Marilyn Lucas: Environmental Management Practices and Financial Performance

Is the relationship between a firm's environmental management practices (EMPs) and its financial performance (FP) dependent on the characteristics of the industry in which the firm operates? If so, how? Building on our previous work (Lucas & Noordewier, 2016) and drawing upon the industrial organization literature, we identify industry concentration and industry growth as critical dimensions of industry context. We propose and test a model that examines the effect of EMPs on firm financial performance both within-and between-industry contexts. Among the results, we find that within concentrated and high growth industries, there is a positive marginal effect on firm performance as a result of engaging in EMPs. Moreover, the effect on financial performance of implementing EMPs is greater in relatively more concentrated and higher growth industries than in other contexts.