Kasim, Azilah. (2007). \"Corporate Environmentalism

Kasim, Azilah. (2007). "Corporate Environmentalism in the Hotel Sector: Evidence of Drivers and Barriers in Penang, Malaysia." Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 15(6), 680-699.

The author uses hotel development in an environmentally sensitive area of Malaysia as a sort of a case study to determine the encouragements and challenges in developing corporate environmentalism in developing-world tourist trades generally. He begins by providing background on the link between tourism and environmental sustainability, as well as identified provisions that could theoretically influence a corporation's increasing sense of environmentalism and environmental activism. Fieldwork attempted to distinguish between regulatory, community/employee, and sectoral pressure and identify the levels and interactions of these pressures through an interview phase to determine the state of corporate environmentalism in Malaysia, and a data collection phase to determine the drivers and barriers of this environmentalism.

The general and specific research methodologies described here are sound and well-documented; the author used established methods for gathering background information and in data collection. His approach to qualitative data analysis from field notes and other observational data was likewise well established and clearly laid out in the article, improving the reliability of the results and the understanding of the approaches employed that led to the specific conclusions of the author. The codifying and sorting of qualitative data without reduction to pure quantitative status is essential to coming to an accurate understanding of this issue, and the patterns identified by the author in his data reflect the care and the large measure of success that the researcher achieved in this particular aspect of the qualitative study.

The author's research suggested that there were only two driving forces behind corporate environmentalism in Penang, Malaysia. The first of these fits previous findings of a "top-down" system where in corporate executives mandate greening, and it is carried out by lower level managers. Kasim notes that only one chain currently has such a corporate mandate, however, and cites its likely strategic motivation. Other hotel chains in the area do not possess the "win-win" attitude of environmental responsibility. The only other factor identified as a driver of corporate environmentalism is the governments inclusion of environmental consciousness in hotels' ratings, but this does not even amount to regulation. And while regulation exists, it is not stringent, well-enforced, or effective. Barriers, meanwhile, include the rapid rate of growth in Malaysia's tourism industry and its attempt to define a unique tourism identity. Rapid overgrowth will increase competition and lead to increased cost-cutting, which tends to precipitate greater environmental impacts. There is also a general lack of conviction concerning corporate environmentalism and a lack of supporting infrastructure evident in the region.