Managerial Views of Corporate Impacts and Dependencies on Ecosystem Services : A Case of International and Domestic Forestry Companies in China

A line of research is emerging investigating the private sector impacts and dependencies on critical biodiversity and ecosystem services, and related business risks and opportunities. While the ecosystem services narrative is being forwarded globally as a key paradigm for promoting business sustainability, there is scarce knowledge of how these issues are considered at managerial level. This study thus investigates managerial views of corporate sustainability after the ecosystem services concept. We analyse interviews conducted with 20 managers from domestic and international forestry companies operating with a plantation-based business model in China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data, with a focus on four key areas: (1) interviewee familiarity with the ecosystem services concept; (2) their views of corporate dependencies and impacts on ecosystem services; (3) related business risks and opportunities; and (4) viability of existing instruments and practices that can be employed in detecting and addressing business impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services. Through an inductive approach to the empirical findings, we refined a framework that holds operational value for developing company response strategies to ecosystem services impact/dependence assessment, ensuring that all issues are addressed comprehensively, and that related risks and opportunities are properly acknowledged.Peer reviewe

Firm proactiveness and corporate social responsibility in global forest industry

Companies involved in natural resource extraction, such as forestry, significantly influence the environment they operate in. Therefore, active engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and managing close relationships with key stakeholder groups, i.e., governments (e.g., legal compliance), communities (e.g., work force, raw materials) and environmental NGOs (e.g., risk reduction) has become a necessity to maintain the social license to operate. In this paper we argue that firm proactiveness has positive influence on firm’s corporate social performance. First, it can act as a stance towards CSR, and second, it may be a precondition to gain competitive advantage by investing in CSR. In our analysis we concentrate on forest industry and use international survey data from managers of 60 companies. A positive impact of firm proactiveness on CSR could be found using regression analysis. However, unlike many previous studies confirming a positive effect of company size on corporate responsibility – due to higher media visibility or access to more resources – we found no evidence on the impact of company size. The results also show that employees and managers in a proactive firm more often take initiatives to improve the environmental performance compared to the employees and managers in a less proactive firms

Determinants of Sustainability Disclosure in the Global Forest Industry

This study aims to investigate the current patterns and determinants of sustainability disclosure in the global forest industry. Under the extensive quantifiable measures and occurrences of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework, a content analysis is performed on the voluntary disclosure of 66 largest forest companies worldwide to evaluate their economic, environmental and social performance. By taking industry and firm characteristics into account, the study also seeks to shed more light on the key determinants influencing the quality and level of disclosure. Significant emphasis was found to be placed on environmental and economic issues in contrast to areas such as human rights, labour practices, social and product responsibilities in the forest industry. The results of regression analysis suggest that company size and business diversity are significantly associated with disclosure, whereas profitability and regional differences are not decisive factors in formulating sustainability reporting strategies in the forest industry

Sustainability as a Driver in Forestry‐Related Services

Rising environmental consciousness has shifted the focus of small-scale forestry away from productive functions towards more diversified ownership objectives. From transition management perspective, we analyze the role of private sector voluntary sustainability initiatives as a system driver in forestry, and review research on the role of sustainability in forestry-related service markets. The focus is on the view of small-scale service-oriented businesses, and by drawing experiences from the Nordic context. Based on the literature review, sustainability is gaining deeper level interest and active engagement among small scale forest owners due to, perhaps first and foremost, increasing awareness on global sustainability challenges, and the role of forests in these. A challenge remains in diffusion of the sustainability-related niche innovations. In addition, the strong environmental-economic emphasis in sustainability may lead to the undervaluing the potential of some socially driven forest ecosystem services. The effectiveness of new methods, such as framing as a tool to nudge family owners towards more sustainable forestry practices, provides avenues for future experimentation and research.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Organisation and Governanc

MVM's Nonlinear Internationalization: A Case Study

This paper aims to contribute to the international business literature by discussing the nature of nonlinear internationalization based on a case study of an Italian firm MVM Meccanica Valle Metauro S.r.l. that had activities in Central and Eastern Europe and other countries and identifying causes of nonlinearities. It shows that nonlinear internationalization may be caused by different internal and external factors and actors; that it can occur once or several times, that foreign market exit may be temporary (followed by re-entry) and permanent and that de-internationalization does not always mean a failure for the firm