Business Compliance with Environmental Regulations in Chemical Industries in Ireland

This study seeks to establish the nature of business compliance with environmental regulations in the Irish Chemical industry. The research will focus on studying the relationship between environmental regulations and business determinants, how compliance with environmental regulations affects business performance, and determinants of compliance to environmental regulations.

Running head: BUSINESS COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS
IN CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND
Business Compliance with environmental regulations in chemical industries in Ireland
Student Name
Institution

BUSINESS COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IN CHEMICAL
INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND 2
Proposed title: Business Compliance with environmental regulations in chemical industries
in Ireland
Purpose statement
Following a period of rapid economic development and growth, Ireland has been faced
with challenges of balancing between environmental sustainability and economic
development. The Irish government in line with the Environmental Protection Agency Act of
1992 established Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in July 1993. The EPA had a
responsibility to ensure that businesses and other organizations comply with the
environmental laws. The body is focussed on ensuring that the country engages in sustainable
development by protecting the government. EPA ensures that adequate information is
provided to the business and environment stakeholders to ensure that necessary
environmental decisions are taken (EPA, 2012).
The EPA requires firms operating in the chemical industries to complete an
environmental impact assessment (EIA). Firms are only allow to operate in Ireland upon the
approval of their EIA reports. Likewise, firms are also required to prepare a report
committing themselves of their compliance with the environmental laws and regulations.
Firms that fail to comply with the established rules are met with maximum monetary
penalties as well as sanctions (EPA, 2012).
Despite the efforts that have put in place by the EPA, existing evidence shows that
established environmental regulations have not succeeded in dealing with business
compliance. The non-compliance basis have been proved in the following areas. First, many
goals set by the EPA had not been met. And second, there is low level of compliance from
chemical, leather, paper and food industry (EPA, 2012).

BUSINESS COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IN CHEMICAL
INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND 3
Several studies have been conducted in the attempt to determine business Compliance
with environmental regulations in Ireland. The previous studies have shown a strong
relationship between business compliance and environmental regulations. According to the
conventional economic theories, firms tend to choose the most profitable strategies when
making compliance decisions (Khanna & Anto, 2002) (Barnea, Heinkel, & Kraus, 2005). The
theories are classified into three groups namely the production efficiency, social and market
pressure, and regulatory responses. According to the production efficiency theory,
compliance with environmental regulations by businesses is a win-win situation (Khanna &
Anto, 2002). Firms have an opportunity of protecting or improving environmental
performance while cutting their operating cost. By adopting environmental friendly
processes, firms tend to improve their production efficiency, stimulate profitability, and
reduce losses arising from failure to comply with environmental regulations (Blackman,
2012).
According to the social and market pressure theory businesses are forced to comply
with environmental regulations because of the pressure coming from competitors, consumers,
society, and investors. Companies tend to comply with the environmental regulations as a
way of reducing the competition level in the industry (Barnea, Heinkel, & Kraus, 2005).
Considering that consumers have become conscious about the environment, firms that fail to
adopt environmentally friendly production are likely to lose customers to their competitors.
Likewise, firms use environmentally friendly production processes as a differentiation tool to
gain more consumers. Moreover, investors tend to support sustainable development which
force firms to abandon polluting technologies for clean technologies (Barnea, Heinkel, &
Kraus, 2005). The switching cost for investors is low hence firms that fail to comply with
environmental regulation risk losing green investors. Therefore, firms ought to become

BUSINESS COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IN CHEMICAL
INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND 4
socially responsible by protecting the environment to enjoy numerous benefits for a long time
(Dao & Ofori, 2010).
Lastly, regulatory responses theory state that companies comply with environmental
laws to respond to the pressure arising from legal institutions and government agencies.
Firms comply with regulations to avoid looming threats or enjoy perceived benefits in the
long run (Khanna & Anto, 2002). Internally, there are several factors that push businesses to
comply with environmental regulations. These factors include organisational culture,
managerial incentives, moral concern and organisational identity among others (Cole, Elliott,
& Shimamoto, 2005).
However, the previous studies are imprecise and incomplete because they rely on self-
reported information by respective firms. Likewise, most of the studies used small samples
which could not be generalised. Lastly, there is no comprehensive studies that have been
conducted on business compliance with environmental regulation in the Irish chemical
industry. Thus this study seek to address the present weaknesses.
Research Hypotheses / Research Objectives
The general objective of the proposed research shall be to establish the nature of
business compliance with environmental regulations. According to previous studies, there is
strong correlation between the success of businesses and compliance with environmental
regulations. Therefore, the study will test the correlation between business performance and
compliance with environmental regulations in the Irish Chemical industry (Blumberg,
Cooper, & Schindler , 2014).

BUSINESS COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IN CHEMICAL
INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND 5
Research objectives has been framed as questions as shown below:
a) To what degree do the firms comply with the environmental regulations, in current
situation of Ireland?
b) What are the major incidents regarding failures of environmental protection in
business?
c) What are the genuine substantive instances of successful innovative environmental
management in organisations?
d) What are the affecting variables and determinants of the inventive examples of
overcoming adversity?
e) In what manner can environmental regulations bolster the impacting factors?
f) What recognizes the innovative environmental strategy from the traditional
management of environmental issues?
Type of Design
The researcher seek to address the research topic by following descriptive research
design. Descriptive research design is based on addressing the research question by
describing the phenomenon or situation under the study (Machi & McEvoy, 2016). Data
collection tools are designed, data is collected, analysed and presented in a descriptive
manner. Data will be collected by administering questionnaires to individual respondents.
Moreover, follow up individual depth interviews will also be conducted where additional
information is deemed necessary (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2015).
Considering limited time and resources, the research will follow cross-sectional studies
where different variables will be analysed at the same time. The research will focus on
studying the relationship between environmental regulations and business determinants, the

BUSINESS COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IN CHEMICAL
INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND 6
how compliance with environmental regulations affect business performance and
determinants of compliant to environmental regulations at the same time (Machi & McEvoy,
2016). The participants will be selected using Simple Random Sampling technique.
Questionnaires will be emailed to 150 participants while 50 participants will be conducted
using face to face interviews (Blumberg, Cooper, & Schindler , 2014).
Research Population
According to the data held by the Irish Central Statistics Office, the country has
approximately 10,000 operating chemical firms. The sample size was obtained using the
Raosoft sample size calculator formula which is based on the Cochran’s Sample Size
Formula. Based on a 5% margin of error, 95% confidence level, 50% response distribution
and a population of 10,000, a sample size of 370 was obtained. However, considering factors
such as time and availability of resources, the research concluded that a sample size of 200
would be a good representative of the population (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2015).
Equipment.
Written confirmation letters of commitment will be sent to the participants to seek their
consent before surveys are sent to them or before conducting face to face interviews. Physical
database will also be used to access the firms in the industry. Finally, Digital recording
devices will be used to record information during face to face interviews.

BUSINESS COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IN CHEMICAL
INDUSTRIES IN IRELAND 7
References
Barnea, A., Heinkel, A., & Kraus, A. (2005). Green investors and corporate investment.
Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 16(3): 332-346.
Blackman, A. (2012). Does Eco-certification boost regulatory compliance in developing
countries? Journal of Regulatory Economics , 42(3): 242-263.
Blumberg, B., Cooper, D. R., & Schindler , P. S. (2014). Business Research Methods. New
York: McGraw Hill.
Cole, M., Elliott, R., & Shimamoto, K. (2005). Industrial characteristics, environmental
regulations, and air pollution: An analysis of the UK manufacturing sector. Journal of
Environmental Economics and Management , 50(1):121-143.
Dao, M., & Ofori, G. (2010). Determinants of firm compliance to environmental laws: A case
study of Vietnam. Asia Europe Journal , 8(1): 91-112.
EPA. (2012). Focus on Environmental Enforcement in Ireland. Ireland: Environmental
Protection Agency.
Khanna, M., & Anto, W. (2002). Corporate environmental management: Regulatory and
market-based incentives. Land Economics, 78(4): 539-558.
Machi, L. A., & McEvoy, B. T. (2016). The Literature Review: Six Steps ToSuccess .
London, UK: Corwin / Sage Publishing Company.
Saunders, M. N., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2015). Research Methods for Business Students.
New Jersey: Financial Times Prentice Hall.