A Review of Environmental Factors Determining to Proactivity: The Case of the Footwear Industry

Abstract

This paper reviews literature in order to identify the determinant factors of companies’ environmental proactivity. According to Gonzalez-Benito and Gonzalez-Benito (2006), environmental proactivity demands three practices: planning and organization, operation, and communication. Environmental strategies go on to comment upon several variables that depict internal company features, external factors, and stakeholders pressures. This work discusses these issues using data collected in 2007 from shoe companies selected for in-depth personal interviews and site visits in two different Brazilian states. The empirical results demonstrate that proactive approaches seem clear in companies influenced by stakeholders’ pressure. This is the central determinant factor and it is argued that all the other variables affect either the intensity of this pressure or the company’s capacity to perceive it. All the factors identified herein should be taken into account, at least as control variables, in those studies aiming at explaining and contextualizing environmental strategies.