| Can voluntary Environmental Management System (EMS) programs change the mind of business on issues of the environment? Environmental protection is a recalcitrant problem that has been discussed for decades. When faced with a resistant problem, one can question whether it has been properly conceptualized. The purpose of this study is to offer a new way of seeing the environmental protection problem by raising attention to the impact attitudes have on ecological worldviews.; Within the past several years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been pressured by business and industry to consider policy that recognizes voluntary approaches to environmental management. When it comes to environmental management, hope has been placed on a voluntary program called the International Standard Organization (ISO) 14000 Environmental Management System (EMS). Because EMS programs are voluntary, they rely upon an attitude change or a changed worldview. Therefore, this research is interested in discovering whether a relationship exists between the ISO 14000 EMS and the ecological attitudes of environmental managers. For an affirmative answer, one would expect some differences in attitudes between companies that have accepted the ISO 14000 EMS and those that haven't.; The study employed a survey and interview technique. The survey was designed to look at environmental attitudinal differences between environmental managers in two groups (ISO 14000 and Non-initiative companies). Differences would indicate that the ISO 14000 system has some relationship with attitudes. The quantitative research findings confirmed the overall hypotheses that there are no significant attitudinal differences between ISO 14000 and Non-initiative company subjects.; Following the survey analysis, interviews were conducted with a criterion selected group of environmental managers to interpret and explore the quantitative findings. The findings suggest that when the subjects were forced to address problems outside of a familiar paradigm, they operated at a novice level and had a difficult time knowing how to proceed in solving environmental problems.; The research concludes that EPA plans to adopt the ISO 14000 environmental management system must be carried out with care and with a clear expectation that the current ISO 14000 program may not be conducive to making substantial ecological worldview changes. |
