Trade-offs in the adoption of sustainability standards

__Abstract__ The issue of social and environmental sustainability is arguably highly relevant today, as forward-looking, self-interested companies have broadly shown they understand. Adherence to the principles underlying standards to pursue sustainability can, however, deliver unintended consequences

Architecture of the Kyoto Protocol and Prospects for Public Climate Policy

Options for government’s future climate policy are discussed as a function of the architecture of the present regime; the latter is anchored in the Kyoto Protocol, which is aimed at reducing the human impact on climate change. We describe the basic tenets of this agreement, and explain how it was realised despite the widely divergent interests. The strengths and weaknesses of the Kyoto regime, and related future opportunities and threats, are presented. The degrees of collective decision-making and international participation were the basis for exploring four scenarios (local market, local collectivity, global market, and global collectivity) and concomitant policy instruments and actors. The possibilities of enhancing participation by linking issues and creating bandwagons are discussed. We conclude that the main flaw of the Kyoto regime is its lack of appropriate incentives. To realise a more effective regime, future climate policy should be geared towards making participation more attractive and rendering compliance self-enforcing

Overcoming inaction through collective institutional entrepreneurship

Studies on institutional change generally pertain to the agency-structure paradox or the ability of institutional entrepreneurs to spearhead change despite constraints. In many complex fields, however, change also needs cooperation from numerous dispersed actors. This presents the additional paradox of ensuring that these actors engage in collective action when individual interests favor lack of cooperation. We draw on complementary insights from institutional and regime theories to identify drivers of collective institutional entrepreneurship and develop an analytical framework. This is applied to the field of global climate policy to illustrate how collective inaction was overcome to realize a global regulatory institution, the Kyoto Protocol

Negotiating Innovation

In this paper, it is argued that innovation can be the result of a repetitive, multi-actor negotiation process. We present the case of an environment-related product innovation in a large multinational company which emerged as the outcome of a complex interaction process in which numerous external and internal actors negotiated to safeguard their own interests. This negotiation perspective challenges conventional economic views of innovations, in which new products and processes are regarded as exogenous variables, the outcomes of deliberately planned research, or the combination of technology (pushing) and market (pulling) inducements. Instead, innovation may be a non-linear, unpredictable process which involves multiple actors with divergent interests and which leads to outcomes that are collectively acceptable but not necessarily (sub)optimal

目次(超幾何学校2013/2014 講義録=Lectures on Hypergeometric Functions:Summer School in 2013/2014)

markdownabstract__Abstract__ Ambiguity and uncertainty inhere in theorizing around the knowledge frontier. Debating the robustness of novel ideas can, therefore, be instrumental in bolstering theory development. As such, I welcome that Haack and Schoeneborn (forthcoming) challenge certain aspects of my recent AMR article (Wijen, 2014). Their critique is two-pronged. First, they argue that my ideas are functionalist and thus incompatible with the social constructionist nature of institutional theory. Second, they contend that I interpret decoupling in a static way, thereby ignoring important dynamics. My response follows the order of these issues

International Regulatory Turbulence: Strategies for Success

Multinational enterprises face a great variance of environmental regulations in the countries in which they operate. How best to confront this challenge? In our research, we set out to develop and illustrate a conceptual framework for understanding the problem and suggest appropriate strategies

Integrating Environmental and International Strategies in a World of Regulatory Turbulence

SUMMARY Companies operating in multiple countries face different and often changing regimes of environmental regulation. This regulatory turbulence raises the question of what environmental strategies multinational enterprises with a portfolio of divergent regulatory regimes should develop in relation to their international business expansion strategies. We argue that multinationals seeking to develop an effective environmental strategy should integrate relative regulatory stringency and international market interdependence. We discuss and illustrate four environmental strategies that match different regulatory/market configurations for multinationals from both developed and emerging markets, as well as the factors that drive strategic changes. We introduce a „regulatory turbulence tool‟ that describes relevant regulatory/market configurations and prescribes contingently effective, dynamic environmental strategies

Globalisation and National Environmental Policy

After outlining the scope, target audience, and structure of the book, we review the literature on globalisation and environmental policy, especially the impact of globalisation on the environment and changes in environmental governance in relation to increasingly global spheres of influence. This is followed by a succinct representation of the essential points of all contributions to this volume. While each chapter has its own distinct focus and perspective, common themes have been identified in major outcomes and future directions: the delicate and multifaceted relation between economic globalisation and environmental protection, changes in the prioritisation of environmental issues, shifts in governance mechanisms, dealing with reduced sovereignty, prospects for existing and new policy instruments, and finding a balance between globalisation and national environmental policy. These findings lead to conclusions with respect to the commensurability of different governance levels and the compatibility of different policy areas

Structural Antecedents of Corporate Network Evolution

Abstract: While most network studies adopt a static view, we argue that corporate social networks are subject to endogenous dynamics of cognitive path dependence and self-reinforcing power relations. Over time, these dynamics drive corporate networks to become increasingly focused (i.e., more homogeneous, stable, and tightly knit). More focused networks induce organisations to perpetuate existing routines, at the expense of developing new capabilities. We examine the role of organisational structure in maintaining balanced, rather than focused, networks, so that business organisations can realise progressive and timely adjustments to their evolving environments. We develop a theoretical argument, illustrated with the divergent network adjustment patterns of two large, mature companies, suggesting that business organisations with the following structural antecedents are likely to maintain balanced networks: the concurrence of centralisation and decentralisation; a high degree of differentiation and an intermediate level of integration; and an intermediate degree of formalisation