Local Environmental Non-Profit Organizations and the Green Investment Strategies of Family Firms

Daniela Maggioni, Grazia D. Santangelo

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

We add to the debate on the determinants of firms' green investment strategies (GIS) by looking at societal stakeholders and explicitly testing the role of local environmental non-profit organizations (ENPOs) in GIS engagement by family and non-family firms. We argue that ENPOs favor GIS engagement only by family firms, which, due to their resource constraints, risk aversion and local embeddedness, are more sensitive to ENPOs normative pressure. We also suggest that the role of ENPOs is especially important for family firms' GIS in those sectors with less stringent regulations, where ENPOs may act as a substitute for the coercive pressure of regulation, and promote firms' self-regulatory behaviors. We test and find support for our arguments on a sample of about 2000 Italian manufacturing firms over the period 2001–2003. Our results are robust to the control of observable omitted variables, reverse causality and to alternative model specifications.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEcological Economics
Volume138
Pages (from-to)126-138
Number of pages13
ISSN0921-8009
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • ENPOs
  • GIS
  • Sectoral regulation
  • Family firms

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