When Are Voluntary Environmental Programs More Effective? A Meta-Analysis of the Role of Program Governance Quality
对23个自愿性环境项目的103项研究进行元分析，发现项目治理质量越高，越能提升参与企业的环境与财务绩效，为高质量治理项目提供了商业依据。
We meta-analyze 103 studies of 23 voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) to assess how their governance quality, or the rigor of their internal institutional mechanisms, drives their ability to improve their participants corporate environmental and financial performance. The goal of VEPs is to incentivize firms to reduce firms’ environmental impacts by bolstering their reputations and helping them learn practices that improve their financial performance. Research on VEP effectiveness, however, is inconclusive, in part, because most studies sampled individual programs, and were unable to analyze how difference in program characteristics drive their effectiveness. We draw on institutional theory to argue that VEP governance quality determines whether they improve participants’ environmental performance, and the natural resource-based view to argue that they improve their financial performance. Results confirm our predictions, and in doing so, help to establish a business case for VEPs with high-quality governance.