741 publications from this institution
Stakeholder pressure, from actors including regulators, consumers and non-governmental organizations, has made organizations more responsible for poor environmental performance of their direct and sub-suppliers. Thus, green multi-tier supplier management (GMSM) has become an emergent topic. Yet it is still unclear how to enable GMSM practices effectively, i.e. how to enable sub-suppliers' environmental performance improvement. To help address the gap in the literature, this paper aims to identify enablers for sub-suppliers' environmental performance improvement, and it further applies a Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)-based case study method to evaluate inter-relationships among these enablers and improve the focal company's GMSM practices, by using action research (AR) method principles. The data analysis and discussion with a follow-up evaluation after two years provided insights for the successful implementation of GMSM. The results show that top managers’ support from the organizations is a prominent and necessary foundational enabler. An interesting observation is that close proximity of supply chain members is regarded as a very prominent enabler. Evaluation and feedback on these enablers two years later found that the enabler mapping was beneficial, allowing them to address the most influential enablers, and thus the GMSM practices of the focal company has been highly improved. This paper concludes with directions for further research.
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No abstract is provided for this article.
The emergent field of green supply chain management has been rapidly evolving with a geometric growth in the number of academic publications in this field. A number of literature reviews have been published focusing on specific aspects of green supply chain management such as performance measurement, supplier selection/evaluation, analytical modeling efforts, and some others with broader areas of focus. This paper presents a thorough bibliometric and network analysis that provides insights not previously fully grasped or evaluated by other reviews on this topic. The analysis begins by identifying over 1000 published studies, which are then distilled down to works of proven influence and those authored by influential investigators. Using rigorous bibliometric tools, established and emergent research clusters are identified for topological analysis, identification of key research topics, interrelations, and collaboration patterns. This systematic mapping of the field helps graphically illustrate the publications evolution over time and identify areas of current research interests and potential directions for future research. The findings provide a robust roadmap for further investigation in this field.
Some developed countries have enacted extended producer responsibility regulations that facilitate the diffusion of environmental supply chain cooperation (ESCC) practices among manufacturers. Developing countries, such as China, have adopted similar but generally flexible and voluntary regulations and policies. Using exchange theory with a focus on regulatory aspects as the theoretical lens, this paper develops propositions to examine if awareness of voluntary environmental regulatory policies is different among manufacturers as well as the relationship to ESCC practices adoption. Results from cluster analysis and multivariate analysis of variance for 308 responses identify three categories of Chinese manufacturers with respect to their awareness of environmental regulatory policies. These three categories include savvy, attentive, and nescient manufacturers. It was found that manufacturers characterized with higher environmental regulatory awareness tend to implement ESCC practices more intensively. Hierarchical regression analysis was further used to examine the relationship between awareness of regulatory policies and ESCC practices. Awareness of domestic regulatory policies has positive effects on green purchasing only for savvy manufacturers. Regression results show a nonlinear relationship between awareness of domestic regulatory policies and customer cooperation with environmental concerns, from slightly positive for nescient manufacturers and slightly negative for attentive manufacturers to significantly positive for savvy manufacturers.
Green supply chain management (GSCM) has been a developing topic for at least a couple of decades. Over this time, significant complexities have been observed in its management. Helping to simplify and understand these complexities is necessary from both a practical and research perspective. Given this situation and to further enhance understanding of the topic and even supply chain management in general, this paper develops and empirically tests a theoretical model on the different types of institutional pressures motivating manufacturing enterprises to pursue green supply chain management (GSCM) practices and commensurate performance outcomes. Using a sample of 396 Chinese manufacturers, path analysis is used to evaluate the many structural links. The statistic results show that institutional pressures have driven the manufacturer adoption of internal GSCM practices which in turn relate to their external GSCM practices adoption. The statistic results also suggest that GSCM practices do not directly affect economic performance, but can improve it indirectly. This research contributes to the literature on institutional theory in corporate environmental practices. The research findings provide useful insights for managers seeking to adopt GSCM practices. The results also provide policy insights for professional organizations, regulators, and legislators to further promote GSCM.
A growing interest in the circular economy concept has pushed the discourse in various management-related disciplines beyond established boundaries, with c
Unique environmental and economic challenges provide a laboratory for developing new indicator systems.
In this editorial we present the content and key theoretical aspects of studies in the virtual special issue on resources melioration and the circular economy. Sustainability, resource melioration, and circular economy concepts that provide the foundation of these studies are described in this editorial. Important conceptual themes from the special issue studies are presented. Eleven included studies grouped into five categories are summarized. Major theoretical developments and the practical implications are summarized. Energy efficiency, material resource efficiency, circular economy models, decision and policy support are the key perspectives identified. Numerous practical policy and managerial implications are summarized. Overall, it would behoove policy makers and practitioners to adopt resources circularity for extracted resources, minerals, and mining, sectors, especially for emerging economies.
Globalisation of supply chains makes their management and control more difficult. Blockchain technology, as a distributed digital ledger technology which ensures transparency, traceability, and security, is showing promise for easing some global supply chain management problems. In this paper, blockchain technology and smart contracts are critically examined with potential application to supply chain management. Local and global government, community, and consumer pressures to meet sustainability goals prompt us to further investigate how blockchain can address and aid supply chain sustainability. Part of this critical examination is how blockchains, a potentially disruptive technology that is early in its evolution, can overcome many potential barriers. Four blockchain technology adoption barriers categories are introduced; inter-organisational, intra-organisational, technical, and external barriers. True blockchain-led transformation of business and supply chain is still in progress and in its early stages; we propose future research propositions and directions that can provide insights into overcoming barriers and adoption of blockchain technology for supply chain management.
The Greening of Industry Network (GIN) is into its third decade of involvement in integrated environmental, social, and economic debates. This paper introduces GIN to another generation of thinkers and doers, and reintroduces it to participants who have had previous experiences with GIN and/or its activities. GIN's history and the various ‘debates’ sponsored by the organization over the years will be overviewed. We also identify debates and directions that we see continuing or emerging over the next few years, as GIN continues to evolve. Although GIN has been an active player in the debates about the greening of industrial development for two decades, it has evolved as social, technological, organizational, and economic developments changed. Over its two-plus decades, GIN has seen significant shifts in a number of directions, many of these shifts occurring in sporadic and unexpected ways. Climate change, resource depletion, sustainability, technological change with an expanding global communication network, social media, multiple recessions and growth periods, base of pyramid emphasis, a growing academic stream in business and the environment, have all contributed to the various lenses of GIN participants and thereby shaped action and activities in the Network. Change continues. GIN will be there to help understand and address some of these changes as they pertain to the Greening of Industry.
Government green procurement has been a major driver of demand for environmental products and services in developing countries. This reality is not lost in China. However, government green procurement in China has still seen limited utilization. To address the...
Traditional capital investment appraisal models are, in many cases, biased against environmental projects. What is required is a multi-attribute approach that includes an assessment of the environmental benefits. The financial appraisal profile (FAP) model seeks to address this issue. By making the correct investment decision in the first place and by involving senior managers in the appraisal process, the organization is better placed to achieve project success. Adopting the FAP model with the inclusion of an environmental assessment in the form the “environmental score index” will help focus top management on an increasingly important corporate strategy issue. An illustrative case study is used to outline the important aspects of this new approach. The FAP approach, which is presented in this chapter, will help to fill a gap in the environmental investment literature, where there is a paucity of comprehensive, structured, and transparent methodologies that can prove acceptable to management decision makers from a variety of functions and viewpoints.
Studies have viewed organizations as a network of social, economic, and professional relationships that dynamically interact with their surrounding environment. The resource dependence concept - introduced in the 1970s - focuses on these organizational relationships from an economic competitiveness perspective. Building on resource dependence theory, the relationship between organizations and their natural environment become of interest in an evolving natural resource dependence relationship. This latest extension of resource dependence theory is a major focus of future direction. This chapter provides a review of both theories explaining their constructs, development, and current application - with a particular emphasis on sustainable supply chain management. We provide insights into emergent research in a short review of the literature. Future investigatory opportunities are highlighted especially for to help advance sustainable supply chain management.
Transparency has become a supply chain concern from competitive and reputational perspectives. It is also one of the riskiest and hardest aspects to introduce within logistics and supply chain management. Blockchain technology is now considered critical technology for supply chain transparency. The research on how a supply chain can more effectively evaluate, select and implement transparent blockchain technologies, especially with respect to sustainability, is only starting to receive attention by the academic and research community. This paper (1) introduces blockchain technology performance measures incorporating various sustainable supply chain transparency and technical attributes, and (2) introduces a new hybrid group decision method, integrated hesitant fuzzy set and regret theory, for blockchain technologies evaluation and selection. This method emphasises decision maker psychological characteristics and the variation in decision maker opinions. An illustrative application is developed to help supply chain managers and researchers understand the blockchain technologies selection decision. A sensitivity analysis is introduced to evaluate the effect of various psychological characteristics on decision outcomes. Methodological and managerial implications associated with the decision tool and application are introduced.
Over the past two decades, the traditional investment appraisal criteria and techniques used in the evaluation of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) have come under increasing scrutiny. Several reasons have been put forward concerning the perceived inadequacy of these traditional approaches. Included among these reasons are the myopic(short-term) focus of the criteria, the difficulty in quantifying benefits associated with AMT, and the treatment of project risk. An empirical study, summarized in this paper, was completed to determine if practitioners have taken the advice of experts and academics. This international study surveyed financial directors and senior executives in the UK and US on several factual and perceptual questions. The results show that the sophisticated investment appraisal techniques, such as discounted cash flow, are perceived to be unsuitable for evaluating AMT projects, and what is preferred by management is a basic financial appraisal method, such as Payback, possibly linked to some form of qualitative evaluation. It was expected that the more sophisticated techniques of appraisal would have been used to appraise what must be regarded as sophisticated AMT projects, but the exact opposite appears to be the case. There is therefore strong evidence to suggest that the economic justification of AMT projects is not without its problems and that the financial appraisal methods used in its evaluation are, to some extent, perceived to be inadequate. It was shown that there are few differences in practice and perception between the UK and US in the appraisal of AMT and the concern over short-termism. Areas of interest for further research have been highlighted.
Manufacturers in the 21st century enterprises have to cope with an increasingly dynamic and competitive environment. In order to function effectively within this environment, manufacturers have sought to apply a variety of principles, one of these umbrella groupings is agile manufacturing and incorporating the concepts of agility. However, adoption of agile manufacturing is not a trivial task with barriers existing throughout its life cycle spectrum, from development and implementation to its maintenance and improvement phases. Investigating agile manufacturing barriers is necessary to help understand and overcome them. The aim of this study is to explore various barriers to adopt agile manufacturing and to establish a relationship among the dimensions of barriers through the Interpretive Structural Modelling methodology. This is a well-established methodology for identifying and summarising relationships among specific items that define an issue or problem. Practical implications and future research directions are identified.
