This paper reviews the background of the advent of environmental management and the investigates the driving forces of environmental management and their relationship with financial performance of the enterprises. As Porter(1985) points out, firms try...
This paper reviews the background of the advent of environmental management and the investigates the driving forces of environmental management and their relationship with financial performance of the enterprises. As Porter(1985) points out, firms trying to get competitive edge depend on either differentiation strategy or cost advantage strategy. Other than the regulation which is a dominant motivation of most firms' environmental management at an early stage, market(differentiation) orientation and cost advantage orientation are critical motivation of the firms' environmental management.
The results based on survey of 163 Korean firms indicate that: 1) higher differentiation orientation and cost advantage orientation of firms lead to higher level of environmental management, 2) higher differentiation orientation and cost advantage orientation of firms result in better financial performance, and 3) firms that exert more efforts in environmental management show better financial performance.