Institutional environment and MNEs’ environmental sustainability: how do institutions impact MNEs’ engagement in environmental governance?

Golmohammadi, Ismael (2023) Institutional environment and MNEs’ environmental sustainability: how do institutions impact MNEs’ engagement in environmental governance? Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (6MB)

Abstract

This thesis strives to theorize and empirically investigate the relationship between the institutional environment of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their engagement in policymaking for environmental sustainability, as well as their environmental performance. Along with institutional theory, we utilize Giddens’s structuration theory to develop our hypotheses. The thesis consists of three main objectives. Objective I (one) involves a systematic literature review to identify existing gaps. The review reveals two sets of findings that serve as the foundation for defining Objectives II and III, as well as subsequent empirical studies to address those objectives. The first set includes research gaps identified from inconsistencies in the results of prior research. The second set encompasses areas that appear underdeveloped and require further research. Filling those research gaps will shape our contribution to the scholarship. Objective II aims to empirically explore the relationship between institutional pressures and MNEs' climate policy engagement. The study investigates how institutional forces in both home and host countries influence MNEs' approach to environmental governance. Our findings suggest that normative forces significantly influence MNE policy engagement. However, the study does not find a significant statistical support for regulative and mimetic forces. Objective III is set to examine the impact of institutional pressures on MNEs' environmental performance, particularly in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The study reveals that the density of NGOs in the MNE's home country is pivotal in positively affecting their environmental performance. Additionally, regulative forces in both home and host countries positively influence MNE environmental performance. Conversely, home-country institutional voids negatively impact MNE environmental performance. Notably, primary industry and total fossil fuel subsidies per GDP (as control variables) do not significantly influence MNE environmental performance. Hierarchical multiple binary logistic regression is our primary statistical tool in both empirical studies. An extended abstract is available after the table of content.

Actions (login required)

View Item