The Drivers of Corporate Climate Change Strategies and Public Policy A New Resource-Based View Perspective

• Published in: Business & society Vol. 56; no. 4; pp. 545 - 575
• Main Authors: Backman, Charles A., Verbeke, Alain, Schulz, Robert A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2017; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Climate change; Companies; Disclosure; Environmental policy; Governance; Information management; Information technology; Investments; Organizational effectiveness; Public policy; North America; Europe; resource-based view; walk the talk; Carbon Disclosure Project; walk I; walk II; GISTe model; public policy; climate change
• ISSN: 0007-6503; 1552-4205
• DOI: 10.1177/0007650315578450

Effective public policy to mitigate climate change footprints should build on data-driven analysis of firm-level strategies. This article’s conceptual approach augments the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and identifies investments in four firm-level resource domains (Governance, Information management, Systems, and Technology [GISTe]) to develop capabilities in climate change impact mitigation. The authors denote the resulting framework as the GISTe model, which frames their analysis and public policy recommendations. This research uses the 2008 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) database, with high-quality information on firm-level climate change strategies for 552 companies from North America and Europe. In contrast to the widely accepted myth that European firms are performing better than North American ones, the authors find a different result. Many firms, whether European or North American, do not just “talk” about climate change impact mitigation, but actually do “walk the talk.” European firms appear to be better than their North American counterparts in “walk I,” denoting attention to governance, information management, and systems. But when it comes down to “walk II,” meaning actual Technology-related investments, North American firms’ performance is equal or superior to that of the European companies. The authors formulate public policy recommendations to accelerate firm-level, sector-level, and cluster-level implementation of climate change strategies.