The Corporate Actor model

The previous chapter demonstrated the striking differences in the climate strategies of ExxonMobil, the Shell Group and Statoil. While ExxonMobil has adopted a reactive strategy, Shell has chosen a proactive response, and Statoil has adopted a strategy representing a hybrid between these two positions. In this chapter we explore the explanatory power of the approach we have labelled the Corporate Actor (CA) model. To recapitulate our discussion from chapter 2, the CA model suggests that differences in the companies’ climate strategy choice are explained by differences in the companies themselves. The business environmental management literature suggests a host of company-specific factors that may have an impact on strategy choice in relation to an issue such as climate change. We have chosen to focus on three main factors: (1) the environmental risk associated with current and future corporate operations; (2) the environmental reputation of the company; and (3) the company’s capacity for organisational learning. We assume that companies with low environmental risk, experience with negative public scrutiny, and high capacity for organisational learning (conditioned by other factors) are more likely to adopt a proactive climate strategy than are companies with high environmental risk, no experience with negative public scrutiny, and low capacity for organisational learning. The company-specific factors we have chosen to analyse in depth in this study are selected from a long list of factors suggested to have an impact on corporate strategy choice in an issue area such as climate change. While we assume that the 2543Chap4 16/7/03 9:58 am Page 74