How Does Stakeholder Pressure Affect Strategic Environmental Types. The Evidence from Polish Companies

The paper includes an empirical analysis of the relationship between environmental strategic types and the stakeholder pressure. The stakeholder theory posits that the stakeholder pressure is one of the most powerful determinants affecting the implementation of environmental issues into corporate strategies and provide enterprises with the motivation to adopt advanced corporate environmental strategies. The study was conducted among Polish companies operating in three industries. The results of the study confirm a positive impact of the stakeholder pressure on the advancing environmental strategic types. Moreover, the results show a stronger pressure of stakeholders on the proactive environmental strategic type, than on the reactive strategic environmental type. Surprisingly, the regulatory pressure has positive and significantly the strongest effect on the proactive environmental strategic type. However, the internal stakeholder pressure has a stronger effect on the proactive environmental strategic type than the external stakeholder pressure.