ABSTRACT Drawing on institutional theory, we examine how distinct forms of national‐level normative pressures shape the global diffusion of B Corp certification, a leading voluntary sustainability standard. We differentiate policy‐driven, information‐driven, and environment‐driven pressures arising from climate policy, sustainable movement organizations (SMOs), and natural disasters, respectively. Using panel data on 9796 initial B Corp certifications across 92 countries from 2007 to 2023, we test how these pressures independently and jointly influence certification uptake worldwide. We find that each pressure is positively associated with diffusion. However, environmental turbulence weakens the positive association between policy‐driven pressure and certification uptake, while the influence of information‐driven pressure remains robust under such conditions. These findings point to institutional reconfiguration under environmental turbulence: Disruptions do not uniformly intensify institutional pressures but instead shift, which actors shape adoption, dampening regulatory momentum while leaving information‐driven pressures largely intact. By disaggregating normative pressures into stakeholder‐specific mechanisms, we enrich institutional theory by explaining how environmental turbulence reshapes the drivers of global B Corp certification diffusion.
Pollmeier et al. (Thu,) studied this question.