741 publications from this institution
Net present value (NPV) is a widely used technique in capital budgeting. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian NPV framework using a Gibbs sampler. This approach allows decision-makers to integrate their knowledge, past experience, and uncertain and volatile cash flows from carbon emissions credits into decisions dealing with energy efficient, sustainable manufacturing equipment. The results indicate NPV is highly dependent on the nature of volatility and uncertainty of the cash flows. Without inclusion of this information through the Bayesian framework results, NPV becomes overstated, and thus it may provide biased guidance for the investment. The results developed in this paper further show that the frequency of very high and low cash flows and to a lesser degree their variability adversely impacts NPV. The results may also explain reasons for the economic phenomenon known as the energy efficiency gap.
Purpose This paper comprehensively and systematically reviews and critiques the product eco-design practice in green supply chain management studies. It seeks to explore drivers, barriers and initiatives of eco-design practice with a specific emphasis on China in comparison to non-China countries. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a systematic literature review approach. It also uses a conceptual thematic landscape of the global eco-design practice along supply chains to critically evaluate published studies. The Web of Science™ Core Collection database is used as the source. Findings Results show that although common factors exist, China exhibits a higher number of barriers, leading to an overall lag in eco-design adoption. China’s advantage lies in pressing market demand, actively engaged human resources and a cooperative culture. Alternatively, non-China countries demonstrate their relative superiority in eco-design tools, knowledge and innovation. Findings also indicate stakeholders simultaneously act as the three roles of eco-design practice in all countries, so do environmental regulations in China. Originality/value A thematic framework is introduced that can be used to further investigate and identify research opportunities. This study aids practitioners take stock of current eco-design management issues. It also includes pertinent recommendations on international eco-design performance improvement. It especially provides significant insights into successful eco-design implementation to green supply chains in China.
The latest IPCC report foreshadows a far gloomier picture of climate change consequences than previously held by demonstrating how avoiding environmental damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.” One of the options to address climate change is adoption of mitigation strategies to reduce carbon emissions on national, sectoral, and corporate levels. This research analyzes mitigation responses by organizations facing institutional and stakeholder pressures while dealing with the risk and opportunities presented by climate change. Our research indicates that different types of institutional pressures—coercive, normative, and mimetic—lead to different and, in certain situations, more active responses from companies. We find that coercive pressures are about equal or more effective than normative or mimetic pressures for adoption of mitigation strategies.
Supplier segmentation is an important strategic activity for companies. The main purpose of segmenting suppliers is to more easily manage a large number of suppliers by formulating relationship management strategies for subsets of suppliers, which is more efficient than separate unique strategies for each supplier. Existing supplier segmentation approaches have paid limited attention to environmentally related criteria. Given the increased importance of sustainable and green supply chains, this points a large gap in the literature. Thus, a green supplier segmentation model is proposed in this study. A supplier potential matrix is used to evaluate suppliers with respect to two dimensions, capabilities and willingness, with respect to environmental issues. Given the multicriteria nature of this problem, a novel hybrid multicriteria methodology is used to evaluate the problem. Rough set theory is used to calculate the weight of each criterion for suppliers' capabilities and suppliers' willingness. VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) is then used to determine an overall score for each supplier. Finally, fuzzy C-means is used to segment the suppliers while considering the overall score for each supplier. An application of the proposed model for suppliers of a large chemical company is used to evaluate the feasibility of this technique.
The integration of enterprise systems and the supply chain to an organization is becoming more critical in an ever-changing, globally competitive environment. Quick response will require close relationships, especially communications and information sharing among integrated internal functional groups as well as the suppliers and customers of an organization. Texas Instruments (TI), headquartered in Dallas, Texas, has come to realize this requirement for building and maintaining its competitive edge. Thus, it sought to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with a focus on linking it with a global electronic commerce (e-commerce) setting, an innovative and current issue (Weston, 2003). Request access from your librarian to read this chapter's full text.
The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are central to future global economic development. However, they are facing both environmental and natural resource stresses due to their rapid economic growth. This study examines the balance between economic benefits and cost of environmental emissions and resource usage in BRICS countries so that future sustainable development insights can be provided. The historical trends of carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), water, land, energy and material footprints of these countries from 1995 to 2015 are evaluated with a multi-regional input-output model. Also, whether a decoupling relationship exists between economic development, environmental emissions and resources consumption, is examined. In addition, whether environmental emissions and resource usage costs to obtain identical economic gains of these countries in global trade are explored. The major results show that in congruence with economic development, the average annual growth rates of footprint indicators ranged from 0.2% in 1995 to 9.8% in 2015. A decoupling effect did not occur for CO2 emissions or water consumption but did exist for other indicators. Global trade across the supply chain shows to achieve a unit of USD economic benefit from trade, BRICS countries tend to use relatively greater environmental emissions and resource consumption to high income countries, when compared to other income level countries. These emergent economies did receive relatively greater benefits per environmental emissions and resource usage cost from lower-middle and low-income countries.
Blockchain technology is an inchoate technology whose current popularity is peaking. Some of the most pervasive blockchain technology use cases exist for supply chains. Sustainable, and especially green, supply chains can benefit from blockchain technology, but there are also caveats. The sustainability and environmental management research and academic literature is only starting to investigate this emergent field. This paper seeks to help advance the discussion and motivate additional practice and research related to green supply chains and blockchain technology. This viewpoint paper provides insight into some of the main dimensions of blockchain technology, an overview of the use cases and issues, and some general research areas for further investigation.
This paper introduces a research framework to identify barriers from a remanufacturing supply chain perspective including strategic (governmental) and operational dimensions. Using responses from expert practitioners in a truck engine remanufacturer in China, a grey-based Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method is applied to examine the cause-effect relationships among various implementation barriers. The results identify that lack of strong financial support for remanufacturing technologies or equipment updates and innovation are key implementation barriers. Lack of quality standards of remanufactured products, adequate availability of used truck engines, and quality guarantee marketing of remanufactured engines are also major barriers.
Purpose Due to the different institutional pressure such as those from market, regulations and competitors, companies have implemented green supply chain management (GSCM). Unfortunately, tens of GSCM practices exist. Whether all companies should implement GSCM and how to achieve both environmental and economic performance are still not clear for many companies. The purpose of this paper is to develop models that can be helpful for companies to identify right GSCM practices and implement GSCM effectively and efficiently. Design/methodology/approach Based on about 18 years of study on GSCM with four surveys in China in 2001, 2005, 2012 and 2016, as well as numerous site visits and interviews mainly in China but also in Japan, Germany and Canada, this paper explores institutional drivers as well as opportunities and challenges using theoretical analysis and case studies. GSCM is defined considering a product life cycle. A key three-step GSCM approach is theoretically developed considering opportunities and challenges through life cycle analysis (LCA) of a product and position of a company. Findings All companies should implement GSCM practices to avoid risks. To effectively implement GSCM practices, a company should understand the life cycle of its product and its position in the supply chain. A key three-step LCA-based approach can help companies to identify the critical GSCM practices. Originality/value A key three-step LCA-based approach for GSCM implementation is originally developed based on theoretical analysis and eight years of study.
To address the issue of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, organizations are involved with emergent markets for trading emission permits. Investment in equipment that reduces emissions may generate emission credits for sale in the market. This article applies real options analysis to actual case study information from British Petroleum-Amoco of a particular project that would generate emissions credits. We conclude that unless permits have a faster price rise than is generally anticipated, certain projects are not economically feasible. The policy implication is that planners may need to set more stringent regulations to bring about their desired result. Additionally, real options analysis in this market based regulatory policy is an especially important tool for the energy industry, which is disproportionately impacted by greenhouse gases policies.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Blockchain technology use cases for supply chains—strategically and operationally—have been highlighted in practice and in research. In this respect, various applications of analytical models have been introduced to understand, analyze and make decisions related to blockchain phenomenon in production, operations, and supply chains. This work has received extensive—and some would argue unprecedentedly--rapid attention within the scholarly community. This early growth sets the stage for large-scale academic research and commercialization. Acknowledging this level of popularity, we provide a critical review of analytical models analyzing the current state-of-the-art research. This includes a synthesis of works that classify different research areas and general analytical model application within each research area. Bibliometric and network analysis tools help identify critical research contributions, key research areas, relationships among analytical models and research areas. Major findings include: (1) analytical models in this field are expanding rapidly; (2) the International Journal of Production Economics has been central to the analytical and production economic modeling research discourse; (3) ten research areas including antecedents, actions, scenarios and consequences are identified from a network analysis; and (4) the relationship between analytical models and research areas is evolving with insight into why and in which direction this work is likely to continue. We identify significant research gaps with great potential for scholarly advancement.
Environmental pressures have caused green supply chain management (GSCM) to emerge as an important corporate environmental strategy for manufacturing enterprises. For manufacturers to fully realise the performance potentials of GSCM, they need to integrate internal GSCM practices emphasising functional coordination with external GSCM practices such as cooperation with suppliers and customers in the implementation. Using coordination theory, this article examines three models used to evaluate the mediation relationships between the external and internal practices of GSCM with respect to environmental, economic, and operational performance. We posit that the strategic stance of manufacturing enterprises in improving their overall performance and competitive position requires a joint coordination of internal and external GSCM practices. Survey data collected from 396 Chinese manufacturing enterprises are used to validate our arguments by testing the mediation effects of two categories of GSCM practices. Our empirical results show support for the mediation effects, which indicates the importance for manufacturers to coordinate between the internal and external aspects of implementing GSCM practices to reap the performance benefits. Coordinating internal and external GSCM practices to seek performance improvements is an important aspect of the manufacturing operations strategy. The dynamics of implementing GSCM practices and the performance contingencies are worthwhile topics to pursue in future research.
In order to advance scientific knowledge, it is important to maintain consistency regarding the methodologies and units/levels of analysis employed to test a theory's main claims. Thus, this investigation provides a critical examination of the papers that have aimed to test the trade-off model and its competing concepts. The analysis focuses on the methodologies used to examine the validity of such models and theories, and also on the operationalisation of the variables that represent the level of analysis by which those theories are tested. To aid in the investigation, a framework to distinguish measures of performance with an internal and external reference and perspective is proposed. The results show that current methodologies, approaches and rationales used to determine the validity of the trade-off model or its rival concepts observe important limitations, as they do not address the trade-off model's core principles. Those limitations in turn make the results of those studies questionable. Consequently, it is proposed that in order to advance theory in our field, more consistent methods and approaches should be utilised.
Greenhouse gas emissions are receiving greater scrutiny in many countries due to international forces to reduce anthropogenic global climate change. Industry and their supply chains represent a major source of these emissions. This paper presents a tactical supply chain planning model that integrates economic and carbon emission objectives under a carbon tax policy scheme. A modified Cross-Entropy solution method is adopted to solve the proposed nonlinear supply chain planning model. Numerical experiments are completed utilizing data from an actual organization in Australia where a carbon tax is in operation. The analyses of the numerical results provide important organizational and policy insights on (1) the financial and emissions reduction impacts of a carbon tax at the tactical planning level, (2) the use of cost/emission tradeoff analysis for making informed decisions on investments, (3) the way to price carbon for maximum environmental returns per dollar increase in supply chain cost.
Critical resources are key for low carbon development. International trade in critical resources is commonplace. It is important to clarify country roles within this trade network so that resource supply risk can be mitigated and low carbon industries can be supported. This study investigates global trade of typical ores and chemical compounds for lithium-ion batteries—lithium carbonate, cobalt oxide, nickel sulfate, manganese sulfate, nickel ore and manganese ore. The period 2010–2018 is selected to explore different country roles using network analysis. A competition trade model is developed to identify relationships between countries. A critical resource influence model is developed using bootstrap percolation theory to simulate impacts arising from dominant countries—those countries with rich resource endowments or mature markets. Results show that dominant countries tend to maintain close trade relationships. Trade scale is a key factor influencing each country's trade competitiveness and influence. Several policy recommendations are proposed to promote sustainable resource trade and use.
Over the past two decades, we have seen a growth in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems adoption by organisations. Even with the many benefits offered by such systems, there have also been many failures. One of the important reasons for these failures is inappropriate project evaluation and selection. In order to reduce the level of project failures, we introduce an innovative methodology, the Financial Appraisal Profile (FAP) model, which seeks to address some of the issues and limitations posed by standard appraisal and evaluation approaches for strategic technologies and programs. By making the right decision in the first place and involving senior managers in the appraisal process, the organisation will be better placed to achieve project success. The adoption of a management team approach to investment appraisals will not only enhance the information base, but will also result in greater managerial commitment to a project. We believe by adopting the FAP model, greater awareness to strategic issues and goals will also be achieved, which should lead to a more focused top management team — with all members pulling in the same direction.
