Stakeholder pressures and the global diffusion of the ISO 14001 initiative: A resource dependence perspective

This study examines how the dependence of organisations on external stakeholders leads to the global diffusion of Corporate Environmental Responsibility initiatives. Drawing on resource dependence theory, we propose that the global diffusion of the ISO 14001 initiative is associated with three types of stakeholder pressure: environmental protection, media freedom and trade dependence. Empirical results based on panel analyses of 112 countries during the 1996-2005 period suggest that the resource dependence approach provides useful insights for better understanding organisation-stakeholder relations to predict the diffusion process.