The Decoupling of Institutional Decoupling: Differential Implementation of Voluntary Environmental Programs between Initial Innovators and Early Adopters

39 Pages Posted: 17 Apr 2017

See all articles by Hyeonjin Cha

Hyeonjin Cha

College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Sangchan Park

College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Date Written: April 1, 2017

Abstract

While the importance of organizational learning and technological innovation for environmental sustainability is well noted, little is known about why and how firms choose not to implement what they learn and innovate. We examine the learning-doing gap in an empirical context of sustainable innovation and environmental technologies, the domain where social constituents increasingly consider environmental performance to be significant evaluative criteria. Building upon institutional perspectives, we suggest that the increased popularity and social attention toward sustainable innovation may serve as externally imposed pressures that are difficult for firms to ignore, thus leading to the creation and development of novel technologies aligned with the normative pressures. Our key argument is that such technologies are not fully implemented, a situation referred to as decoupling. This argument is empirically supported by our analysis of data from the Green Certification Program, a relatively new, government-initiated certification system for legitimating green technologies in Korea. More importantly, we find that decoupling is further differentiated in terms of adoption timing between initial innovators and early adopters, two groups of firms that develop different risk perceptions of the consequences of certification implementation. Implications for organization studies, sustainable innovation, and environmental policies are discussed.

Keywords: environmental sustainability; green technology certification; institutional decoupling; adoption; implementation

JEL Classification: D83, K32, L10, O32

Suggested Citation

Cha, Hyeonjin and Park, Sangchan, The Decoupling of Institutional Decoupling: Differential Implementation of Voluntary Environmental Programs between Initial Innovators and Early Adopters (April 1, 2017). KAIST College of Business Working Paper Series No. 2017-007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2953851 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2953851

Hyeonjin Cha

College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) ( email )

85 Hoegiro, Dongdaemoon-gu
Seoul 02455
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

Sangchan Park (Contact Author)

College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) ( email )

85 Hoegiro, Dongdaemoon-gu
Seoul 02455
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

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