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An assessment of the construct validity of environmental strategy measures

Author

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  • Walls, Judith L.

    (University of Michigan)

  • Phan, Philip H.

    (Johns Hopkins University)

  • Berrone, Pascual

    (IESE Business School)

Abstract

The natural resource-based view of the company is emerging as a dominant paradigm for understanding the intersection of strategic management and the natural environment. Companies that proactively incorporate a natural environment perspective into their enterprise strategies are said to have sustainable competitive advantages. However, defining and measuring environmental strategy has been challenging, with different approaches yielding inconsistent results. Many studies ignore the empirical difficulties of marrying the theoretical connection between the company's resource base and environmental strategy, and its impact on environmental company performance. In this paper, we apply an inductive approach to derive a measure of environmental strategy theoretically congruent with the natural resource-based-view of the firm. We assess its reliability and, using a multi-trait multi-method matrix, confirm the convergent and discriminant validities of this measure against other measures often used by researchers. We also establish predictive validity of our environmental strategy measure for environmental performance. We discuss the implications of the measure for future research and practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Walls, Judith L. & Phan, Philip H. & Berrone, Pascual, 2008. "An assessment of the construct validity of environmental strategy measures," IESE Research Papers D/754, IESE Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0754
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    File URL: http://www.iese.edu/research/pdfs/DI-0754-E.pdf
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jan Schmitz & Jan Schrader, 2015. "Corporate Social Responsibility: A Microeconomic Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 27-45, February.
    3. Garcés-Ayerbe, Concepción & Cañón-de-Francia, Joaquín, 2017. "The Relevance of Complementarities in the Study of the Economic Consequences of Environmental Proactivity: Analysis of the Moderating Effect of Innovation Efforts," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 21-30.
    4. Mikko Manner, 2010. "The Impact of CEO Characteristics on Corporate Social Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 53-72, June.

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    Keywords

    environmental performance; environmental strategies; inductive study; measures;
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