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Journal of Business Ethics

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01-03-2014

Competitiveness and Legitimation: The Logic of Companies going Green in Geographical Clusters

Authors: Javier Martínez-del-Río, José Céspedes-Lorente

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 1/2014

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Abstract

This study analyzes the logic behind the development of environmental responsiveness in companies that are located in geographical clusters. Drawing on previous research, we contend that competitiveness and legitimation are important sources of variation in these companies’ environmental responses. In particular, the companies’ perceived rivalry, competition tracking capabilities, interaction with industry associations and network embeddedness influence their competitiveness and legitimation motivations for environmental responsiveness. We used structural equation modeling to test these hypotheses on a sample of 251-clustered agricultural firms in Spain. The results support the hypotheses and provide a number of insights about the underlying motivations behind going green in geographical clusters.

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In this paper, we focus on competitiveness and legitimacy motivations. Ecological responsibility can be defined as “the concern that a firm has for its social obligations and values” (Bansal and Roth 2000, p. 728). Ecological responsibility is a rather endogenous motivation, being frequently originated by a leader or other internal forces. This fact explains why these firms tend to follow independent strategies rather than mimicking others. Competitiveness and legitimation, however, are induced by external factors to a greater extent. For this reason, although ecological responsibility might be present in many clustered firms, the potential of geographical clusters to enhance it is arguably lower than the potential to enhance competitiveness and legitimation.

We included organizations with ten or more employees to generate a larger sample size and because the industry experts noted that there were no problems with this threshold during the pretests. We replicated the proposed model, eliminating the firms with less than 15 and less than 20 employees (e.g., Kotey and Slade 2005). We obtained similar results in both cases, and the hypotheses that were confirmed with the current sample were also confirmed with smaller samples. The results are available upon request.

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Title: Competitiveness and Legitimation: The Logic of Companies going Green in Geographical Clusters
Authors: Javier Martínez-del-Río
José Céspedes-Lorente
Publication date: 01-03-2014
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 1/2014
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1636-z

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