Ecologicalization motivations of resources enterprises in the Pan-Qaidam pilot economic zone of Qinghai Province, West China

Abstract Enterprise eco-development is one of the effective ways to resolve the conflicts between resources exploitation and environment protection, and to realize sustainable development. A sound understanding of enterprise ecological motivation is a prerequisite and foundation of promoting enterprise ecologicalization. This study analyzes the level of eco-development of 12 resources-based enterprises in the Pan-Qaidam economic pilot area so as to determine influential motivators and to identify their eco-development paths using the entropy TOPSIS method. The results show that the level of motivation is generally low and uneven among the 12 enterprises. Enterprise ownership affects enterprise ecological motivation in the pulling force of eco-culture only. The top three motivators are the leading-force of government, the driving force of science and technology, and the pulling force of market. The remaining important motivation factors are mostly internal, including the driving force of enterprise innovation, the guiding force of eco-culture, and the induced force of interest, even though internal motivation is weaker than external motivation. In general, the 12 enterprises have an uneven distribution in their level of eco-development. The majority of them (8) fall into the type I model (weak internal and external motivation) of development, with 3 and 1 in the type II (weak internal but strong external motivation) and type III (strong internal but weak external motivation) models, respectively, without any in type IV (strong internal and external motivation). This situation can be remedied through four recommendations.