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Organizational Responses to Strategic Issues Posed by the Natural Environment: An Application of Miles and Snow's Strategic Types

University of Tennessee

Dorn M. Fowler

Brescia College

The natural environment has become a strategic issue for many firms, and the adaptive response of organizations to the pressures incurred by this issue is important to their effectiveness and survival. Using the Miles and Snow (1978) theoretical framework, this article builds a model of the relationship between strategic orientation, environmental responses, and environmental performance. Then, the authors empirically tested this model through seven hypotheses on how defenders, prospectors, and reactors are expected to respond to these pressures. In general, the results show that the firms' strategic orientations are predictive of their environmental responses. However, the predictions for the prospectors were more strongly supported by our data than were the predictions for the defenders. Interestingly, prospectors' and defenders' environmental performance advantage over reactors was most clearly shown in the area of preventing and mitigating environmental crises as opposed to going beyond minimum environmental compliance levels.

Organization & Environment, Vol. 9, No. 4, 419-447 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/108602669600900401


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