Paper Title
Proactive Vs Reactive Environmental Strategies: A Study of their Motives and Performance Implications in China

Abstract
Ever since Hart’s (1995) seminal work on the natural resource-based view of the firm (NRBV), many environmental management scholars have contended for the strategic superiority of proactive (vs. reactive) environmental strategies. Despite the popularity of this academic advocacy, empirical investigations on the performance implications of these two strategies are surprisingly limited and mainly confined to the field of manufacturing management (e.g., Endrikat et al., 2014). Moreover, the findings from this limited research are mixed (Sarkis and Cordeiro, 2001; Klassen and Whybark, 1999), thus leading to doubts about if it is really strategically favorable for firms to proactively deal with environmental issues all the time (Aragon-Correa and Rubio-Lopez, 2007).