Influence Of EPA Policy Uncertainty: Upon Market Innovation For Environmentally Related Products

Grounded by Contingency Theory, the study focuses on the impact of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory action on market innovation. Based upon detailed interview from eighty one marketing executives representing both the industry and non-industry, the study identifies fourteen different uncertainty categories relating to EPA regulations. The results indicate a very high level of perception within the government regulatory action posing a significant risk to ecologically related innovation among industrial firms. Early contingency theorists (e.g., Burns and Stalker 1961) studied the relation between the environment and structure at a macro level of analysis.