Day-to-day organizational life and environmental protection: Evidence from Chinese chemical firms

Focusing on the issue of environmental protection, we conducted an empirical study testing the relationship between day-to-day organizational life and organizational behavior in a culture influenced by Confucianism. We first reviewed the major characteristics of organizational life in this cultural context, based on which we proposed a model focusing on the relationship between organizational life and firms' performance in environmental protection. We then conducted an empirical study using data from Chinese firms. Our findings suggested that in a developing society such as China, the more a firm's organizational life stresses the value of "being a noble man," the value of zhongyong, the family-state concept, and the higher the firm's dependency on resources from the government, the greater the likelihood that the firm will perform well in environmental protection. However, surprisingly, yin/yang balance in organizational life did not seem to improve firms' environmental performance. We conclude this paper with a discussion of the implications of our findings and make suggestions for future research.