Interactions between organizational culture,capability, and performance in the technological aspect of society: Empirical research into the Japanese service industry

It has been designated that humans have lost the balance between nature and society, and firms are expected to proactively contribute to a circular economy that minimizes harm to the world. To respond to these issues, this paper investigates the way of balancing environmental protection with corporate profits based on the Porter hypothesis, which is a well-known view on management practice. The hypothesis has been tested in many recent empirical studies, being supported until now; however, studies hardly used the organization theory approach effectively and they are restricted as the technological aspect of society was not treated. Therefore, we incorporate the co-evolutionary dual couplings model and clarify the interaction between the organizational and societal levels. Regarding the former, this study examines the interactions among four variables: environmental protection culture (containing technology), organizational capability, environmental performance, and economic performance, by multivariate analysis with the data of 498 Japanese firms. Regarding the latter, the study proposes a technological shift by employing the concept of the planned obsolescence-driven circular economy.