TY - JOUR
T1 - Pastures Green
T2 - Corporate Investments in Green Skills and Toxic Chemical Releases
AU - Hagendorff, Jens
AU - Nguyen, Duc Duy
AU - Sila, Vathunyoo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Author(s). British Journal of Management published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Academy of Management.
PY - 2025/3/20
Y1 - 2025/3/20
N2 - Firms face pressure to improve their environmental performance. However, in addition to making substantive investments that enhance environmental outcomes, firms may also engage in investments that are green but mostly symbolic and not effective in improving environmental performance. To examine whether the green skill investments firms make are effective in enhancing environmental performance, we analyse detailed job posting data from 2010 to 2020 and micro-level data on toxic chemical emissions from plants. We find that an increased demand for green skills is associated with subsequent reductions in toxic chemical releases at plants, especially toxins that are harmful to humans. Further analyses reveal that reductions in toxic releases are more pronounced when firms direct their investments in green skills towards local establishments rather than the headquarters. By integrating a resource-based view with concepts of market failure and organizational legitimacy, we show that investments in green skills can simultaneously serve legitimacy-seeking and substantive performance-improvement purposes.
AB - Firms face pressure to improve their environmental performance. However, in addition to making substantive investments that enhance environmental outcomes, firms may also engage in investments that are green but mostly symbolic and not effective in improving environmental performance. To examine whether the green skill investments firms make are effective in enhancing environmental performance, we analyse detailed job posting data from 2010 to 2020 and micro-level data on toxic chemical emissions from plants. We find that an increased demand for green skills is associated with subsequent reductions in toxic chemical releases at plants, especially toxins that are harmful to humans. Further analyses reveal that reductions in toxic releases are more pronounced when firms direct their investments in green skills towards local establishments rather than the headquarters. By integrating a resource-based view with concepts of market failure and organizational legitimacy, we show that investments in green skills can simultaneously serve legitimacy-seeking and substantive performance-improvement purposes.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105000966813&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1467-8551.12909
DO - 10.1111/1467-8551.12909
M3 - Article
SN - 1045-3172
JO - British Journal of Management
JF - British Journal of Management
ER -
