Corporate Citizenship, Sanctions, and Environmental Crime

Abstract

This work integrates three bodies of literature, namely that on corporate crime, environmental performance, and corporate citizenship. Traditionally, corporate crime researchers have failed to (1) measure environmental crime with self-reports and (2) integrate theoretical explanations of compliance and overcompliance. At the same time, the environmental performance literature has not fully explored the relevance of the parent company. This investigation addresses this intersection by studying firm-level environmental performance. In particular, it adds corporate citizenship--the degree to which firm culture promotes or inhibits a moral commitment to society that is broader than "mere compliance"--as a new explanation for environmental behavior. The results vary according to the measure of citizenship, but generally suggest that citizenship adds little to our understanding of environmental performance. The discussion section considers the limitations of these data, as well as the theoretical and policy implications of the findings.