Towards sustainable development : a business management perspective on "greening" in the Korean chemical industry

Abstract

The term, sustainable development, is not new in our society. However, understanding the concept of sustainable development is not without problems. What does the concept mean in business and management? It is observed that ecological issues are neglected by mainstream management academics and practices. Conventional strategic management and organisational study do not include the "green" ecological environment issues as part of business environment. If "green" ecological environment is a part of the business environment, how do decision makers, especially top level managers, perceive green issues in the business environment and how are these perceptions related to strategic management issues? This research focuses on answering the question by studying how top executives in the Korean chemical industry perceive the uncertainty caused by ecological issues and influence the effectiveness of implementation of corporate environmental management based upon Miles and Snow's (1978) strategic typology of corporate responses. The research employs three different methods, the questionnaire, the interview and the case study for data collection. These research methods are used to identify the levels of uncertainty which result from green issues in business environment, and the link between uncertainty and strategic management issues. The findings from this research show that top managers selectively perceive green issues in the business environment. Thus, business organisations seek to create their own environment to match with their strategy rather than be controlled by their environment. The findings support the "strategic choice" view by Child (1972) and Miles and Snow (1978). Selective strategic choice based upon top managers' perceptions produces different types of corporate environmental strategy which range from the reactive to the proactive.