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Results related to Hypothesis 1, namely better financial performance leads to higher level of CER, support slack resources theory. As mentioned earlier, firms with higher level of financial performance have more slack resources (both financial and other ones) to invest on the activities that could enhance level of environmental performance, such as improving community and employ relations. As a result, the level of corporate environmental reputation will increase. The CER measure I selected, namely MAC survey, takes several aspects of CER into account to achieve the ratings. Therefore, even if investing on the programs that related to only one aspect of CER, the total CER rate will increase. All these contribute to explain why there is a positive relationship between prior financial performance and subsequent environmental reputation. Then managers should raise the awareness that it is essential to improve corporate financial performance. Because it is not just financial figures, it could influence other important performances of the corporation, such as environmental reputation.

Results related to Hypothesis 2, namely there is a positive relationship between prior environmental reputation and subsequent financial performance, support good management theory. The results are consistent with the findings of Waddock andGraves(1997). As mentioned above, CER ratings I used are the average scores of nine issues related to environmental performance, including quality of management, quality of service/products, quality of marketing, ability to attract & retain top talent and so on. Then high levels of CER generally represent those companies have better management strategies. For instance, the firms with higher CER might have higher quality products as well as service, and then more customers would be attracted, which leads to sales increase. On the other hand, better relationship with employees, which is also an aspect of CER rating, could attract and retain top talent. This is an advantage of human resources, which can increase productivity, efficiency and reduce cost. What’s more, firms with high CER might have a reputation that attracting more investments. All these contribute to financial performance increase.

Some studies suggested that programs for increase CER also have a cost, which could be a competitive disadvantage. However, it is obvious that the benefits described above will overcome the small amount of CER cost. Thus, CER programs should be a competitive advantage rather than disadvantage. (Waddock and Graves, 1997)

Early studies (eg. Carroll, 1979) defined CSP as ‘a discretionary activity on the part of management’. However, the results reported in this study show that CSP is not a discretionary activity; it is tightly related to management. Therefore, it is essential for senior managers to pay more attention to environmental reputation related activities. And it is necessary to take environmental performance into account, when doing business plan or making a strategical decision. For example, managers should conduct some activities to improve key stakeholder relationships. Annual Celebration is a good way to improve the relationship with key stakeholders by inviting employees, investors and other stakeholders. And more activities that can issue signals to本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。