A Leader’s Challenge – Are Environmental Frindliness and Business Compatible? : An investigation of eco-friendly managerial behaviour in Swedish and German small and midsize enterprises.

• Main Authors: Miller, Daniel, Schaller, Simon
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Linnéuniversitetet, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNU 2012
• Subjects: change; certificates; companies; eco-friendly; environment; ISO; leaders; management; organisation; stakeholders
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-19446

Due to the global warming, the increase in greenhouse gases and the resulting threat for the environment, not only private households have to rethink their behaviour towards the environment, but also companies and organisations have a responsibility towards their environment. Therefore, we investigated several small and midsize enterprises in order to understand their way of implementing strategies of eco-friendliness and thus contributing to the ‘green revolution’ which is apparently in progress. The managers and company leaders provided us with their personal experiences in implementing environmental certificates and Environmental Management Systems. We learned that the trigger point for the implementation of certificates or management systems is often a stakeholder demand. Therefore, our theoretical framework presents our personal understanding of leadership, an example of the relationship of leadership and eco-friendliness, the conflicts of interest within different roles leaders are often captured in, the presentation of personally chosen environmental certificates and stakeholder theory.