Introduction to the Special Issue on Management Strategy and the Environment

This special issue reflects the growing importance of the natural environment for practitioners and scholars of business management. A general solicitation of submissions was made, and all of the papers in this issue were part of the general journal submission process. In accordance with the journal’s general policy, the final selection of the papers was made by the journal’s editorial board based on the standard refereeing process, and I was asked to provide an introduction to this issue. Climate change, oil dependence, clean technology, and related challenges occupy increasing amounts of managerial time. They are also attracting growing scholarly interest, because their dynamic nature and their complexity raise questions that stretch the boundaries of research in economics and strategy. Rapidly evolving preferences, regulations, and technologies make myopic strategies extremely costly, and reward investments in flexibility. “Green” consumers, investors, and employees create new market opportunities. Pressures from environmental activists and regulatory threats raise the value of clever nonmarket strategies. Investments in new technology involve strategic commitments that link market and nonmarket strategies. Because management strategy with respect to the environment combines these factors in a variety of novel ways, it is a ripe area for research. Management scholars have been studying corporate environmental strategy for over a decade. Since the Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) group first held sessions at the Academy of Management in 1995, group membership has doubled and academic articles have proliferated. Furthermore, there have been numerous efforts to integrate environmental management and sustainability into business school curricula, including the Business, Environment, Learning and Leadership (BELL) program organized by the World Resources