Ghana's mining sector is a significant contributor to the national economy; however, environmental degradation continues to stigmatize the sector. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore experiences and perspectives of middle managers on how to drive compliance with EPA regulations and standards in Ghana's mining sector. Ajzen's theory of planned behavior was the conceptual framework for this phenomenological study. A purposive sample of 20 middle managers from Ghana's mining sector participated in interviews, which were transcribed and then coded to generate common themes. The primary research question involved exploring factors that promote employee compliance in Ghana's mining sector. Three critical themes that emerged from the study were (a) business benefits of compliance, (b) factors that promote employee compliance, and (c) obstacles to compliance. The implications for positive social change include the potential for community members to experience reduced environmentally related health challenges with concomitant increases in their quality of life

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From the simplest items we use to the most complex ones, electronics are everywhere and in everything. However, the escalating demand for electronics has a serious toll on the environment. Thus, the electronics industry has been the focus of legislation for a long time. As a matter of fact, electronics are among the seven priority key value chains identified by the European Union on the way to becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. In this sense, this thesis aims to investigate the role of environmental legislation in the green transition of the electronics industry by trying to understand how companies operating in this industry evaluate the measures introduced by the legislation. This was done through both in-depth interviews with representatives from 11 different companies of all sizes (large, medium- and small-sized, and start-up companies) and 2 regulatory agencies, and also group discussions with experts and managers in the field. Although the research started from a point of evaluating the legislation either a driver or a barrier in green transition, the empirical findings indicated that environmental regulations are too complex tools to be considered only in terms of these aspects. Results showed that considering regulations as a driver or barrier is directly related to the size of the companies and the opportunities they have. However, the solution to the challenges faced by the companies is often beyond their own capabilities, and related to external factors, mostly legislators. All companies interviewed within the scope of the study agree that environmental regulations can contribute to green transformation. One thing is certain, however, that the way to ensure this effectiveness is through a transparent and inclusive communication between the lawmakers and the industry.

This thesis examines the impact of environmental regulations on trade competitiveness for South Asian countries. The study further investigates whether South Asian countries have become a pollutive haven of industrial exports to OECD countries during 1984-2004. The thesis also analyses whether tariff walls created by the governments to offsets stringent environmental regulations negatively affect pollutive industrial trade flows. This study has identified gaps in the literature after critically reviewing both competing trade theories and empirical literature surrounding the subject. Firstly, most of the empirical literature on the subject has focused on developed countries while ignoring less developed regions like South Asia. Second, several studies concluded trade competitiveness impact of environmental policy following a single estimation method when results are sensitive to the choice of the method used. Hence, for robust results, cross-methods analysis was imperative. Thirdly, the empirical literature on the subject focused on most pollutive industries and ignored the research on somewhat pollutive and least pollutive sectors as well as comparative analysis between those industries. This study has contributed to the literature by filling these gaps. Following the neo-classical theory, the central hypothesis of this thesis is that environmental regulations negatively affect different categories of pollutive industrial export competitiveness. By using the highest dis-aggregated ISIC level trade data and incorporating other socio-economic variables, this study has deployed comparative advantage trade models by Balassa (1965), competitiveness indicator by XU (1999), and bilateral RCA model by Grether and de Melo (2004). The study used the gravity model to control for un-observed effects over time on trade flows while capturing environmental regulations impact on pollutive industrial trade competitiveness. Accordingly, to avert endogeneity/data sensitivity issues and to ascertain robust estimates, the present research has among others computed Random Effect and Newey-West standard error models. The statistical modeling results show that while India gained trade competitiveness in most pollutive industrial trade, Pakistan and Bangladesh lost their trade competitiveness in the same category. The research finds evidence of most pollutive industries of South Asian countries increasing their bilateral RCAs and exports with OECD countries and reset of the world. A comparative analysis between most pollutive to less pollutive industries showed a lack of support for any systematic specialization patterns of trade for South Asia during 1984-2004. Nonetheless, this study findings based on gravity modeling clearly depicted a statistically significant negative impact of environmental regulations on total exports, most pollutive exports, and less pollutive industrial exports for South Asia and OECD countries. This study rejected the pollution haven hypothesis between South Asian pollutive industrial exports with OECD. It further concluded that tariff barriers created by countries to offsets environmental regulation costs would prove counterproductive to competitiveness. At the policy level, instead of lobbing for protectionism to balance out environmental regulatory costs, the governments in both developed and developing countries need to focus on forming better environmental policies fostering both competitiveness and environmental quality. Also, trade-offs between environmental regulations and competitiveness are challenging situations for South Asia and OECD countries. Therefore, sustainable production and trade policies combined with innovative and cost-effective environmental policies are needed to accomplish environmental gains and competitiveness.

Society's concern over the negative impact of business activities on the natural environment has significantly increased and, as a result, environmental regulations have grown considerably both in number and scope. As these policies affect businesses and their competitive environment, firms are interested in shaping the nature of such legislation through corporate political activities (CPAs). This thesis investigates the CPAs of MNEs in the automotive industry that are directed towards environmental regulations in the EU. Using the resource-based view as its theoretical framework, it investigates six research questions that address the characteristics, determinants and consequences of these CPAs in relation to three regulatory areas (pollutant emissions, CO2 emissions and end-of-life vehicles). Case study analysis is based on 71 interviews with stakeholders from the automotive industry (the entire population of 11 MNEs from the Triad regions that are politically active in Brussels) and related industries, EU institutions and civil society organisations, representing the societal triangle (market, state, civil society). The thesis finds that the 11 automotive firms engage in CPAs to inform policymakers, and because of the impact that regulations have on their businesses. Whilst the firms attempt a cooperative approach, in reality this is not always the case: whereas individual company and association activities should lead to a united voice, this does not occur when it comes to important company-specific technologies and particular environmental policies. These regulations are viewed by companies as both a costly burden and as opportunities, though non-corporate respondents perceive that MNEs see them only as costs. The main (political) resources and competences used in CPAs are found to be human resources (including the related resources of expertise, contacts, trust and reputation, i.e. social capital), and technological resources. Regulations and the technological resources influencing CPAs are directly and uniquely linked to the product portfolios of MNEs. These differences in technological resources and product ranges account for most of the variance in MNEs‟ CPAs rather than the respective countries of origin within the Triad.

Inovação verde incorpora melhorias tecnológicas que economizam energia, previne a poluição, permite a reciclagem de resíduos e pode incluir design de produto verde e a gestão ambiental das empresas. Este tema tem sido estudado por diversos autores sob vários aspectos, mas os resultados sobre os antecedentes da Inovação Verde ainda apresentam divergências na literatura. Diante disso e com base na teoria institucional, este estudo pretende analisar como o grau de severidade das regulamentações ambientais e a competitividade internacional dos países afetam os esforços em Inovação Verde das empresas do setor industrial dos Países Desenvolvidos (PD) e dos Países em Desenvolvimento (PED). A amostra da pesquisa foi composta por 186 empresas industriais, que constam na lista das 500 maiores empresas por valor de mercado da Financial Times no ano de 2015, sendo 114 de PD e 72 PED. Foram utilizados no estudo como variáveis de análise: o índice de competitividade global do World Economic Forum (WEF), os indicadores de regulamentação ambiental da OECD, as informações sobre certificação ISO 14001 nos relatórios de sustentabilidade das empresas baseados nas diretrizes de GRI, as medidas de tamanho da empresa, o grau de internacionalização e investimentos ambientais coletados da base Thomsom One, bem como as informações sobre Pacto Global e sobre DJSI. Como metodologia, este trabalho caracterizou-se por ser um estudo descritivo, com abordagem quantitativa, uma vez que foram levantados dados e utilizou-se da Modelagem de Equações Estruturais para análise da relação entre as variáveis. Os principais resultados do trabalho foram: (a) O rigor das regulamentações ambientais dos países afetam o esforço de inovação verde das empresas industriais dos PD e PED somente no construto IV2, composto pelas variáveis Pacto Global e investimentos ambientais; (b) A competitividade dos países não apresentou influência positiva no esforço de inovação verde das empresas e demonstrou um efeito negativo e significante estatisticamente no construto IV2; (c) o tamanho das empresas só apresentou um impacto positivo e significante estatisticamente sobre o construto IV2; (d) o grau de internacionalização das empresas não apresentou um efeito significativo sobre nenhum dos construtos de inovação verde; (e) a relação entre as regulamentações ambientais e a inovação verde é moderada positivamente pelo tamanho das empresas e moderada negativamente pelo seu grau de internacionalização; (f) a relação entre a competitividade dos países e a inovação verde é moderada negativamente pelo tamanho das empresas e moderada positivamente pelo seu grau de internacionalização. Pode-se concluir com os resultados desta tese que, dentre os antecedentes da inovação verde analisados, confirmou-se que somente as regulamentações ambientais e o tamanho das empresas exerce um efeito positivo sobre os esforços de inovação verde das empresa, mas isso dependendo de como a inovação verde está sendo medida. / Green innovation incorporates technological improvements that save energy, prevent pollution, allow waste recycling and can include green product design and environmental management of companies. This theme has been studied by several authors in different aspects, but the results of the background of Green Innovation still present divergences in the literature. Given this, and based on institutional theory, this study aims to analyze how the severity of environmental regulations and the international competitiveness of countries affect the efforts of Green Innovation in companies of the industrial sector in Developed Countries (PD) and Developing Countries (PED). The survey sample consisted of 186 industrial companies, which are listed in the Financial Times\' top 500 companies by market value in 2015, of which 114 were PD and 72 were PED. The variables used in the study were based on: the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum (WEF), OECD environmental regulation indicators, ISO 14001 certification information in the company sustainability reports based on GRI guidelines, company size measures, degree of internationalization and environmental investments collected from Thomsom One base, Global Compact and DJSI information. As a methodology, this work was characterized as a descriptive study, with a quantitative approach, since data were collected and the Structural Equation Modeling (SME) was used to analyze the relationship between variables. The main results of the study were: (a) The rigor of the environmental regulations of the countries affect the green innovation effort of the industrial companies of the PD and PED only in construct IV2, composed of the variables Global Compact and environmental investments; (b) The competitiveness of the countries did not have a positive influence on the green innovation effort of the companies, but showed a statistically negative and significant effect on the IV2 construct; (c) the size of the companies, only had a positive and statistically significant impact on the IV2 construct; (d) the degree of internationalization of companies has not had a significant effect on any of the green innovation constructs; (e) the relationship between environmental regulations and green innovation is moderated positively by the size of firms, and moderated negatively by their degree of internationalization; (f) the relationship between the countries\' competitiveness and green innovation is negatively moderated by the size of firms and moderated positively by their degree of internationalization. It can be concluded from the results of this thesis that, among the antecedents of the green innovation analyzed, it was confirmed that only environmental regulations and the size of companies have a positive effect on the companies\' green innovation efforts, but this depending on how green innovation is being measured.

Ce travail de thèse interroge l’application différenciée des politiques publiques et ses dynamiques.À travers l’étude de huit services publics d’assainissement non collectif, situés dans des espaces périurbains provençaux, hauts-alpins, vauclusiens et rhônalpins, la réflexion met en valeur les tensions entre des normes réglementaires et techniques d’une part et, d’autre part, des territoires disposant de ressources variables pour les appliquer. S’appuyant sur une démarche quantitative et qualitative auprès d’institutions et d’usagers, cette recherche met en évidence la grande différenciation des Spanc. Celle-ci s’explique par la difficulté, pour les Spanc, de s’imposer dans un jeu d’acteurs complexe et face à des usagers souvent récalcitrants. Notre recherche montre, au final, que la professionnalisation des agents de ces services, qui suppose le développement d’une identité, d’une culture et de pratiques communes, permet de réduire les différences d’application de la politique publique. / This research addresses the variations and dynamics of public policy implementation. Through the analysis of eight local authorities and their monitoring of individual waste water treatments, located in suburban and rural areas in southern France (Bouches-du-Rhône, Hautes-Alpes, Vaucluse, Rhône-Alpes and Var), our work highlights the conflict between regulations and technical standardson the one hand, and the unequal resources available for local authorities responsible for their implementation on the other. Adopting a qualitative and quantitative approach to institutions, employees and users, this research highlights the significant differences between local authorities in the service they provide for individual waste water treatments. These differences result from the difficulties experienced by local authorities in interacting with a complex network stakeholders and in dealing with often unwilling users. Our research shows that, the professionalisation process, which is built upon the development of a common identity, culture and practices, reduces differences in the implementation of public policy.

Cette thèse contribue à la compréhension de la relation entre le commerce et l’environnement, en mettant l’accent sur le rôle de la réglementation environnementale entre pays. Trois essais abordent ce lien selon différentes perspectives. Le premier chapitre analyse l’efficacité de la formalisation de la Convention de Bâle sur le commerce des déchets dangereux dans l’Union européenne (UE-WSR) puis sur les pays en développement, divisés en régions. Je construis un indice de réglementation environnementale, qui comprend notamment la qualité des institutions. Les résultats montrent peu de preuves d’un effet de havre de déchets dans les pays de l’UE les moins développés. Dans l’analyse régionale, il n’y a aucune preuve de l’efficacité de l’UE-WSR. Le second chapitre étudie l’efficacité des accords internationaux sur l’environnement. Ce chapitre évalue les effets de la ratification et de l’adoption de ces accords sur les importations de produits chimiques dangereux et de polluants organiques persistants. Les résultats soulignent l’effet partiel de ces deux conventions. Plus précisément, lorsqu’on évalue un accord moins restrictif, les importations ne sont réduites que lorsque l’exportateur ratifie la convention. Lors de l’évaluation de l’interdiction des polluants organiques persistants, les importations sont réduites. Le troisième examine l’effet de la réglementation environnementale sur les résultats environnementaux. Ce chapitre a pris en compte les déterminants de la pollution et une variable de réglementation environnementale composée de lois environnementales adoptées par les pays. Les résultats montrent que les lois environnementales ont un effet améliorant les résultats environnementaux. Cet effet est particulier aux résultats environnementaux et à la loi. Ainsi on met en question certaines conclusions antérieures tirées de la littérature sur l’effet bénéfique du commerce sur l’environnement. / This thesis contributes to an understanding of the relationship between trade and the environment, with an emphasis on the role of environmental regulation among countries. Three essays deal with this link from different perspectives. The first chapter analyses the effectiveness of the formalization of the Basel Convention on trade in hazardous wastes in the European Union (EU-WSR), followed by developing countries, and divided into regions. I build an environmental regulation index, which includes the quality of the institutions. The results show little evidence of a waste haven effect in the least developed EU countries. In the regional analysis, there is no evidence of the effectiveness of the EU-WSR. The second chapter examines the effectiveness of international environmental agreements. This chapter assesses the effects of the ratification and adoption of these agreements on imports of hazardous chemicals and persistent organic pollutants. The results underline the partial effect of these two conventions. More specifically, when assessing a less restrictive arrangement, imports are reduced only when the exporter ratifies the agreement. In assessing the ban on persistent organic pollutants, imports are reduced. The third examines the effect of environmental regulation on environmental outcomes. This chapter has taken into account the determinants of pollution and an environmental regulatory variable composed of environmental laws adopted by countries. The results show that environmental laws have an effect improving environmental outcomes. This effect is unique to environmental outcomes and to the law. Thus, some previous conclusions drawn from the literature on the beneficial effect of trade on the environment are questioned.

In the light of a market that showcases increased hesitation and skepticism over green marketing and environmental communication, is the necessity of a well executed corporate communication greater than ever. What can be seen on the market is corporations that are unintentionally using motive greenwashing as a tool for attracting and persuading consumers to favour the corporations image. Prior research within green marketing has put a large focus on greenwashing in product context and the effects of it on consumer behaviour. In this study greenwashing is examined in a communication context and its effect on different aspects of consumer behaviour and attitude.

The demand for sustainability on this earth is more prominent than ever. The global climate crisis affects everyone, and the movie industry's massive annual emissions are certain. However, the movie industry has not yet been investigated in-depth nor held accountable for its environmental impact. In the literature, environmental regulations of powerful institutions, such as the European Union, have been influential for sustainable change. Hence, this thesis will examine the interface of project-based organizations, environmental regulations, and sustainable practices through an exploratory approach. Precisely, this thesis aims to examine the influence of environmental regulations on project-based industries, using the example of the European movie industry with a focus on Germany and Italy. The research questions focus on the aspects of pressures and impacting factors along the supply chains of moviemaking. Lastly, it is also examined how stakeholders are affected by EU regulations. Data is gathered through a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews, and analyzed through the theoretical frame of institutional and stakeholder theory. The results of this study reveal that there is currently no specific impact of EU regulations on sustainable practices in the movie industry. Also, currently, no EU laws affect the defined stakeholders in the film business. Instead, it could be found that national legislation and infrastructure, private sector engagement, and organizations' self-commitment are impacting the industry to become more sustainable. Moreover, the movie industry's structural factor as project-based affects cooperation, communication, and laws for sustainability. This thesis serves as a groundwork for further research and practical implementations for sustainable filmmaking.