ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: MULTIPLE CASE STUDIES

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to analyze the insertion of environmental management in theorganizational structure of 9 Brazilian companies, in search of a better relationship with the environment.Further, we intend to show an agenda with research opportunities for future research in this area ofknowledge. A theoretical review of the relationship between environmental management and organizationalstructure was done. This theoretical review was the big picture to development of 9 case studies withISO14001 certified companies located in São Paulo State. The results show that: (a) for all the cases,environmental management is under quality management area; (b) only two companies adopt moreadvanced environmental management practices and these two companies have more complex organizationalstructure; (c) only two companies have the environmental management structure named “matrix”, while theother companies have the type named “limited environmental management insertion”; (d) it is possible todevelop a framework designed to understanding the process of greening organization to the 9 cases in study.Further these results, we designed a research agenda as a guide to future research initiatives.