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Inside the "Black Box"

How Organizational Culture and Subcultures Inform Interpretations and Actions on Environmental Issues

Boston University School of Management

Companies do not respond identically when faced with similar environmental issues, confounding research that looks only at external influences on corporate environmental practice. In this article, the author explores the role of internal factors, specifically an organization's culture and subcultures, in shaping a company's interpretations and actions on environmental issues. Organizational culture influences how an organization's members define, or "set," problems and the strategies they draw on to solve such problems. Drawing from a 9-month ethnographic study of a high-tech manufacturer, the author finds that the existence of multiple subcultures gives rise to divergent interpretations and strategies for action for environmental issues and that the relative power of the subcultures influences which interpretations and strategies for action are ultimately adopted. Differences between subcultures and the nature of the relationships between them can explain some of the variation in attention and action observed as organizations address issues of environmental protection.

Key Words: corporate environmental practice • organizational culture • organizational subcultures • chemicals • hazardous waste

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