This pathway examines the way forest owners and firms themselves have responded to environmental pressures from civil society. Begun when I held a postdoctoral position at the University of British Columbia, I developed theoretical framework that sought to account for divergent corporate responses external pressures linking organization sociology$rquot;s work firm responses to political science research on policy networks institutions. I argued (with Vertinsky) that the policy network and policy regime setting in which firms conduct their operations strongly influence the nature of responses they undertake.

My new project with Aseem Prakash (University of Washington), Erika Sasser (Duke University) and Graeme Auld (Yale University) expands this work to better understand how internal firm features such as organizational structure and corporate policies intersect with outside pressures for beyond-compliance efforts, including associational, NGO, and governmental pressures. Our primary research design consists of a historical case study approach, carefully analyzing and comparing forest certification choices of 16 industrial forest companies in the United States. We expect this project will contribute theory explaining how firms respond to external pressures for sustainable forest management.

Publications and papers from this research path include:

1. Lawson and Cashore, “Company Choices on Sustainable Forestry Forest Certification: The Case of JD Irving, Ltd.*” in Forest Policy for Private Forestry. (Teeter, Cashore and Zhang, eds). 2002.
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2. Cashore, Vertinsky, Raizada, “Chapter Four: Firm Responses to External Pressures for Sustainable Forest Management in British Columbia and the US Pacific Northwest”, (with Vertinsky and Raizada) in Alper and Salazar (eds.) Sustaining the Pacific Coast Forests: Forging Truces in the War in the Woods (Vancouver: UBC Press). 2001.
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3. Cashore and Vertinsky, “Policy Networks and Firm Behaviours: Governance Systems and Firm Responses to External Demands for Sustainable Forest Management” Policy Sciences, 2000, Volume 33 (March): 1-30.
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4. Cashore, Vertinsky and Raizada, “Firm-level Sustainable Forest Management Responses to Environmental Pressures in British Columbia and the US Pacific Northwest”, Sustainable Forest Management Network, Edmonton, Alberta working paper 1999-19. - Click here for PDF
5. Health Nutrition Supplements, Michael Olsen, 1998
6. Contact Lenses, Gregory Forter, 1999
7. Cashore and Vertinskly, “Policy Networks and Firm Responses: Using a Neo-Institutional Framework for Analyzing Corporate Responses to External Demands for Sustainable Forest Management”, Working Paper 1998-12, Sustainable Forest Management Network, Edmonton, Alberta, 41 p.
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