Towards a Taxonomy of Environmental Management Decision: From Rudimentary to Sophisticated Model. An Empirical Study on French Coastal Industries

This article aims to understand how French coastal industries perceive and treat the negative impacts of their daily activities on the natural environment, and question the determinants of environmental management decision. From an analysis of 196 questionnaires, this survey reveals that if regulatory stakeholders and leaders' values primarily guide industries towards a more responsible management, environmental practices are reactive and rather recent. Costs, complexity of regulation, and lack of resources are the main barriers to the pursuit of more ambitious environmental actions. A need for information on the environmental regulations is also mentioned by managers. Finally, environmental management is more an expensive way to legitimize and maintain activities than an economic or competitive advantage. Despite convergences between the investigated cases, especially in terms of motivations and purposes, three models of environmental management decision emerge, ranging from a rudimentary position, and a more sophisticated and proactive approach, and the factors explaining these discrepancies are essentially corporate culture, size, business sector, and leaders' values.