Publications

Presents the introductory editorial for this issue of the publication.

Environmental advocates maintain that waste minimization, recycling, remanufacturing and other environmental practices will greatly enhance the “bottom-line” for organizations. We investigate the differential relationships between (separately) pollution prevention and end-of-pipe efficiencies with short-run financial performance (measured using return on sales (ROS)). After controlling for both firm size and financial leverage, we find that for 482 US firms in 1992, pollution prevention and end-of-pipe efficiencies are both negatively related to ROS, and that this negative relationship is larger and more significant for pollution prevention efficiencies.

Ecoefficiency is the evaluation of an organization's ecological (or environmental) efficiency. This topic has come under increasing scrutiny by a variety of stakeholders, of which the organization itself is one. Eco efficiency is meant to determine how well an organization uses its resources. This is not only important from an economic basis, but also from an environmental and social basis. Sustainability measures for organizational eco efficiency measurement are currently under investigation and development. To help evaluate these measures, data envelopment analysis (DEA) can be used. DEA is a quantitative multifactor productivity measurement tool that has gained much attention in the operations research and application literature. DEA has proven quite useful for a number of managerial decision problems and research questions, but it has been rarely applied within the realm of corporate environmental management. The limited application of DEA for environmental issues provides fertile ground for its use as both a research and a practical tool.

The purchasing function is central to the strategic operations of effective supply chain management. This centrality is mainly due to the significant impact of material costs on profits, increased investments in inter-organizational advanced manufacturing and information technologies, and a growing emphasis on the just-in-time operations philosophy. The critical business processes of the purchasing function include supplier selection, negotiation of supply contracts, monitoring supplier performance, and acting as an interface between an organization and its suppliers. Within these core processes of purchasing, this paper narrows its scope to focus upon the supplier performance evaluation and monitoring process, which assists in maintaining effective customer-supplier linkages. While price has been traditionally considered as the single most important factor in evaluating suppliers, it has been agreed upon that value performance emphasis needs to include other important factors such as quality, delivery and flexibility. Given this evolving business competitiveness environment, the contribution of this research is threefold. First, it applies a new multi-criteria evaluation model for supplier performance evaluation by considering various performance criteria. Second, a proposed application extension of this model serves as a monitoring and control mechanism for the performance of suppliers, thus supporting continuous process improvement to achieve efficient customer-supplier relationships. Third, the paper presents this technique as a new methodological extension to data envelopment analysis research by improving the discriminatory power of an existing variable returns to scale model. The model and its application are demonstrated through a previously published illustrative case example.

Academics, politicians, professionals and the general public are aware that without stewarding our planet's natural resources, man is on the pathway towards a global collapse. Over the next three decades mankind is expected to consume an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year – three times current consumption. Social welfare and human wellbeing are threatened with the scarcity of natural resources; consequently, nations and their societies are also at risk of collapse. The readers of this special volume will find a compilation of scholarly research papers with real-life applications that take the challenge of proposing decision-making models and tools to address sustainability challenges in integrative ways. The main focus of this special volume is integration of sustainability dimensions (economic, social, environmental, ethical and time) into decision-support models and to identify pathways to achieve more sustainable societies. The majority of the research in this special volume, 74 percent, focuses on environmental and economic dimensions. Only 26 percent integrated social dimensions with them. Methodologically, a range of mathematical models and tools are presented to support prescriptive decision-making, with some descriptive models integrated, to support decision-makers in solving practical problems across a variety of industries and scenarios. The breadth and complexity of issues facing organizations and society requires innovative applications of these methodologies. The concerns cover a spectrum ranging from energy to solid waste management. A multitude of levels from broad-based policy concerns to strategic inter-organizational sustainable supply chain management and significantly, shop floor operational issues are also covered. The variety of problems and solutions exemplifies the potential for modelling and operations research for addressing some of our world's most pressing concerns.

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.

Environmental management, to be effective, requires performance evaluation and process improvement. This is especially the case in fossil-fueled electricity generating plants. Although eco-efficient management of these types of organizations are critical to local, national and global environmental issues, few studies have focused on performance measurement and eco-efficiency improvements in this industry. This study evaluates the eco-efficiencies of the top 100 major U.S. fossil-fueled electricity generating plants from 1998 data. Using a multi-criteria non-parametric productivity model (data envelopment analysis) efficiency scores are determined. These efficiency scores are treated by a clustering method in identifying benchmarks for improving poorly performing plants. Efficiency measures are based on three resource input measures including boiler generating capacity, total fuel heat used, and total generator capacity, and four output measures including actual energy generated, SO2, NOx, and CO2 emissions. The purpose of this paper is two-fold, to introduce the methodology's application to eco-efficiency performance measurement and show some characteristics of the benchmarked plants and groups.

This paper provides an overview of environmental (green) supply chain management. The overview includes a categorization of research and practice in purchasing, manufacturing, outbound, and reverse logistics dimensions.

This issue of EMR provides a number of articles that can support building windmills to harness the changing winds.

Brazil, one of the world’s largest developing countries, has recently introduced a new solid waste management regulatory policy. This new regulatory

Supplier performance management and continuous improvement play an important role for organizational and supply chain development. Many broad-based empirical studies have provided insights into the relationships of supplier development practices to supplier performance. Yet, specific tools available for organizations to internally evaluate such relationships are limited. To help further the research and development of decision tools in this area, we introduce a multi-method approach relying on grey system theory and rough set theory that can help organizations identify the important practices and programs related to suppliers’ performance. Our contribution includes introduction of a methodological approach for evaluating supplier development programs and identification of effective programs and relationships. Implications and results interpretation of the methodology, limitations and future research directions, further expanding the methodology and its applications, conclude the paper.

Environmental regulations are important organizational strategic drivers. Environmental regulatory mechanisms include “carrots” or “sticks”—they can be incentive or coercion‐based. This study empirically investigates stock market reactions to various environmental regulatory mechanisms. Using a sample of 334 environmental regulatory events reported by 212 listed Chinese firms between 2010 and 2020, we find that monetary reward has a greater positive market reaction towards governmental reward than non‐monetary reward. We also find that governmental operational disruption penalties have a greater negative market reaction than operational non‐disruption penalties. Governmental levels of the environmental regulation implementation subject do not play a moderating role in the relationship between governmental regulations and firm market value. These findings provide various policy and organizational insights as businesses seek to meet legitimacy gains in response environmental regulatory mechanisms.

Limited research has been completed using formal modelling to investigate a firm's entry mode decisions. Addressing this issue, we formulate Dunning's eclectic model as a game theoretic problem. We develop a novel three-stage game theory model to investigate the relationships and nuances of the core constructs of the eclectic model, i.e., ownership advantage, location advantage and internalisation (OLI). We develop an equilibrium solution to identify the optimal entry decisions for firms entering new markets using a two firm-two country scenario when parameters including ownership advantage of firms, market size, production cost and country risks are varied. The results obtained provide insight for future research as well as having significant practical implications.

Purpose This study proposes a systematic and comprehensive circular economy (CE) performance measure as an instrument to operationalize and quantify circularity. It seeks to evaluate the relative contribution of blockchain technology to evaluate various measures in this study. A general research agenda for investigating blockchain capabilities to performance assessment in CE is presented. Design/methodology/approach Empirical survey data from 32 CE and blockchain experts are collected to inform this study. Inductive reasoning, heatmaps, and a middle-range theory building approach are utilized to generalize theoretical patterns for blockchain support of CE performance assessment and measurement. A series of propositions are then developed as a middle-range theory for the true, false, perceptible, and hidden affordances of blockchain technology capabilities for CE performance measurement. Findings Overall, sixteen performance measures and metrics are identified and examined. The authors find most of these measures and metrics – based on literature and expert opinion – can be supported using blockchain technology capabilities. Four major blockchain capabilities, transparency and traceability, reliability and security, smart contracts, and incentivization and tokenization are shown to have varying potential support for CE performance assessment. There needs to be an evaluation of true, false, perceptible, and hidden affordances of blockchain technology capabilities for CE performance measurement in future studies. Originality/value Blockchain application for CE, and specifically performance measurements, is a new area. Research and practice evaluation on this issue is important but needs substantially additional investigation to help CE progress. This study provides a framework for evaluation and a foundation for future research at the nexus of CE, blockchain technology, and performance measurement.

Organizations realize that a strong supporting logistics or electronic logistics (e-logistics) function is important from both commercial and consumer perspectives. The implications of e-logistics models and practices cover the forward and reverse logistics functions of organizations. They also have direct and profound impact on the natural environment. This paper will focus on a discussion of forward and reverse e-logistics and their relationship to the natural environment. After discussion of the many pertinent issues in these areas, directions of practice and implications for study and research are then described.

There has been an increasing amount of research on personnel selection in many business disciplines (Hough & Oswald, 2000; Breaugh & Starke, 2000). Research on internal auditor selection, however, has had limited exposure in the auditing literature (Bailey, Gramling, & Ramamoorti, 2003). Recently, Seol and Sarkis (2005) introduced an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model that used a decision hierarchy based on the CFIA (competency framework for internal auditing) framework. A limitation of AHP, however, is the assumption of strict hierarchical relationship that needs to exist among factors. The purpose of this paper is an introduction of a more robust model, the analytical network process (ANP), which relaxes the strict hierarchical and decomposition levels of the hierarchy and incorporates possible interrelationships and interdependencies of various personnel selection criteria, factors, and alternatives. In illustrating the application, we return to the CFIA model framework, describe how and where interdependencies exist amongst the CFIA factors/attributes, and how ANP is used in the internal auditor selection process. The illustration will also describe some sensitivity analysis for the ANP approach. The tool is not without its limitations that include the potential for geometrically more questions and information elicitation from the decision makers. Finally managerial and research implications associated with the technique and results are described.