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Over the course of three decades, modern organizations have been the target of escalating criticism from environmentalists (Carson, 1962; Commoner, 1990; Devall & Sessions, 1985; McKibben, 1989; Orr, 1992; Rozak, 1979). Industry continues to face a media: backlash that has heightened public concern over toxic wastes, exposures to environmental disasters and pollution, loss of biodiversity, ozone depletion, and greenhouse warming. Despite the increasing public concern over environmental degradation, the field of business and management studies "betrays little evidence of the influence of environmentalism on business" (Shrivastava, 1994b: 236). Within the universe of management and organization discourse, Shrivastava (1994b) estimated that only a mere 10% of the studies have been concerned with social issues in management or relations between business and the natural environment. Similarly, in the field of American sociology, research on the sociological causes of environmental degradation has been ignored. As Dunlap and Catton (1993) pointed out, between 1970 and 1990 not one article on environmental problems was published in either the American Sociological Review or the American Journal of Sociology--the two mainstream sociological journals.
Our statements should not be interpreted as a grand indictment of organization sciences. On the contrary, we are encouraged by the growing number of scholars whose efforts are now focused on ecologically sustainable organization research as evidenced by the recent formation of the "Organization and Natural Environment" interest group in the Academy of Management and the appearance of this Special Topic Forum. Despite these encouraging developments, it is important to understand why there has been a paucity of research in this area. One of the major reasons for this lack of articles can be attributed to an anthropocentric bias in the field of organization science. For example, based on their review of the major theories of strategic management, Pauchant and Fortier (1992) concluded that such theories were all based on the underpinnings of an anthropocentric ethic. In a similar vein, Shrivastava and Hart (1992) claimed that the central limitation of organizational studies has to do with its narrow, ideological, "de-natured" view of organizational environments. Understandably, Shrivastava (1994a) decries the fact that organizational theorists continue to spin off theories as if nature were an infinitely renewable resource or external commodity.
Anthropocentrism is based on the perception of a fundamental dualism...