Antecedents and performance outcomes of corporate environmental marketing/ management strategies

Decades of environmental degradation have contributed to transitioning the sustainability discourse from the scientific and technological to the public and corporate domains. As a result, corporate organisations are under pressure to implement strategies to improve environmental and business performance and have attracted substantial attention in the international environmental corporate sustainability field. However, researchers have conceptualised sustainability vaguely, which confuses promoting best practice and advancing theory. In light of these problems, this thesis initially employs a systematic review approach to identify gaps in the antecedents and performance outcomes of international environmental marketing/management strategies and two empirical studies focusing on firms operating in the hospitality industry to address the identified gaps. Following the Systematic Review of the literature results, the thesis addresses a major drawback identified on the way environmental sustainability is operationalised. The one size fits all conceptualisation of the environmental sustainability constructs prevents researchers from identifying the effects of certain environmental strategies and their specific facilitators. Therefore, the second study of the thesis (Chapter 5), in light of the conflicting findings regarding the effect of sustainability strategies on firm performance, argues that a multi-dimensional environmental sustainability approach must be followed to cope with the term’s multi-functionality and explain inconsistencies in the results of previous empirical studies. The hospitality industry is purposely chosen for the two empirical studies, as the wide range of activities hospitality firms’ are engaged in lends itself to a holistic examination of multiple dimensions of environmental sustainability. The Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV) theory is advanced to capture the industry particularities and the current trends in the field of environmental sustainability. In light of the negative effect of waste/ emissions strategy on financial performance revealed in study 2 (Chapter 5), the thesis moves on to suggest an alternative approach based on the 3 Rs strategy (Chapter 6). The study relies on the conjunction of the Resource-based View of the firm theory to examine the strategy’s determinants and the Natural Resource-Based View to examine the effects of a 3 Rs strategy on profitability and financial market performance. The thesis has several implications on a theoretical, managerial and public policy level which are summarised in Chapter 7 in addition to providing intriguing directions for future research