Organizational Responses to an Environmental Bill of Rights

Abstract

Organizations are continually confronted by new regulatory pressures, but there is debate as to how much freedom organizations have to select a strategic response to such pressures. Organizations do not respond to a regulatory pressure in isolation, but rather in concert with, and in reaction to, the response of other relevant stakeholders and pressures within the environment. This inductive study contributes to the established resource dependence and institutional literature by examining organizational responses to a new external regulatory pressure, the Ontario (Canada) Environmental Bill of Rights, and the influences that motivated such responses. Results of the study challenge the mechanistic approach of organizational responses to external pressures, presenting evidence of the interactive nature of such responses. This research also revealed four organizational strategies and three influences, not previously identified in organizational theory, which motivate organizational responses.