Title: Stakeholder pressures and the global diffusion of the ISO 14001 initiative: a resource dependence perspective

Authors: Jun Xia, John Wang, Yawei Wang, Ruben Xing

Addresses: Department of International Business, School of Business, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA. ' Department of Management and Information Systems, School of Business, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA. ' Department of Marketing, School of Business, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA. ' Department of Management & Information Systems, School of Business, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA

Abstract: This study examines how the dependence of organisations on external stakeholders leads to the global diffusion of Corporate Environmental Responsibility initiatives. Drawing on resource dependence theory, we propose that the global diffusion of the ISO 14001 initiative is associated with three types of stakeholder pressure: environmental protection, media freedom and trade dependence. Empirical results based on panel analyses of 112 countries during the 1996-2005 period suggest that the resource dependence approach provides useful insights for better understanding organisation-stakeholder relations to predict the diffusion process.

Keywords: CER; corporate environmental responsibility; ISO 14001; environmental standards; environmental management; stakeholder pressure; resource dependence; environmental protection; media freedom; trade dependence.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSOC.2008.020374

International Journal of Sustainable Society, 2008 Vol.1 No.1, pp.4 - 28

Published online: 20 Sep 2008 *

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