Managerial responses to environmental issues : examining accounts of room for manoeuvre in the UK food manufacturing sector

• Main Author: Fahy, Kathryn Mary
• Published: Lancaster University 2010
• Subjects: 338.47664
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.617804

This thesis is an empirical study of managerial responses to environmental issues in the UK food manufacturing sector. The research seeks to contribute to the literature on organisational greening to better understand the process and practices of managerial engagement with, and responses, to environmental issues. It examines the nature of environmental pressures and managerial responses and contributes to understanding the potential, and challenges, in moving beyond what might be viewed as 'business as usual' approaches. The research focuses on managerial perspectives and actions in relation to environmental issues while setting this within an understanding of the organisational and institutional contexts within which organisational actors operate and within which they are attempting to engage with environmental and broader sustainability issues. For this I "draw on Institutional Theory in understanding the institutional embeddedness of organisational action as well as the 'institutional work' of organisational actors around defining and defending appropriate act ion. The thesis suggests that environmental response in the UK food manufacturing sector can be characterised as chiefly reactive and defensive. I show the institutional work in which organisational actors engage that sustains this approach by analysing research participants' accounts of room for manoeuvre within their organisations and within the constraints of contemporary food industry arrangements and relations. The thesis raises important questions about the willingness and ability of organisational actors to effect the kinds of changes being called for in some quarters and questions the role currently being ascribed to business organisations as environmental problem-solvers.