Why Do Firms Participate in Voluntary Environmental Programs? A Meta-Analysis of the Role of Institutions, Resources, and Program Stringency
通过元分析127项研究，发现项目严格性会调节制度压力和资源因素对企业参与自愿性环境项目的影响，严格项目吸引高可见度、高利润企业，但抑制面临非正式制度压力或已有相关经验的企业参与。
We meta-analyze research on why firms join voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) to assess the impact of program stringency, or the extent to which they have rigorous, enforceable standards on these decisions. Stringency creates trade-offs for firms by affecting programs’ effectiveness, legitimacy, and adoption costs. Most research considers singular programs and lacks cross program variation needed to analyze program stringency’s impact. Our meta-analysis addresses this by sampling 127 studies and 23 VEPs. We begin by identifying common institutional and resource-based drivers of participation in the literature, and then analyze how program stringency moderates their impacts. Our results suggest that strictly governed VEPs encourage participation among highly visible and profitable firms, and discourage it when informal institutional pressures are higher, and firms have prior experience with other VEPs or quality management standards. We demonstrate that VEP stringency has nuanced effects on firm participation based on the institutional and resource-based factors facing them.