Determinants of Voluntary Environmentally Sound Technology Adoption and an Assessment of Dynamic Inconsistency in Adoption Decision in Industry in Ethiopia

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Date

2010-05

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A.A.U

Abstract

The assessment of the determinants of the adoption of ESTs and the reasons for not adopting and continuity are explored in this paper. Towards the first question, four dimensions of possible determinants were identified. The variables that came out as most significant in the adoption decision are the ones pertaining to the plant characteristics of the firm. Specifically, the variables in this category are: the environmental commitment of the firm, the form of ownership of the firm as either foreigner owned or not and its arrangement as being either public or private, the technological capability of the firm, the number of years it has been in operation, and the number of employees. This underlines that the diversity of the firms plays a role in determining the EST option they adopt and thus imply the need for environmental policy to account for the heterogeneity of the firms in its design and implementation. This was done using the ordered probit model following the hierarchical nature of the response variables. Towards the second question, the heckman pro bit selection model is used and the results explained in the principal agent framework suggest that the form of management, among other things, does come into play in determining whether the firm continues with ESTs or not once they are adopted. This suggests that incentives or more generally the efficiency of mechanism design determines the effective implementation of a venture embarked upon despite the saving potential promised, and in cases savings earned, following the adoption of the ESTs. This implies the need for environmental policy to take into consideration internal management issues for effective realization of the enviroru11ental policy objectives drawn.

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Determinants of Voluntary Environmentally, Decision in Industry in Ethiopia

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