Dorothea Greiling, Christian Lebelhuber,
"Strategic response to institutional pressures of climate change: an exploration among gas sector companies"
, in Review of Managerial Science, Springer, 4-2021, ISSN: 1863-6691
Original Titel:
Strategic response to institutional pressures of climate change: an exploration among gas sector companies
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
Climate change has become one of the dominant themes of our time, and the way
how companies respond to it may have major implications for their success in the
future. This paper aims to better understand the response of companies in a highly
exposed sector, i.e. the gas sector, to institutional pressures of climate change. To do
so, it adopts a qualitative research design that builds on 29 expert interviews with
senior managers of Austrian gas sector companies. Based on an existing typology,
we argue that most companies exhibit one of the following responses: ?minimalist,?
?regulation shaper,? ?pressure manager? or ?emission avoider.? Additionally, we
develop and extend the typology with a fifth response type: ?trade-off seeker.? This
ensures a thorough classification of all responses observed and acknowledges the
increasing relevance of hybrid organizations. Thus, we manage to categorize the
strategic responses of companies that have to address climate change while being
exposed to complex institutional fields with plural institutional logics. To better
understand decoupling in the context of strategic responses to climate change, the
paper also explores whether, how, and to which extent the observed responses deviate
from the theoretical ideal of conformity with institutional pressures and show
indications of decoupling. We find that decoupling is inherent to most strategic
responses to climate change. However, the purpose and intensity of decoupling differ
for every response type.