741 publications from this institution
Purpose This paper seeks to introduce a conceptual methodology to support decisions about environmental systems. Design/methodology/approach The methodology incorporates activity‐based costing and management, the analytic hierarchy process, and business process modeling using the IDEF0 method. Findings An illustrative example that applies the methodology to a semiconductor manufacturing facility is presented in the paper. The company used the results to analyze a process improvement. Research limitations/implications The complexities and nuances of the approach will require facilitation and support. Making the technique more transparent and available to management is a barrier to its diffusion and application. Practical implications Potential managerial application and implications include areas such as product cost management, business process design and technology selection. Originality/value Application of the methodology encourages management to more fully assess the environmental implications of their decision in evaluating alternative technological processes while also allowing for the inclusion of other organizational decision dimensions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed businesses and societies to the shortfalls of normal patterns of production, consumption, and their long-lasting impact on supply chains. In this opinion paper, we provide insights from the COVID-19 pandemic for making supply chains more resilient, transparent, and sustainable. These insights include supply chains needing to develop localization, agility, and digitization (LAD) characteristics. We link LAD to a potential solution using blockchain technology and circular economy principle capabilities. Use cases are used to show how blockchain-enabled circular economy practices can support supply chain LAD efforts. Supply chain tracking, tracing, and responsiveness can be supported through blockchain-enabled circular economy practices. One result of identifying these relationships include solutions and insights at multiple levels and stakeholders – individual, organizational, supply chain, governmental, and community. These crisis-related observations and findings set a future research foundation for sustainable production and consumption.
Product portfolio rationalization is critical to long-term organizational competitiveness. Rationalizing a product portfolio includes adding new products, modifying ill-performing products, or removing obsolete products. Product deletion affects supply chain relationships. For example, when firms delete a product, the supplier who solely provides for this product will be likely to be terminated. To advance knowledge on product deletion decisions, we consider competitive concerns on upstream and downstream supply chain actors and their interplay with the focal firm’s strategic product deletion decisions. Specifically, we analyze a vertically differentiated market where firms decide whether to delete products from their portfolio. We consider various scenarios where competitors decide whether products should be deleted. Whether made by an individual or both firms, product deletion decisions will affect relative competitiveness and profitability measures. These findings provide managerial insights for managing supply chains. Product deletion should not be considered just a single organizational decision but an inter-organizational decision where supply chain interactions with upstream and downstream stakeholders affect organizational competitiveness. This study sets the stage for more comprehensive collaborative strategic planning in multi-tier supply chains using product deletion as a linkage. Theoretical and managerial implications provoke new avenues for future study.
A large and growing body of literature to supplier evaluation and selection exists. Literature on green supplier evaluation that considers environmental factors are relatively limited. Recently, in supply chain management decision making, approaches for evaluating green supplier performance have used both qualitative and quantitative environmental data. Given this evolving research field, the goal and purpose of this paper is to analyze research in international scientific journals and international conference proceedings that focus on green supplier selection. We propose the following questions that will be answered: (i) which selection approaches are commonly applied?, (ii) what environmental and other selection criteria for green supplier management are popular?, (iii) and what limitations exist? Published research from 1997 to 2011 is structurally reviewed based on the first two questions. We find that the applied techniques are mostly fuzzy based single model approaches. The most common criterion considered for green supplier selection was “environmental management systems”. A further critical analysis is completed and gaps in the current literature are identified. These gaps help us to identify improvements for green supplier selection process and possible future directions.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Enterprise-wide information systems adoption by organizations has become common place. Even with the 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 organization 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.
No abstract is provided for this article.
This volume is a practical guide that helps the reader build a quick, evidence-based understanding of green-growth strategies and challenges. Its cogent analysis of real-life case studies enables policy makers and company executives identify successful strategies they can adopt, and pitfalls they can avoid, in drafting and implementing green growth policies. The contributors’ empirical assessment of these studies identifies the structural conditions required for economic growth to be compatible with environmental sustainability and how the transition to a new economic paradigm should be managed. A crucial addition to the debate now beginning in earnest around the world, this volume attempts to understand how we can nurture a new-born model of sustainable growth and help it evolve to maturity.
Globalisation and the maritime transport boom that has been occurring since the 1980s have increased regional interest in the maritime logistics chain. A critical aspect of this chain is the management of transport containers. Transport container handling within the chain may be completed in numerous ways including the use of shipping agents. Shipping agent management has seen very little research with virtually no substantive studies. The goal of this research work is to study the fundamental characteristics of shipping agents (the representatives of shipping companies at ports) through an operations strategy alignment and strategic contingency theory lens. Using the Spanish maritime shipping industry as the basis of this study, a cluster analysis is presented to help identify the groupings and characteristics of shipping agents. The primary dimensions of the clusters will be based on cost and infrastructural capacity. The cluster analysis provides the foundation for further investigation of shipping agent operational performance and characteristics. The study shows that shipping agents may be classified into four major groups. Marketing and operational implications for both shipping agents and shippers, and the management of shipping containers are introduced.
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Blockchain is an emergent technology that has attracted practitioner attention in the supply chain domain. Multiple motivators lead companies to incorporate blockchain technology into their supply chain. However, a number of barriers and challenges may impede the successful adoption of blockchains. The purpose of this paper is to explore how a variety of motivators and barriers are perceived by different companies from different industries. This paper summarizes survey data gathered from 173 respondents associated with the association of supply chain management, formerly APICS. Summary statistics on blockchain adoption by various types of companies are provided to help practitioners benchmark current practice. The paper presents preliminary findings on these dimensions with some insights provided.
Due to the lack of viable modeling techniques, abnormal situations at the operational level in a dynamic manufacturing environment cannot be handled by shop floor production control systems that are only applicable to steady-state performance. A tool is needed for the management in dealing with unexpected real-time events. In this paper, we present a decision support system (DSS) that estimates late-finishing parts in an assembly system due to machine breakdown, part supply shortage and processing of high-priority jobs. The application program, desc (Dynamic Evaluator of Simulated Consequences), is based on dynamic metamodels developed from computer simulation results. The DSS development procedure is discussed and its use is demonstrated by an example using data from a printed circuit board (PCB) assembly plant. Since no time-consuming simulation is necessary at the shop floor, the metamodel-based DSS can provide valuable information for making real-time production control decisions.
Despite Russia’s large ecological footprint, there has been limited examination of environmental sustainability initiatives in Russian corporations. Drawing on research on the importance of employee-level behaviors for the success of corporate sustainability initiatives, we focus on the proenvironmental behaviors (PEBs) of Russian employees. We integrate scholarship on employees’ PEBs and the Russian cultural context to offer theory regarding three potentially important antecedents of employees’ PEBs: top management commitment to sustainability, the immediate manager’s environmental leadership, and the employee’s motivation. Using self-report data from management development program attendees in Russia (N = 165), we examined the links between these factors and employees’ PEBs. We also tested whether top management commitment moderated the impact of immediate managers’ leadership on employees’ PEBs. We found that the immediate manager’s active environmental leadership (i.e., transformational, contingent reward, and active management by exception) was positively related to employees’ PEBs. Managers’ passive-avoidant environmental leadership (i.e., passive management by exception and laissez-faire) was negatively related to PEBs, but only when top management was committed to sustainability. Employees’ motives were linked to PEBs, but the nature of the relationship varied across motives. External motivation was negatively related to PEBs, suggesting that using rewards to motivate PEBs may be detrimental. Motivation that came from a desire to fulfill one’s values or avoid feeling bad about oneself was positively associated with PEBs. Our work provides a foundation for future research on PEBs in Russia, and suggests new directions for research on employees’ PEBs in other settings.
A number of arguments are made by an international group of authors in this though provoking book about an understudied and socially important context. A future in which financial wealth transfers across the North-South divide from richer to poorer countries is far from sufficient for the relief of poverty and the pursuit of sustainability. Caution must be taken when growth is achieved through the liquidation of the natural wealth of poorer nations, in order to maintain a global economic status quo. Neither poverty reduction nor sustainability will ultimately be achieved. The financial collapse and social upheaval that might result will make the most recent economic downturn look trivial by comparison. What is more urgently needed instead, as argued in this book, is collaboration for sustainability and innovation in the global South, especially building on models originally developed in the South that are transferable to the North. In pursuit of a sustainable and more equitable future, the book examines such topics as Cross-Border Innovation in South-North Fair Trade Supply Chains; Potential Pollution Prevention Programs in Bangladesh; Digital Literacy and Social Inclusion in the South through Collective Storytelling and Eco-innovation at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’. Many of these stories and have not been told and need greater visibility. The book contributes in a meaningfully to the discussion of how innovation and sustainability science can benefit both sides in South-North innovation collaborations. It provides useful introduction to the topics, as well as valuable critiques and best practices. This back-and-forth flow of ideas and innovation is itself new and promising in the modern pursuit of a fair and sustainable future for all regions of our planet.
Flexibility in manufacturing has aroused considerable interest among researchers and professionals. However, the vast body of literature on flexibility does not adequately address the kind of flexibility a company needs to meet its strategic objectives, nor how this flexibility can be achieved. An overview is provided of different types of flexibility, a classification scheme based on the strategic positioning and goals of the firm is provided, and suggestions are made on how these goals may be achieved. The importance of such a classification in the design and investment justification of flexible manufacturing is also discussed.
