Corporate Spatialization and its Environmental Consequences: The Case of the Chemical Manufacturing Industry

• In Event: 254 - Section on Environment and Technology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Corporations and State Power

Abstract

This paper examines the association between corporate spatialization and its environmental impacts. By corporate spatialization, I refer to the geographic diversification of business operations affiliated with the same parent companies. By highlighting how places are used under the new mode of capitalism, the political economy perspective of sociological inquiry has theorized corporate spatialization as a key mechanism of capital accumulation that enables companies to exploit geographic differences in social institutions, such as environmental regulations. Moreover, delocalized firms are less inclined to advance the general well-being of local communities than locally-based firms. My study thus addresses the question of how corporate spatialization is associated with the environmental performance of chemical manufacturing firms. Using Dun and Bradstreet's Corporate Family Tree Data, I analyzed 71 US-headquartered chemical manufacturing companies and their 1,256 plants in the United States. Parent company-level analysis confirmed that companies with greater spatialization released more hazardous toxic chemicals, even after controlling for their company sizes, primary industries, and the amounts of toxic chemicals used by the company as a whole. In contrast, facility-level analysis failed to demonstrate that delocalized facilities discharged more hazardous chemicals than facilities located in their headquarter states. In addition, according to multilevel analysis, delocalized facilities affiliated with spatialized parent companies appeared to generate greater environmental hazards, but this finding was not statistically significant. Overall, my study partially supports hypotheses about the negative environmental impacts of corporate spatialization.

Author

• Juyoung Lee, Brown University