8 - Chief executive officers and proactive environmental protection: evidence from the Costa Rican hotel industry

Summary

In developing countries, policymakers and officials from donor agencies have repeatedly stressed the importance of formal education and technical assistance to promote enhanced environmental protection by the private sector (Ascher, 1999; Wheeler, 1999). It has been argued that businesses would significantly improve their environmental performance if their managers were more educated and knew about innovative pollution prevention technologies that make their firms more competitive by being “green,” that is, manifesting an environmental conscience (Porter and van der Linde, 1996). By much the same argument, businesses run by managers born in industrialized countries are also expected to display higher environmental performance as one way to highlight their competitive advantage (Christmann and Taylor, 2001; Wheeler, 1999). Foreign chief executive officers (CEOs) may be more likely to adopt proactive environmental efforts because of their increased awareness of international environmental requirements and easier access to environmental management information (Christmann and Taylor, 2001; Garcia-Johnson, 2000; Wheeler, 1999). Yet, there is scant empirical evidence that higher education, greater environmental management expertise, and CEO nationality are correlated with superior environmental performance by businesses operating in the developing world (Andonova, 2003; Ascher, 1999; Christmann and Taylor, 2001; Utting, 2002).

This chapter seeks to contribute to filling this gap by evaluating whether CEOs' education, environmental expertise, and nationality are associated with enhanced participation and environmental performance in voluntary programs. Data were collected from the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) program in 2000 (see a detailed description of the CST and the hotel industry in Costa Rica in Chapter 7).