Greening the Firm: The Politics of Corporate Environmentalism by Aseem Prakash

From the Publisher

Over the past two decades environmental issues have become important in public and business policy. This book asks why firms sometimes voluntarily adopt environmental policies that go beyond legal requirements. Prakash argues that existing explanations, especially from neoclassical economics, concentrate on external factors at the expense of internal dynamics. His argument is supported by analysis of two firms, Baxter International Inc. and Eli Lilly and Company, including interviews with managers, and access to meetings and documents. The book will be of interest to students of business and environmental studies, as well as political economy and public policy.

What People Are Saying

David Vogel
David Vogel, University of California, Berkeley
Greening the Firm makes an important and original contribution to the literature on corporate environmentalism. This well-researched and theoretically sophisticated analysis links the study of environmental management to both organizational theory and political science. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in better understanding the dynamics of the business response to environmentalism.

Nazli Choucri
Nazli Choucri, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A 'must' reading for political scientists, business strategists, economists, and all others interested in corporate responses to environmental challenges. Aseem Prakash shows how a combination of disciplined empirical inquiry guided by insightful theoretical probes generates new understandings transcending the common wisdom. This book contributes to the theory of the firm as well as to the emerging literature at the intersection of environment, business, and policy analysis.

Stuart Hart
Stuart Hart, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Greening the Firm shines the light of analysis where it has seldom been -- inside the "black box." It explores and explains why some firms pursue beyond compliance environmental activities while others do not based upon their internal processes, players, and politics. The book helps advance the debate about corporate greening beyond "one-size-fits-all" prescriptions based upon external pressures alone."

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents