Flankova, SvetlanaSvetlanaFlankova2023-04-132023-04-132022-02-21https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/108959Our planet is facing great challenges caused by environmental degradation, and scientists have concluded that the major cause is increased human activity. Businesses are at least substantially responsible for the environmental crisis, but can also be part of the solution. Systems, regulations, and frameworks have been put in place to integrate environmental sustainability into business activity and encourage sustainable behavior amongst firms. But why is it the case that, despite technological and social progress, increases in environmental issue awareness, and government regulation, data from ecological analyses show worsening and alarming results? This question is of great concern to both academic and practitioner communities. This research program aims to address this question by focusing on voluntary environmental initiatives that emerged in the 1980s to fill voids in inefficient environmental regulations. Voluntary environmental initiatives - such as environmental certifications, disclosures of non-financial information, and companies own sustainability programs - are popular among companies operating in various industries around the globe. Despite the relatively large body of literature, the evidence from research is fragmented and inconclusive with regards to what kind of companies choose to participate in voluntary environmental initiatives and whether these initiatives are related to improved environmental outcomes or if they simply amount to symbolic acts with no benefit to societal welfare. Moreover, current research is largely focused on a narrow set of developed economies, which undermines our understanding of how these initiatives operate globally. This thesis starts with an introductory chapter that provides the background and contribution of the dissertation and summarizes the four individual papers. The first two papers (Chapter 2 and 3) use meta-analytical methods to examine antecedents and outcomes of firm participation in voluntary environmental programs and the role of program stringency in these relationships. The third and fourth papers (Chapter 4 and 5) are based on regression analyses on a sample of publicly listed firms globally to examine the role of the state in greenwashing prevention and greenwashing in family firms, respectively. The outcomes of this research program suggest that adoption of voluntary sustainability initiatives is contingent on an array of firm, program, and institutional factors, and suggest that, for these initiatives to be effective in achieving their goals, stringent regulations and governance mechanisms are critical to prevent symbolic behavior among firms.enStrategisches ManagementNachhaltigkeitUmweltanalyseBerichterstattungEDIS-5173sustainability reportingenvironmental performancesustainabilityCorporate strategydoctoral thesis