Author Description

"Environmental regulation in China is not really different from that in the rest of the world, except that environmental authorities are relatively new and less established. In order to understand why corporate environmental performance has hardly improved despite the existing regulatory framework, empirical research on high-level executives' perceptions of environmental protection is essential. This unique book analyses and interprets Chinese managers' perceptions of environmental management and regulatory enforcement practices in Chinese enterprises. Most importantly, it identifies the bottlenecks to environmental protection in Chinese firms. It includes a detailed analysis of the needs for management training (for example, CEO and executive development and MBA education) in China and presents a roadmap of how they can be met. Finally, it presents two case studies that illustrate how Chinese corporations currently react to a wide range of different environmental challenges, including hardening regulatory pressure, competition and lack of capital. Based on an innovative research project sponsored by the UNESCO/UNDP offices in Beijing and undertaken by the Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland and the Business School of the Academy of Science and Technology (USTC), Hefei, China, Greening Chinese Business provides the first hard empirical evidence of how Chinese managers view environmental protection. Over 300 companies-both state-owned enterprises and SMEs-took part in the research. Key findings includeAround 70% of managers surveyed admit moderate or even heavy environmental impact (this is a subjective assessment without an external benchmark). Furthermore, they indicate that the lack of environmental performance is primarily due to insufficient managerial expertise, capital and employment-related protectionism. Managers hesitate to take necessary action to upgrade technical equipment, because, although decreasing pollution, upgrading w