National Culture,Economic Development,Population Growth
and Environmental Performance: The Mediating Role of Education
Yu-Shu Peng Shing-Shiuan Lin
ABSTRACT.Literature on ethical behavior has paid little attention to the mechanism between macro-environmental variables and environmental performance. This study aims at constructing a model to examine the relationships which link cultural values,population growth,economic development,and environmental performance by incorporating the mediating role of education.The multiple linear regression model was employed to test the hypotheses on a3-year-pooled sample of51countries.Empirical results conclude that national culture,economic development,and population growth would significantly influence environmental per-formance directly.In addition,through the mediating effect of education,population growth and national cul-ture would significantly affect environmental performance indirectly.These findings provide theoretical and mana-gerial implications for constructing the mechanism of cultural values and ethical behavior in general and envi-ronmental management in particular.
KEY WORDS:national culture,environmental perfor-mance,education,cross-cultural,ethical behavior Introduction
Previous studies on environmental performance have showed economic development(e.g.,Husted,2005; Mendelsohn,1994)and demographic growth(e.g., Burns et al.,1994;Husted,2005)are important predictors of environmental degradation of a coun-try.Beyond economic and demographic dimensions, Vitell et al.(1993)highlighted the influence of na-tional culture on ethical decision-making and pro-posed a conceptual model discussing the effects of cultural values on ethical decision-making,as based on the typology of Hofstede(1980).
Utilizing the propositions of Vitell et al.(1993), Husted(2005)verified the hypothesized correlated relationship between national culture and environ-mental performance.Notably,Husted(2005)is one of the few studies to discuss the main effect of national culture on moral behavior at the analytical level of a country among the abundant empirical researches of culture’s consequences for the past two decades. What Husted(2005)contributed helps usfigure out the logic concerning how national culture affects environmental outcome of a country:although the relationship between them seems like fatalism–we could not change our environmental behaviors since our national culture has been predetermined. Reviewing180studies adopting Hoftstede’s national culture framework,Bradley et al.(2006) made recommendations for researchers who will use Hofstede’s framework in the future.One of the proposed recommendations is to include theoreti-cally relevant contextual moderators and mediators. In fact,Carrol and Gannon(1997)has proposed an integrated model of culture and ethical behaviors showing parenting,socialization,education,and religion would be the primary mechanisms of cul-tural transmission.
Compared with more empirical studies focused on contextual moderating effects(e.g.,Husted, 1999,2000,2005),few studies have been concerned with if there is a mediating role between cultural values and their consequences(e.g.,Kirkman and Shapiro,2001;Van Dyne et al.,2000).This disre-gard not only reflects the theoretical gap of national culture but also hinders our understanding of how
Journal of Business Ethics(2009)90:203–219ÓSpringer2009 DOI10.1007/s10551-009-0036-x
