Dietz and Henry provide three understandings of how context matters in environmental decision
making that are useful in thinking about in relation to organizational decision making as well. First,
context can be understood as how the state of one variable is related to the state of another variable. For
example, Prakash and Potoski (2007) propose that organizational decisions to participate in a voluntary
environmental program are dependent on the ability to make benefits of green club membership excludable
(the Olsonian dilemma) and the potential that the members will shirk their responsibility to meet
club standards, thus jeopardizing potential benefits to all members. The second understanding of context
is “the larger landscapes of local and national government and the local, regional, and global
political economies that shape actions and responses to actions” (Dietz & Henry, 2008, p. 13190).
Theories of political economy of the environment in environmental sociology suggest that governmental
resource management decisions will favor business interests because the government is dependent
on business profits for a tax base (O’Connor, 1973; Schnaiberg, 1980). The third understanding of
context is the social relationships or network in which decision making is embedded. Pulver (2007)
illustrates how oil companies made divergent assessments of the market risks and opportunities related
to climate change because of the different scientific and policy networks they were embedded in rather
than rational economic criteria.