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Centered on upper echelons theory, this study aims to examine the interplay of US craft brewery owners’ green consumption values, environmental attitudes and environmental proactivity of their craft breweries. In addition, the moderating role of business challenges on the effect of environmental attitudes on environmental proactivity is assessed.

An online questionnaire was distributed to a convenience sample of US craft brewers through the Brewers Association Brew Forum Blog. A total of 237 valid responses were received. Structural equation modeling was used for testing hypothetical relationships among key constructs in the proposed research model: environmental values, environmental involvement, environmental sustainability practices and business challenges.

The results showed that green consumption values positively and significantly influenced environmental attitudes and environmental proactivity. Findings also confirmed the significant positive influence of environmental attitude on environmental proactivity. Furthermore, business challenges moderated the relationship between owners’ environmental attitudes and environmental proactivity of the breweries such that the higher the extent of business challenges weaker is the relationship between environmental attitudes and environmental proactivity.

It is accepted that upper management’s individual beliefs surrounding environmentalism are a contributing factor to the environmental management policy of their company. However, there is very little empirical evidence to demonstrate the impact that these values have in a tangible sense. To satisfy this deficit in the research, the study aims to analyze the relationship between the brewery owners’ environmental outlook and the sustainability practices of their brewery, regarding the former as a key psychological characteristic, which influences and motivates the direction of the latter.

The purpose of this paper is to verify if and how national culture affects firms’ environmental proactivity, by using a specific index: the Carbon Disclosure Score (CDS).

The study, an analysis of two linear regression models, examines how cultural values, measured by the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research “should be” scores, affect companies’ environmental proactivity measured by CDS. Data about CDS derive from the Carbon Disclosure Project, which monitors Global 500 companies each year.

The analysis reveals that the values of in-group collectivism, performance orientation, assertiveness and uncertainty avoidance negatively affect firms’ environmental proactivity, while future orientation and gender egalitarianism have a positive impact.

In spite of the limitations inherent in the indicator and the limited sample, the paper has some interesting implications. On a theoretical level, this study extends prior research in the field of organizations and natural environment, by examining the specific role exerted by national cultural dimensions on firms’ environmental proactivity.

From a practical standpoint, the study suggests that corporations and policy regulators should be sensitive toward national idiosyncrasies and formulate the environmental strategies according to the cultural values and contextual environment of the relevant region. Creating policies based on cultural values and adapting policies to a country’s culture can improve the effectiveness of environmental policies and raise individual and corporation awareness on the topic.

Most contributions consider environmental strategy at the national level. This study, instead, focusses on the effects of national culture on the environmental proactivity of firms.

This paper aims to examine the complex links between environmental proactivity, collaboration with suppliers and customers, green operations and firm performance.

Based on a sample of 208 US companies, five main effects and two mediation effects were tested using structural equation modeling analysis.

This study reveals that environmental proactivity exerts positive effects on green operations and that collaboration mediates the above relationship. Further, green operations are a powerful driver of a firm’s economic and environmental performance. Findings also demonstrate the critical mediating role of green operations in linking collaboration with performance.

This research contributes to a scholarly debate by offering novel insights into the extent to which proactivity improves firm performance may be influenced by multiple supply chain practices. To managers, this study highlights the strategic value of environmental proactivity as it fosters collaboration and green operations in boosting a firm’s environmental and economic performance.

This study addresses a gap in the literature by investigating the links between environmental proactivity, collaboration, green operations and corporate performance.

This paper analyses the relationship between environmental protection and mid‐term financial performance, focusing on when and why this relationship is positive. In particular, the paper disaggregates environmental protection, differentiating between environmental management practices, environmental proactivity and environmental performance of the organization.

It uses a cross‐section survey of 2,122 Welsh companies to gather information on environmental practices and the FAME database to collect data on accounting based financial performance. The paper uses regression analysis on a combined sample of 186 Welsh companies to evaluate the effect on performance of different types of environmental protection.

On the whole, the results show a positive effect of environmental protection on mid‐term financial performance. Financial performance has a positive and significant correlation with environmental proactivity and with environmental performance, while it has a no significant relation with environmental management.

The paper presents a disaggregated analysis of environmental protection in relationship with financial performance. The paper differentiates between environmental management practices, environmental proactivity and environmental performance of the organization in their relationship with financial performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore causal complexity in the relationship between environmental proactivity and firm performance. Using data collected from 27 Australian firms and controlling for the organizational life cycle, type of industry and external contingencies, the study empirically examines environmental proactivity in high-performing firms from polluting industries.

The data were analyzed using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

In general, the results of the analysis imply that environmental proactivity is not always associated with high firm performance, and that environmental proactivity is not as important as the other causal conditions for high-performing firms in highly polluting industries.

The study addresses the relationship between environmental and firm performance more holistically by including a number of the firm’s external and internal factors identified as important in past research. Second, it offers a new perspective on the relationship with its systematic comparative analysis of complex cases. Next, it identifies different combinations of conditions (paths) leading to a high firm performance and, finally, the core complementary model allows an exploration of which factors are essential and which are less important or even irrelevant to high-performing firms.

Based on the findings, firms from highly polluting industries can determine in which circumstances, if any, the adoption of environmental proactivity will result in a positive firm performance.

The study is valuable because it contains a rich set of measures of the firm’s external and internal environment, thus allowing a more holistic examination of the relationship between environmental proactivity and firm performance.

This study aims to learn more about the relationship between managers' perception of stakeholder pressure related to environmental matters and the degree of proactivity of firms' environmental strategies. It seeks to analyse the moderating effect that managers' perception of environmental issues as competitive advantage opportunities can have on this relationship.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to verify the research framework.

The results indicate that, only in the least polluting firms, managers' competitive advantage expectations derived from environmental management moderate the relationship between the degree of environmental proactivity and stakeholder pressure. However, it is not effective in high polluting firms, perhaps as a consequence of the high degree of stakeholders' environmental pressure perceived by managers.

The results highlight the relevance of managers' subjective perceptions of the potential of environmental protection measures to generate competitive advantages. They suggest that the consideration of this variable is fundamental in order to better understand the degree of proactivity of firms' environmental strategies, as well as the influence of stakeholder pressure on environmental proactivity. The main limitation is the low response rate of the survey.

This is an original contribution because, although there are studies analysing how stakeholder pressure and managers' perceptions and values affect choice of environmental strategy, none of them analyse the combined impact of both issues.

Conceptually, management control of an organization requires managers to link decision making to strategic objectives and to link performance outcomes to the implementation of these decisions. However, it is often difficult to determine what management decision processes and actions are most effective in translating strategic objectives into achieved performance. Using data from a cross-section of industrial firms that have an explicit interest in environmental management, we present and test a model of environmental management control and performance that evaluates the associations between specific managerial actions, environmental proactivity, and environmental performance. Our results demonstrate a positive relationship between five specific management control actions and environmental proactivity, which is in turn positively associated with environmental performance. This study helps to define the concept of proactive environmental management through the identification of discrete managerial actions that link to proactivity and environmental performance outcomes.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework for extended external reporting (EER) influences (EERI), including sustainability, non-financial, integrated and value reporting. Using the Environmental Legitimacy, Accountability, and Proactivity (ELAP) framework as the base, we modify its proposed concepts and linkages using relevant conceptual models, prior reviews and findings of recent studies on EER. This paper presents contributions of the special issue on “non-financial and integrated reporting, governance and value creation” and avenues for future research.

Drawing on relevant conceptual models, prior reviews and recent EER studies, we reframed the ELAP framework into a framework that theorises the factors that affects, or are affected by, EER.

The EERI framework poses relationships between and within proactivity, external verification, accountability and legitimacy. It also consolidates possible determinants and consequences of EER. The papers published in this special issue contribute further insights on factors that influence reporting practices, processes and suggestions for capturing and communicating value creation information, and the value of integrated reports and assurance to capital providers.

Along with the insights provided by papers in this special issue, the conceptual framework can be used to theorise influences of EER and guide future research.

During the previous two decades, “Green Supply Chain Management” (GSCM) has been gaining the attention of researchers and practitioners from various fields (e.g. operations, logistics and supply chain management). Its significance is constantly growing, and various studies are conducted in order to capture its overall organizational contribution. The present study attempts to bring together various organizational aspects that have never been collectively investigated before in the relevant literature. Under that rationale, a robust conceptual framework is developed and empirically tested. This framework includes 17 factors that are classified in three dimensions: (1) drivers of GSCM practices, (2) GSCM practices and (3) firm performance (GSCM outcomes).

The examination of the proposed conceptual framework was performed using a newly developed structured questionnaire that was distributed to a sample of Greek manufacturing organizations. Supply Chain managers and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) were used as key respondents, due to their knowledge and experience. After the completion of the three-month research period (last quarter of 2019), 292 useable questionnaires were returned. The empirical data were analyzed using the “Structural Equation Modeling” technique. The study is empirical (based on primary data), explanatory (examines cause and effect relationships), deductive (tests research hypotheses) and quantitative (includes the analysis of quantitative data collected with the use of a structured questionnaire).

Empirical results point out that internal environmental management, green innovative practices and environmental proactivity are GSCM practices with the most significant impact on firm performance. Moreover, the mediating role of GSCM practices in the relationship between GSCM drivers and firm performance is also highlighted. Finally, it was found that GSCM practices can explain 35% of the variance in firm performance and the drivers of GSCM practices can explain 78% of the variance of these practices.

The proposed three-dimensional conceptual framework of this empirical study and its underlining rationale has rarely been adopted in the relevant literature. Moreover, the study investigates which GSCM practices have an impact on firm performance, thus offering value to practitioners of the field. Also, it is one of the few similar studies that have been conducted on a European country.

The environmental management literature has focussed on the analysis of the variety of strategic options with regards to environment protection, without providing an interesting detail of the transformation and change process between the different alternatives. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study pro-environmental change processes in firms, focussing on the width and the intensity of environmental measures implemented in a three-year period in different areas (productive process, product, management and supply chains).

Performing a cluster analysis based on a sample of 303 Spanish firms, the study finds four categories of pro-environmental change.

The comparative analysis of these categories leads the authors to describe the pro-environmental change process as one with four stages that firms can go through. The first pro-environmental stage focusses on process measures. The second stage focusses on the adoption of management measures together with process measures. In the third stage, the firm moves after including measures in the product and in the supply chains. Companies that wish to advance further in this process, reaching the fourth stage of pro-environmental change, do so by increasing the intensity of the different measures adopted in previous stages, and through eco-innovation.

The main contribution of this paper relative to the previous literature is a more detailed vision of the strategic possibilities in environmental protection, providing information about the process of change and about how firms evolve to more advanced environmental strategy stages. Knowledge of this evolution process, little studied in the previous literature, helps us to understand the complexity and strategic significance of adopting environmental protection measures. This knowledge is useful for academics and for public and private managers responsible for designing and developing environmental strategy.

One of the most original findings of this paper points out that it is possible to identify a pattern of environmental change through which firms can evolve. In this change process, firms start by adopting process measures, while they adopt eco-innovation behaviour only in the most advanced stage of environmental proactivity.