doing so, we examined a number of systems and
system components to help envision these linkages. We have identified a number
of encouraging trends in both the development of ESOs and their interactions
with these multiple levels and systems. We conclude that ESOs are beginning to
emerge and that this trend eventually may lead to overall systemic sustainability.
Our caveat, however, is that although organizations may make dramatic
advances in reducing technological burdensenvironmental impact per unit of
consumption they may not make these advances quickly and substantively
enough in sustainable directions, given the other two core determinants of
environmental impact: overconsumption and overpopulation. Most
organizations have yet to begin addressing these root dilemmas, and until they
do so in significant and effective ways, sustainability will be a distant, perhaps
unattainable dream (Starik & Gribbon, 1993). ESOs must be developed quickly
and establish the relationships set forth in this article with the multiple levels and
systems that may themselves be moving toward sustainability. Essentially, ESOs
need to play transformational roles in developing Homo sapiens into an ESSan
ecologically sustainable species (Devall, 1993).

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Mark Starik received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. He is an assistant
professor of strategic management and public policy at George Washington
University. His current research interests include international environmental
policy, strategic environmental management, environmental entrepreneurship,
and stakeholder management.

Gordon P. Rands received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is an

assistant professor of business administration at The Pennsylvania State
University. His current research interests include environmental management,
social issues interpretation, corporate social performance, and environmental
attitudes.