Business Decisions and the Environment: Significance, Challenges, and Momentum of an Emerging Research Field

Abstract

Over the past four decades, the concept of corporate environmentalism was born and redefined through multiple iterations. Concurrent with this evolution in corporate practice has been the emergence of academic research focused on business decision-making, firm behavior and the protection of the natural environment. Among the academic sciences this is a relatively new field, coming into being only in the early1980s with articles addressing the overlap between business strategy and the environment (i.e. Royston, 1979; 1980), and later, with the formation research consortia such as the Greening of Industry Network (Fischer and Schott, 1993) and the Management Institute for Environment and Business (now part of the World Resources Institute). What began as a modest offshoot of management research has grown into a maturing area of study within the management sciences. It is now possible to step back and view the state of this field in terms of where it has been and where it is going. This chapter will consider what is distinct about existing research in business decision-making and the environment and consider future directions in which the field is going.