Even in this age of the ever increasing importance of environmental issues
, Shelton[1996] found that there exists strong resistance among departments
when the enterprises perform environmental management system (EMS). He called
this resistance "Green Wall" and found that it is because many enterprises do
not have proper business environmental ethics (BEE) to be heartily concerned a
bout the environment, or on the other hand, they do not make good integration
of EMS with other managerial practices (IEM). After all, Shelton argued that G
reen Wall will make enterprises difficult to implement EMS well.
From Shelton''s findings it can be seen that an enterprise must first overc
ome Green Wall when implementing EMS. However, Green Wall is a phenomenon whic
h encompasses a relationship among three constructs mentioned above: EMS, BEE,
and IEM. In these constructs, BEE is a focal one but with the least research.
Therefore, this thesis proposes to carry out the following research objective
s, starting with an analysis of BEE: (1) To build an analytical framework for
BEE; (2) To understand the attitudes and expectations of different constituenc
ies towards BEE and Green Wall of Taiwanese enterprises; (3) To understand the
current state of BEE and Green Wall within the electronic information industr
y in Taiwan; and (4) To verify the causes of Green Wall within the electronic
information industry in Taiwan.
Of these, the first objective was achieved by means of a literature review
, while the second was achieved by carrying out three focus group meetings whi
ch were performed in a multiple constituency approach with a total of 16 parti
cipants. Then, the content analysis of participants'' opinions was used to deve
lop a questionnaire of BEE, which was refined thereafter by Delphi method. On
the other hand, we adopted and modified some questionnaires about EMS and IEM
from other studies. After integrating these questionnaires, we sent them out t
o 262 companies, from which we received 32 effective responses. We also initia
te in-depth interviews with two enterprises. Finally, after collating the info
rmation from interviews and questionnaires, the third research objective was a
chieved. As far as the fourth objective was concerned, hypotheses of correlati
on between the three constructs of Green Wall were constructed. And these hypo
theses were statistically tested using the data gleaned from the questionnaire
s.
After analyzing the information collected, this research constructed a fra
mework about Green Wall and proposed three general conclusions: 1. The low lev
el of IEM and BEE are the major causes of Green Wall; 2. External pressure (e.
g. laws, international trends, environmental requirements from other constitue
ncies, etc.), internal and external support systems (e.g. environmental educat
ion, award system, mimetic effect among enterprises, proper coordination, etc.
), as well as the interactions between enterprises and environment (e.g. beach
cleaning up, birds watching, etc.) are all of assistance in overcoming Green
Wall of a company; and 3. Enterprises and organizations with a low Green Wall
and good environmental management, will have an influence on society because o
f their legitimacy and modeling effect. Then, they can change or fit themselve
s to the external pressure and other support system. So they have the potentia
l power to make use of social resources, including establishing or modifying s
ome requirements about EMS and so on in conjunction with the government.
Finally, this research also found that comparing with the whole production
industry, the level of comprehensiveness of EMS in the electronic information
industry was mediocre. This finding indicates that more efforts towards envir
onmental management is needed in this industry. At the same time, this researc
h also found that whatever BEE, EMS, and IEM of medium-sized enterprises were
in general relatively poor. So when government or non-government organizations
want to help enterprises to overcome Green Wall and implement EMS well, this
kind of enterprise should be the key target organization to be supervised and
assisted.