راهبرد زیست محیطی و هم ترازی در یک اقتصاد گذار محدود:تحقیقات تجربی بر روی کاربرد آن در شرکت های دولتی ایران Environment-Strategy and Alignment in a Restricted, Transitional Economy: Empirical Research on its Application to Iranian State-Owned Enterprises

A transition economy is one that is changing from a state-controlled business environment towards a less-restricted market, and a greater need for entrepreneurship and innovation to survive global competition (Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2010, 531). In the last two decades, countries in transition have sought to embrace market capitalism and abandon centralized planning. Despite successful transition cases, such as China, Vietnam, Russia and India (Guo, 2004), it appears that transitional economies in restricted markets can face severe short-term difficulties as well as constraints in business development. For example, they are more likely to experience challenges such as rising unemployment and price inflation, all of which impact upon company performance. However, a nation’s culture may influence its business systems and performance, “a country institutional profile can serve as a viable alternative for exploring broad country differences” (Busenitz et al., 2000, 1000), and there are inherent national characteristics that may impact upon government policy as well as business practice (Hofstede, 2007). In this respect, organizations are defined as “regulative, normative, and cognitive structures with activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior” (Scott, 1995, 33). These three distinctive but related institutional profiles, or regulatory, cognitive and normative dimensions, can influence government policy as well as the company business environment (Peng, 2003). A regulatory dimension is based on formal rule systems, laws, regulations, government policies and enforcement mechanisms endorsed by the state (Busenitz et al., 2000; North, 1994). This regulatory dimension focuses on government policies and programs that provide advice and support for new businesses, offering grants and assistance to reduce the risks for startups, and leverage to facilitate entrepreneurs’ efforts to acquire resources. On the other hand, a cognitive dimension is based on the widely shared social knowledge and skills possessed by the people in a country, as they strive to set up a new business and maintain those already established. The third normative dimension puts more emphasis on entrepreneurial activity, and value creative and innovative thinking (Busenitz et al., 2000). In other words, organizations in transitional economies are likely to have a distinctive, regulatory business environment to deal with as well as the normative and cognitive dimensions that reflect any inherent national characteristics towards entrepreneurship, learning and innovation (Hofstede, 2007). Moreover, in transitional economies, innovation and learning orientation transformation may become critical factors, since the old state-owned industries (SOEs) must move to become competitive in a new, global market economy (Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2010). However, most of our knowledge about SOEs originates from research conducted in emerging economies such as China, where organizations have adapted to meet the demands of a global business environment (Ren et al., 2006; Tan and Tan, 2005; Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2010). In fact, SOEs dominate Chinese economy and, combined with other companies and government units in a closed system, they generate more than 80% of the country’s gross national product GDP (Bao et al., 2006). But, unlike SOEs in China, where the market environment mimics the competitiveness of Western economies, supported by foreign direct investment (Lin and Germain, 2003; Souitaris, 2001), the situation is very different for Iran, since despite recent government reforms, these companies still face UN economic sanctions. Although protected by the government, their isolation from environmental turbulence and global market competition severely restricts operations and performance in the long-term, if they are unable to trade outside the country. Furthermore, the managers of Iranian companies are selected by the state, often because they have a high social status rather than experience running organizations, so they may be ill-prepared to develop an appropriate strategy for innovation and learning as the business environment changes. In this respect, Iranian business appears to differ from that in the world’s largest transitional economies, such as China, Russia and India, where companies have a relatively stable internal market-based economic environment that serves as a platform for trade in the global marketplace (Peng, 2003; Zhou et al., 2005). In this context, it is important to examine the strategic orientation of these companies, since this reflects how they respond to internal and external environmental factors, in terms of innovation, learning and performance (Gatignon and Xuereb, 1997; Tajeddini, 2011a; Zhou et al., 2005).