A new-institutionalist perspective on ISO 14000 and Responsible Care
用新制度主义框架解释为何美国企业对ISO 14000冷淡而化学行业热衷责任关怀，并探讨欧洲和亚洲企业积极采用ISO 14000的原因，对政策制定者和企业管理者有参考价值。
This paper examines why US firms are lukewarm towards ISO 14000 while the US chemical industry has enthusiastically adopted Responsible Care. It also briefly explores why European and Asian firms are eagerly adopting ISO 14000. Employing a new-institutionalist framework it argues that firms have incentives to adopt beyond-compliance voluntary programs only if they perceive excludable benefits exceeding excludable costs. Institutions, the central conceptual pillar in a new-institutionalist framework, are important in shaping perceptions of benefits and costs and the extent of their excludability. US regulators can encourage adoption of ISO 14000 by granting attorney–client privileges and enhancing levels of regulatory relief. Firms, in turn, need to appreciate the political constraints of the EPA on this issue. They could relax these constraints by addressing the apprehensions of EPA’s key constituents. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.