Organizational Culture, Professional Role Conceptions and Local Swedish Decision-makers' Views on Climate Policy Instruments

Sweden aims at decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by four per cent by 2008–2012 from the 1990 level. The different measures to achieve this effectively involve local-level organizations. A survey was made among 356 local public and private officers in south-western Sweden to tap respondents' views on different aspects of the climate issue. Regression models were used to investigate the impact of (a) environmental concern and (b) organizational and societal norms on (c) support of policy measures against greenhouse gas emissions, where measures were categorized according to perceived level of acceptability. Here, those easily accepted are defined as low-cost, and those not so easily accepted as high-cost strategies. Overall results indicate that acceptance of climate policy measures depends on both organizational affiliation—where you ‘sit’—and professional role—what you ‘do’. With respect to where you ‘sit’, there is a strong correlation between (1) views of the seriousness/threat of climate change, the relevance of climate change to respondents' own organization and (2) organizational norms, societal norms and (3) willingness to accept low- and high-cost strategies for both private and public organizations. Finally, the results show that professional roles have an influence over and above organizational affiliation on the acceptance of both low-cost and high-cost climate policy measures.