External Pressures or Internal Governance – What Determines the Extent of Corporate Responses to Climate Change?

To prevent adverse effects from climate change, it is vital to involve the private sector in mitigation efforts. So far, however, research has insufficiently addressed the determinants of corporate action in specific industries. Our paper aims at bridging this gap by empirically analyzing the global automotive industry's response to climate change mitigation issues. We use publicly available information from 105 sector leaders to investigate the role of external institutional pressures and intra‐organizational governance in the extent of corporate action. Based on a multiple regression analysis, we find that organizational involvement and the integration of climate change into risk management exhibit the greatest influence. Moreover, companies with business activities that necessitate interaction with the end consumer tend to be most active. Our analysis furthermore indicates that neither the stringency of a firm's home country's climate policy regime nor the degree of internationalization is associated with a higher implementation level of response strategies. © 2017 The Authors. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.