Perceived stakeholder influences and organizations’ use of environmental audits
While the use of internal, external, and both types of environmental audits are becoming more pervasive in society, little is known about the stakeholder influences associated with their use, in large part because previous research has viewed them as a uniform type of management practice. This study draws on stakeholder theory to explore organizations’ use of different types of environmental audits. It uses international manufacturing data to show that significant variations in the use of environmental audits are associated with differences in stakeholder influences, and that a more nuanced treatment is needed when evaluating these audits.
The authors thank the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Environmental Directorate and the US environmental Protection Agency, Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, for partial funding of this research. Portions of this research were completed while Joseph Sarkis was a visiting scholar supported by the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus program at the Central European University and Lund University in their MESPOM program.