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Contemporary frameworks on institutional theory and corporate environmentalism observe that institutional fields positively influence a firm’s environmental response in the form of implementation of environmental practices. These frameworks, however, provide little evidence on why firms facing similar institutional field differ in their environmental response. This paper aims to incorporate the intra-organizational dynamics within the traditional institutional theory framework to address this heterogeneity, examining specifically the role of absorptive capacity for environmental knowledge in the organizational implementation of corporate environmental practices.

Integrating the institutional theory and resource-based view, this paper examines the mediating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between institutional pressure for corporate environmentalism vis-a-vis the implementation of corporate environmental practices. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used for hypotheses testing based on data obtained from the Indian apparel and textile industry.

The results support the mediating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between institutional pressure and implementation of corporate environmental practices. Further, this study highlights the importance of acquisition and utilization of environmental knowledge in driving environmentalism through developing absorptive capacity; the findings also suggest that the role of institutional pressure in the implementation of environmental practices should not be analyzed in isolation but rather in conjunction with the development of absorptive capacity that forms the internal basis of implementation.

Managers need to focus on the development of organizational capabilities for acquiring and exploiting environmental knowledge to complement their preparedness in responding to any institutional pressures for environmental sustainability. Firms also need to link their environmental orientation with various sources of environmental knowledge and capabilities residing outside the organizational boundaries. It is important to note here that the development of absorptive capacities for the exploration and exploitation of external knowledge is indeed both required and necessary to build sustainable organizational capabilities.

This paper is among the very few studies that address the issue of knowledge and development of related organizational capabilities for corporate environmentalism. Recognizing that environmental knowledge resides outside organizational boundaries with regulatory agencies and special interest groups, this paper highlights the importance of developing organizational capabilities for the acquisition and exploitation of environmental knowledge.

Using the institutional and natural resource-based view theories, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of religious, cultural and mimetic orientations on proactive environmental strategy, corporate environmental responsibility and traditional environmental strategy. Relying on data collected from managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the study further examines how proactive environmental strategy, corporate environmental responsibility and traditional environmental strategy drive relational capital and firm performance of SMEs operating in Ghana.

The study employed a survey research design, a quantitative approach and a partial least square structural equation modelling technique in making data analysis and interpretations due to its appropriateness for predictive research models.

The results suggest that mimetic orientation robustly and significantly influence the dimensions of environmental orientation. While religious orientation only had a robust and significant influence on proactive environmental strategy, cultural orientation robustly and significantly influences both proactive and traditional environmental strategies. Despite the positive and significant interactions that exist between proactive environmental strategy, corporate environmental responsibility, traditional environmental strategy, relational capital and firm performance, the findings particularly revealed that proactive and environmental strategies insignificantly correlated with relational capital contrary to past study findings.

The study is among the few to examine how religious, cultural and mimetic orientations interrelate with proactive and traditional environmental orientations, relational capital and firm performance in an emerging economy. Based on the findings, implications and directions for future research are discussed while also providing guidance for policymakers, regulatory bodies, scholars and practitioners.

Organizations desire to achieve green legitimacy and regulatory stakeholder demands and have been potent in influencing the adoption and implementation of social and environmental responsibilities in current business settings. Perceiving that social and environmental responsibilities that promote social growth and environmental sustainability have shifted from being optional to mandatory for organizations, this study from the perspectives of institutional and stakeholder theories elucidates the efficacy of green legitimacy and regulatory stakeholder demands on the adoption of social and environmental responsibilities at the organizational level and how these variables relate with environmental and financial performance in the context of an emerging economy.

The study adopted a positivist methodological paradigm, survey research design, a quantitative approach and partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) in making data analysis and interpretations due to its appropriateness for predictive research models.

The results highlighted that desire for green legitimacy and regulatory stakeholder demands influenced the adoption of environmental responsibility, social responsibility, environmental and financial performance. While environmental responsibility positively and robustly influenced environmental performance, social responsibility positively and significantly influenced financial performance. The findings particularly exposed that while environmental responsibility had negative and insignificant effect on financial performance, social responsibility negatively and significantly influenced environmental performance. Moreover, environmental performance was also found to be negatively and insignificantly correlated with financial performance. Based on the results, theoretical and practical implications are explained for policymakers, managers, government authorities and business owners.

The study is among the few to investigate how firms desire to achieve green legitimacy and regulatory stakeholder demands motivate the adoption and implementation of environmental and social responsibilities and its implications on environmental and financial performance in the context of an emerging economy. Although environmental responsibility has received significant attention in past studies, it is mostly considered a subset of corporate social responsibility. Thus, this study is among the first to explore the dimensional effects of corporate social responsibility namely environmental responsibility and social responsibility on performance in the context of an emerging economy and as individual constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review and explore how organizations knowledgeably respond to unfavorable institutional environments that exert institutional pressures and thereby limit their decision-making and eventually their actual behavior.

Based on a thorough structuration and analysis of the literature in management and related fields, the authors present a comprehensive synthesis of organizational knowledgeable responses to institutional pressures.

Based on the review, the authors categorize organizational knowledgeable responses into three major types – passively responding to avoid non-conformity, reactively mitigating institutional pressures and proactively developing institutional environments toward less interfering setups.

The authors discuss the enabling conditions for the categorized organizational knowledgeable responses as well as limitations to their application. They identify research gaps and formulate research questions to offer promising avenues for future work. The authors expect this detailed synthesis to lay the framework for investigating how the knowledge-based view of the organization influences its knowledgeable response to institutional pressure.

The authors elaborate on distinct passive, reactive and proactive strategies, which firms can apply to cope with institutional pressures. The contribution of this study will be of relevance to practitioners managing organizations in the face of unfavorable institutional setups, as well as to policymakers engaged in the development of institutions and interacting with affected organizations.

This study provides a valuable overview on developments in institutional theory, particularly on contributions to the “nascent literature” that examines heterogeneous organizational knowledgeable responses to institutional pressures.

This article answers the following research question: How do institutional pressures influence the re(actions) of organizations in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic?

The present research was conducted through the search and review of online secondary sources based on a critical and exploratory analysis. The data were obtained from the Global Compact Brazilian Committee (Rede Brasil do Pacto Global, in Portuguese) and analyzed by means of qualitative content analysis with the support of the ATLAS.ti software.

The results have showed the role of organizations in dealing with the impacts provoked by the current COVID-19 scenario. However, the association of actions implemented by organizations is evident in some SDGs, but not in all and not with the same intensity. There is a higher incidence of SDG 3 (Good health and well-being), which is linked to 278 actions. Regarding institutional pressures, we noticed a higher incidence of normative pressures, which may indicate a sense of responsibility towards employees and other stakeholders related to the prevention of the impacts caused by the pandemic.

The findings presented here can encourage companies to better direct their efforts to fight the virus without neglecting the 2030 Agenda.

The authors intend to encourage institutions that may exert coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures to recognize the impacts of their influence and better direct it to the interests of society during and after the pandemic.

This research investigates organizational actions in the context of COVID-19 from an institutional theory perspective.

Firms are increasingly accountable for their suppliers' social and environmental practices. Nonmarket stakeholders nowadays do not hesitate to confront buying firms for their suppliers' misconducts by mobilizing demonstrations, social media campaigns and boycotts. This paper aims to develop a typology of response strategies by targeted firms when they face such contentions and to empirically investigate why these strategies vary among those firms.

Drawing on social movement and stakeholder salience theories, the authors develop a set of hypotheses linking their typology of four response strategies to three key contextual factors – nonmarket stakeholder salience, nonmarket stakeholder ideology and the target firm reputation – and examine them using a vignette-based experiment methodology.

The results suggest that nonmarket stakeholder salience significantly impacts the nature of response (reject or concede), whereas the nonmarket stakeholder ideology is significantly related to the intensity of response (trivial or vigorous). Interestingly, the firms' reputation was found to have no significant effect on their response strategy when they faced stakeholder contentions.

This paper adds both theoretical and methodological value to the existing literature. Theoretically, the study develops and tests a comprehensive typology of response strategies to nonmarket stakeholder contentions. Methodologically, this study is original in leveraging a vignette-based experiment that allows establishing causal factors of response strategies following a supplier sustainability misconduct.