University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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Before a discussion of transferability of studies from sociology and psychology is
possible, we need to highlight the different interpretations of the concept of values in
psychology and in organizational research. In psychology, and within the context of
this paper, the values are usually considered to be an individual’s enduring way of
guiding his/here life (Schwartz 1992). In contrast, within organizational theory, and
in management research particularly, the concept of organizational values is often
used in the manner defined by Ott (1989) as conscious, affective desires and wants,
defining the appropriate ways of conduct in organizational life. According to
Rintanen (1999) organizational values are seen as a part of organizational culture,
and they can be a result of societal development or efforts of company management.
To make the distinction clear, in this paper, values are hold by individuals and often
unconscious, while organizational values are seen as enforced practices, in
accordance with a view of Hofstede (2001). Thus, the question about linkages
between individual values and organizational outcomes becomes a question of how
and to what extent the individual values of employees affect organizational practices
related to environmental issues.
A study of environmental values of employees in business organizations should
intuitively have better validity, at least face validity, if the concepts and measures
used are connected in to the organizational and business reality. At the same time,
when individual values and attitudes are studied, the measures should reflect
theoretical concepts of environmental orientations. Based on 30 years of theoretical
work and extensive sociological and psychological research, the most often used
theories of environmental orientation builds on ecocentric/anthropocentric distinction
(e.g. DesJardins 1997; Eckersley 1992; Dunlap & van Liere 1978; Dunlap et al. 2000;
Thompson & Barton 1994). The widely used NEP scale is based on this underlying
theory and it has been proved to have both internal consistency and validity in varied
research settings (see Dunlap et al. 2000 for overview). Also the more purely
ecocentric/anthropocentric scale of Thompson and Barton (1994) shows decent
internal reliability and supports the idea that ecocentric/anthropocentric orientation is
important when linkages between environmental attitude and behavior are studied.
Somewhat paradoxically, the ecocentric/anthropocentric distinction have not been
incorporated in mainstream research in environmental management because it is seen
as too challenging against mainstream management theory assumptions such as
growth emphasis (Kallio & Nordberg 2006). Ecocentric ideas have been presented
into area of management in theoretical papers (e.g. Iyer 1999; Shrivastava 1995a,
1995b, 1995c, 1996; Purser et al. 1995; Gladwin et al. 1995) but only conceptually
and usually at the organizational level (for example Branzei, Vertinsky, Takahashi &
Zhang 2001). As Kallio and Nordberg (2006) point out, an organization can hardly
be ecocentric today, and this might be the reason to why ecocentric/anthropocentric
distinction has been left without much consideration. However, moving the focus
from organizations to individuals within organizations might help in operationalizing
the underlying concept: now we are able to study the individual variation within a
given organization and investigate, whether organizations having more ecocentrically
oriented employees are also showing more environmentally sound practices. As
Rintanen (1999) has pointed out, there is a possibility of conflicts between
organizational goals and the values held by individuals, which might prevent even an
environmentally positive management to enforce sound environmental practices. In
short, the mainstream environmental management theory with its focus on technical