general deterrence in the waste industry in the netherlands. research seminar on qualitative methods...
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General deterrence in the waste industry in the Netherlands.
Research seminar on qualitative methods in environmental compliance research
Karin van WingerdeFaculty of Law/ CriminologyWednesday, April 23, 2008
Research question
How important is the fear of sanctions in motivating companies in the waste industry in the Netherlands to comply with environmental legislation?
Theoretical framework
• Shift towards a more punitive model of corporate crime control
• Severe penalties necessary for compliance
• General deterrence theory
Proposed methods
• Inspired by Thornton, Gunningham, Kagan (2005)
• In depth interviews with environmental managers
• ‘Signal cases’– Variety of violations, media attention
– Criminal and administrative penalties • Confrontation of interview data with interviews
with enforcement agencies and data to indicate level of compliance
Potential problems
• How to obtain acces? – Also another study on experiences with
regulators– Waste industry
• Closed• Large cases of environmental misconduct
– Environmental managers• Busy people• No interest in participation
Potential problems
• How to obtain reliable data? – Managers’ ‘respectability’
• Rationalisation • Socially accepted answers
– Sensitivity towards:• Compliance issues• “Criminology”
• Trade organisations (letter of recommendation)
• 2 ‘signal cases’ presented anonymously
A cautious approach
Data gathering
• In depth interviews with environmental managers of 23 companies in the waste industry (work in progress)– High response – 21 tape recorded
• Reasons for participation– Transparency– Professional branch of industry
Problems
• Signal cases – anonymously– Awkward situations:
• No clear expectations• Guesses • Involvement with either one of the cases
– Reaction: changed presentation of the cases
Advantages
• Very detailed and comprehensive descriptions of perceptions towards sanctions
• Openness
• External validity: not in terms of generalisation but range of results
• Reliability enhanced by standard topic list; results confronted with other data
Lessons
• Accessibility is not necessarily an issue: Companies are willing to participate
• Cautiousness might be counterproductive
• Openness and transparency rather than socially accepted answers and rationalisations
Discussion
• Approachability
• ‘Respectability’
• Caution
Preliminary results
• Little knowledge of penalties against other companies– Either large or minor cases– Case is remembered, not the penalty– Incorrect estimation of penalty
• Risk perceptions– Risk of detection – Risk of penalties
Preliminary results
• Threat?– Negative publicity
• Social license• Image of the industry• Reputation of the individual company
• Compliance related behaviour?– Check– No proactive measures
Overcoming inaction through collective institutional entrepreneurship
Research seminar on qualitative methods in environmental compliance research
Frank WijenRotterdam School of ManagementWednesday, April 23, 2008
Kyoto: The development of a global regulatory institution
Collaboration of dispersed agents required
Need to overcome inertial forces:- Free-rider problem
- Start-up problem
- Actor apathy problem
Theoretical perspectives
Combined insights from:- Institutional theory
- Regime theory
Conceptual framework
Drivers of institutional entrepreneurship:
- Manipulating power configuration
- Creating common ground
- Mobilizing bandwagons
- Devising appropriate incentive structures
- Applying ethical guidelines
- Using implementation mechanisms
Empirical setting
Kyoto regime: collaboration of most nation states to provide global public good despite strong inertial forces
Institutional entrepreneurship drivers used to establish Kyoto regime
Empirical method
Case study: why and how questions
Empirical analysis
1. Deductive categorization plus emerging categories
2. Integral coding of all data (with Atlas/ti)
3. Checking of coded chunks to correct miscoded chunks, remove redundancy, and merge categories
4. Sense-making per category
5. Sense-making across categories
Methodological headaches
• How to reduce data without throwing away the baby with the bath water?
• How hard is soft data?
• How to disentangle contextual and causal factors?
• How to rule out alternative explanations?
Hypotheses
• H1: A clear conceptual framework is instrumental in reducing data without killing babies
• H2: Soft data is as soft as hard data (even though most quantitative researchers have not yet ‘come out’)
• H3: Conceptual frames and further empirical studies help to disentangle causal and contextual factors
• H4: Alternative explanations cannot be ruled out, only acknowledged