TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding project champions' ability to gain intra-organizational commitment for environmental projects
AU - Gattiker, Thomas F.
AU - Carter, Craig R.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to American Society of Safety Engineers and to the University of Nevada's Academy for the Environment for their support of this research. We would also like to thank the AE and reviewers, as well as our colleagues who provided comments during our presentations of this work.
PY - 2010/1
Y1 - 2010/1
N2 - A key enabler of environmental projects is the ability of the project champion to gain commitment to the project from other stakeholders in his or her organization. This paper develops a model of commitment-gaining success that is based on intra-organizational influence theory. The model also includes project payback, customer pressure, government regulation, top management support and the project champion's position in the organizational hierarchy. The model was tested using survey data from 241 environmental professionals describing their attempts to gain the buy-in of purchasing managers, operations managers, industrial engineers and others for environmental projects. The results (obtained from hierarchical regression analysis) show that intra-organizational commitment is positively associated with the project champion's influence behavior-in particular, the champion's use of three influence tactics (inspirational appeals, consultation and rational persuasion) and avoidance of a fourth tactic (ingratiation). Commitment is also positively associated with project payback and with top management support for the environment and negatively associated with environmental regulation. The paper contributes to the OM knowledge base on environmental project implementation by bringing new theory to bear on the topic, by focusing on individual-level, rather than organization-level, variables and by taking a confirmatory, large sample approach which complements extant exploratory research. In addition, the paper contributes to the OM field by evaluating various antecedents to cross-functional integration. The results also provide specific guidance to those who champion environmental projects within their companies.
AB - A key enabler of environmental projects is the ability of the project champion to gain commitment to the project from other stakeholders in his or her organization. This paper develops a model of commitment-gaining success that is based on intra-organizational influence theory. The model also includes project payback, customer pressure, government regulation, top management support and the project champion's position in the organizational hierarchy. The model was tested using survey data from 241 environmental professionals describing their attempts to gain the buy-in of purchasing managers, operations managers, industrial engineers and others for environmental projects. The results (obtained from hierarchical regression analysis) show that intra-organizational commitment is positively associated with the project champion's influence behavior-in particular, the champion's use of three influence tactics (inspirational appeals, consultation and rational persuasion) and avoidance of a fourth tactic (ingratiation). Commitment is also positively associated with project payback and with top management support for the environment and negatively associated with environmental regulation. The paper contributes to the OM knowledge base on environmental project implementation by bringing new theory to bear on the topic, by focusing on individual-level, rather than organization-level, variables and by taking a confirmatory, large sample approach which complements extant exploratory research. In addition, the paper contributes to the OM field by evaluating various antecedents to cross-functional integration. The results also provide specific guidance to those who champion environmental projects within their companies.
KW - Cross-functional interface
KW - Environmental issues
KW - Implementation
KW - Questionnaires/surveys/interviews
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jom.2009.09.001
DO - 10.1016/j.jom.2009.09.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:71349087433
SN - 0272-6963
VL - 28
SP - 72
EP - 85
JO - Journal of Operations Management
JF - Journal of Operations Management
IS - 1
ER -