Organizational Determinants for the Development of
Environmental Management in the Dutch Agri-food Industry

Haverkamp Derk-Jan, Bremmers Harry, and Omta Onno 3)
Business Administration Group,
Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University
P.O. Box 8130, 6700 EW Wageningen,

Abstract
This paper aims at investigating the organizational determinants for the development of environmental management (EM) in the Dutch agri-food industry. For sustainability enhancement and public-private policy purposes, it is of vital importance to know how organizational opportunities and barriers relate to the development of EM. The results from a questionnaire survey, focusing on medium-sized and large sized agri-food companies, show that the development of process-oriented EM (focusing on the internal organization of environmental management) depends primarily on external demands (e.g. environmental legislative requirements). In contrast, the development of product-oriented EM (focusing on the governance of supply chain and network) seems to depend largely on various general and environmental organizational characteristics (e.g. corporate culture, influence of the environmental coordinator, internally imposed environmental requirements). Governmental interference seems to stimulate primarily process-oriented EM, whereas product-oriented EM seems largely determined by internal company characteristics.

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