University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

USE OF ENVIRONMENTAL VALUE SCALES FROM
ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES
Abstract
Mikko Peltola
Doctoral student
Hanken School of Economics
PB 287
65101 VAASA
FINLAND
715
Within environmental psychology and environmental sociology there is a lot of conceptual and
empirical research assessing the environmental values and attitudes. In the existing empirical
studies, the population has in most cases been an average citizen, with some studies taking a
closer look at specific populations. However, empirical studies applying environmental value and
attitude scales from above mentioned fields in management studies, studying company
employees, managers or customers, are with a few exceptions non-existent.
This paper reviews the existing psychological and sociological scales to measure environmental
values and attitudes and outlines guidelines for how these scales might be used in an
interdisciplinary manner in environmental management studies, focusing on organizational
reality and sampling employees and managers. The importance of individual value patterns of
employees in shaping the environmental performance of the organization is also discussed. An
analysis of environmental value patterns among employees and managers can offer explanations
to overall environmental performance of the firm, as well as tools to analyze the impact of values
and value differences between organizational levels and units on the success of environmentally
related activities.
Keywords: Natural environment, organizations, environmental psychology, environmental
sociology, environmental management
Introduction
Nowadays, companies and other organizations are increasingly facing the challenge
of climate change and other serious environmental problems. At the same time, it is
quite clear that the very same organizations are using natural resources and
producing waste and pollution, thus significantly adding to the environmental
degradation (DesJardins 1998; Purser, Park & Montuori 1995). Within business
ethics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental management research, the
environmental issues in the organizational context have drawn lots of attention
during the past years. However, there seems to be relatively little discussion about
the environmental values and attitudes of employees of business organizations.
Instead, the research within the fields mentioned above has often concentrated on the