Divergent Family Effects on Green Practices

We examine pollution prevention, green supply chain management, and green product development practices of family and nonfamily firms from 29 countries and 19 industrial sectors over an 8-year period. We argue that due to the emotional connections between family members and their firms, the personal discretion of those family members, and the secrecy afforded some family firms, will cause them to exhibit either extremely positive or extremely negative approaches to their natural environments, depending on whether they adopt restricted family first versus extended shareholder priorities for their businesses. We confirm such differences, the magnitude of which depends on the type of firm, the industrial context, the type of economy, and the stages of the business cycle. These findings have implications for family firm and environmental strategy.