@article {24442, title = {Does Adoption of Management Standards Deliver Efficiency Gain in Firms{\textquoteright} Pursuit of Sustainability Performance? An Empirical Investigation of Chinese Manufacturing Firms}, journal = {SustainabilitySustainability}, volume = {8, 694}, number = {694}, year = {2016}, pages = {1-18}, abstract = {Building on longitudinal data from 73 Chinese manufacturing firms during 2009{\textendash}2012,
we assess whether and how firms gain higher efficiency in achieving their sustainability goals by
adopting management practice standards (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and/or OHSAS 18001). We propose
four pathways for firms to gain sustainability efficiency in their certification journey: participation,
qualitative integration, quantitative expansion, and temporal accumulation. Our results confirm that
firms certifying management standards gain higher efficiency in pursuing their sustainability goals
than firms without these standards. We also find some support for increased efficiency effect in firms
with diverse management systems over firms with only a single certificate in 2011. Finally, our results
highlight the experiential and temporal accumulation effect of such efficiency gains, that is, firms with
prior certification experience or having a longer certification history demonstrate higher efficiency
gains in pursuing their sustainability goals.}, author = {Wang, Xiaoling and Lin, Haiying and Weber, Olaf} }