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Can sustainable quality management contribute to the organizational performance?
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that sustainable quality management (SQM) can play in achieving higher organizational performance. Specifically, this paper intends to conceptualize the SQM and deepen the understanding if the adoption of SQM significantly affects the organizational performance. A structured questionnaire was developed for collecting data from Slovenian organizations. Based on the factor analysis, the factors of SQM are proposed and defined as a set of determinants, named as: Green development and environmental aspects, top management commitment, employee support, CSR and local community engagement. Using a multiple regression analysis, we assessed the contribution of SQM factors to organizational performance. This analysis accounted for approximately 74% of the variance in non-financial organizational performance and approximately 46% of the variance in financial organizational performance, with two main predictors: Top management commitment and employee support. The effect of green development and environmental aspects as well as CSR and local community engagement on financial performance is also considered as positive, but mainly indirect through non-financial performance from the employee perspective.
... The challenges 14 and conflicts in sustainable supply chain management in the context of the heavy vehicle 15 industry were presented by Pereseina et al. (2014). Zokaeï and Manikas (2014) demonstrated 16 the environmental sustainability of supply chains in the context of the biofuels industry in the 17 United Kingdom. The environmental sustainability practices across upstream supply chain 18 management were analyzed by Pimenta and Ball (2015). ...
... Section 4 presents 15 a real application of a footwear manufacturing company in Bangladesh used to represent 16 enablers to supply chain social sustainability. Results and discussions are also presented in 17 Section 4, and conclusions are drawn in Section 5. ...
... The footwear sector contributes a major portion and become a multi-billion dollar export 16 To test the proposed BWM framework, a footwear company, herein called ABC footwear Ltd., 17 was selected. Due to confidentiality, the real name of the company is not mentioned here. ...
Supply chain sustainability includes environmental, economic, and social dimensions. However, social sustainability in supply chains has received less attention than environmental and economic dimensions. Sustainability issues in emerging economies have also been neglected. Literature reviews reveal that assessing social sustainability in the context of the footwear supply chain in an emerging economy is still an under-researched area. Therefore, this study investigates enablers of social sustainability in the footwear supply chains in Bangladesh using the Best-Worst method. The framework was applied to a footwear manufacturing company with an aim to incorporate social sustainability practices into operations and supply chains. Nineteen enablers were identified by reviewing the extant literature. Among them, ten enablers were selected with the help of expert inputs. The enablers were ranked according to average weight evaluated by the Best-Worst method. The results indicated that workplace health and safety practices was the most important enabler to the social sustainability of a footwear manufacturing company’s supply chain, followed by the wages and benefits offered to the employees of the company. The findings of this study are expected to guide industrial managers and experts on where to focus attention on achieving social sustainability in supply chains.
... Much remains unclear and therefore worth further exploration (Jasin et al., 2019). According to Maletič et al. (2011) define that sustainable quality management (SQM) is a "set of determinants that support systematic integration technique years revisited papers Karuppusami and Gandhinathan (2006) of environmental issues as well as sustainability issues into processes/product quality characteristics aimed at achieving higher overall organisational performance". On the other hand, Svensson (2006) described the circulation approach of SQM that connects the initial, intermediate and final values and tools as well as the reconnection of subsequent and preceding ones. ...
... We recommend the TQM and sustainability relationship in two ways, integration and strategic perspective. From an integration perspective, SQM is a systematic integration of environmental and process/product quality characteristics (Maletič et al., 2011). Additionally, the social perspective is also integrated with them. ...
In Industry 4.0, the concept of total quality management (TQM) has gained more importance. Because the survival of the organisation depends on better quality management. The objective of this study is to identify total quality management critical success factors (CSFs). To achieve this purpose the empirical articles from 1987 to 2019 were studied. The descriptive results are presented such as publication years, journal and sector-wise distribution, and analysis of methods. A quality tool Pareto analysis was applied to identify the critical success factors of total quality management practices. The thematic analysis of 91 empirical studies identified the 8 vital and 20 useful many critical success factors. Based on findings two research contexts need further attention; Industry 4.0 and sustainability. The outcomes of this study contribute to the total quality management existing body of knowledge that helps the researchers and practitioners to better understand total quality management practices from different perspectives.
... OH&S), enabling minimisation of redundancies and efficiency enhancements. Quality management principles, tools and practices including continuous improvement and relationship management are argued to be shared, and in synergy with environmental management principles, thus supporting environmental sustainability in organisations(Siva et al., 2016).Maletič et al. (2011) outlined the four primary characteristics of SQM as "green development and environmental aspects, top management commitment, employee support, corporate social responsibility and local community engagement".Srdić and Šelih (2011) developed an integrated quality and environmental sustainability performance management framework for sustai ...
Increasing worldwide demand for products and services is applying a significant pressure on firms and supply chains operationally and financially, along with negative implications on our planet and the public. New approaches are highly required to be adopted by all members of the society, including the businesses for sustainable development. On the other hand, enabling such integration from an organisational management perspective is not straightforward, due to complexities and conflicts associated with balanced integration of economic, environmental and social agendas. Aimed towards addressing this important research requirement, a tailored conceptual framework is presented, constructed upon the synergistic principles of quality management (QM) and supply chain management (SCM) to facilitate integration of triple bottom line sustainability into business management. As the first step of the research, a systematic literature review was conducted, evidencing research gaps, and opportunities. A conceptual framework was established, and an implementation procedure to facilitate operationalisation of the framework was developed including a business diagnostic tool contribution, aiding current state maturity assessment as one of the key implementation steps. These developments were verified, validated and improved through the Delphi method, and applied at an organisation in Cyprus as the final validation step, using the action research method. Positive relationships were established and verified conceptually between the ISO 9001 principles of QM, supply chain integration principle of SCM, and organisational triple bottom line sustainability integration. The relative importance of these principles adopted in the framework were determined based on expert Delphi panel feedback. The action research demonstrated the application of the framework, outlined its contextual implementation factors, and concluded positive effects on the sustainable development of the participating organisation. Several contributions to knowledge were made, including the refinement of existing QM and SCM concepts for organisational sustainability improvement, and formulation of a practical framework including a novel diagnostic tool to facilitate integration of triple bottom line sustainability through QM and SCM. Particularly, a new management perspective was introduced with implications to many organisational managers that adopt ISO 9001 and supply chain integration principles, setting the way for extending these principles beyond their original QM and SCM agendas towards organisational sustainable development.
... Vários autores têm demonstrado a importância de considerar stakeholders internos na construção e execução de processos com conceitos socioambientais (García-López et al., 2011;Maletic et al., 2011), bem como a relevância da liderança gerencial focada em reforçar o caráter estratégico de iniciativas sustentáveis (Callan & Thomas, 2011;Eberlin & Tatum, 2008). Embora ainda pouco explorada, a relação entre ergonomia (incluindo a organização do trabalho e psicodinâmica) e sustentabilidade corporativa não deve ser deixada de lado (Bolis et al., 2014a). ...
Resumo O presente estudo discute a incorporação do conceito de sustentabilidade corporativa à literatura de sistemas de mensuração de desempenho (SMD), resultando na investigação de publicações sobre SMD de sustentabilidade (SMDS). Este estudo apresenta uma visão geral da literatura sobre SMDS, sintetizando as principais contribuições e apontando as principais tendências e lacunas nessa área de conhecimento. O método de pesquisa baseou-se em uma revisão sistemática da literatura, combinando bibliometria e análise de conteúdo. A amostra é composta por 406 artigos científicos. Essa amostra foi analisada quantitativamente, com apoio de estatística descritiva, redes de cocitação e palavras-chave. O estudo mostra que o número de publicações sobre o tópico pesquisado tem crescido nos últimos anos, mas ainda permanece disperso, com baixa conexão entre “tribos”. O estudo apresenta também que, apesar de ser relativamente consolidada, a literatura sobre SMD ainda não foi utilizada em sua totalidade para abordar os desafios dos SMDS. Um dos resultados da pesquisa mostra que a literatura de SMDS pode ser dividida em três categorias, de acordo com o seu foco principal: (1) os indicadores de sustentabilidade em si e sua aplicação na tomada de decisão; (2) o conjunto de indicadores como sistema; e (3) o contexto organizacional do SMDS. Analisando essas categorias, verifica-se que há poucas evidências sobre as consequências da implantação de SMD, bem como que a literatura ainda não é clara sobre como gestores devem considerar contingências dos SMDS tais como setor, tamanho da empresa, tipo de produto ou modelo de negócio.
... In addition, open-ended questions were also used to obtain responses from interviewees within their own unique context. Scales for measuring the motives for adopting ISO 14001 were adopted from Prajogo et al. (2012), while the scales for measuring sustainability performance were adopted from Maletič (2013 open coding of the collected information followed by identifying relevant themes and linkages to the TBL. Accordingly, the data analysis itself was carried out via an iterative process that involved analysing the information obtained from field work. ...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms through which ISO 14001 can contribute to the corporate sustainability. In this regard, the paper examines the underlying theoretical concepts and discusses the ISO 14001 in the context of the corporate sustainability. Additionally, the paper discusses the benefits of ISO 14001 from the perspective of the triple bottom line.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper uses a multiple case study approach focusing on four ISO 14001-certified Slovenian organizations and two non-ISO 14001-certified organizations. The data collection methods included semi-structured questionnaire and interviews with managers in all studied organizations.
Findings
– It is suggested that the motives could be perceived as explanatory variables of the benefits realized from ISO 14001 certification. Further, the findings of this study indicate that environmental management system should be seen in a wider perspective that includes elements such as quality and social responsibility. Moreover, the results also lead us to the suggestion that there could be a reciprocal causal mechanism linking the environmental performance and economic performance.
Practical implications
– ISO 14001 can be an effective tool for pursuing sustainable development; however, organizations should move a step beyond ISO 14001’s environmental focus and recognize a multidimensional perspective by simultaneously addressing environmental, quality and social responsibility issues.
Originality/value
– The paper contributes to the corporate sustainability literature by investigating the mechanisms through which organizations can shift to more sustainable patterns using the ISO 14001.
... Recognizing the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability, a rapidly growing literature documents a wide range of specific sustainability practices being implemented by organizations (see for example, Hahn and Scheermesser, 2006;Maletič et al., 2011). Although our study mostly used multi-item scales that were verified through various analyses, appropriate scale for sustainability-oriented innovation practices was not available. ...
One major means to address corporate sustainability practices in organizations are sustainability-oriented innovation practices, which tend to result in significantly improved products, services, processes or even management systems. Prior research has widely discussed the relevant issues about integrating sustainability aspects into innovation process; however, little empirical research has been conducted to analyse the link between sustainability-oriented innovation practices and the overall organizational performance. This paper addresses this gap by exploring underlying structure of sustainability-oriented innovation practices as well as their effects on the particular performance dimensions (i.e., economic performance, quality performance, innovation performance, environmental performance and social performance). The large scale web-based survey yielded 266 usable responses encompassing both the manufacturing and service industries across five countries: Germany, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Spain. The results of the regression analysis demonstrate that sustainability-oriented innovation practices are positively related with the overall organizational performance. The empirical evidence suggests that when organizations strongly emphasize sustainability practices they can improve both economic and non-financial performance. From a practical perspective, the findings of the study may provide a clue regarding how organizations can embed sustainability aspects in their innovation processes with the aim of improving their performance.
... from the previous empirical study (Maletič et al., 2014b; Maletič, 2013). The resulting four-item scale financial and market performance captures the extent to which organizations achieve business success. ...
Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to clarify the relation between sustainability practices and financial and market performance, and also, the role of non-financial performance outputs in this relation. Corporate sustainability is a growing area of importance for organizational development. Managing sustainability practices successfully is an imperative in achieving competitive advantage.
Design/methodology/approach
– Using empirical data based on a large-scale survey among organizations in five countries (i.e. Germany, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Spain), this paper utilized mediation analysis to estimate and test the mediated effects in a multiple mediator model. As such, the sizes of indirect effects of sustainability practices on financial and market performance through potential mediators were estimated.
Findings
– The results showed that innovation performance exerts a mediation effect in the relation between sustainability practices and financial and market performance. The main conclusion is that a greater engagement in sustainability practices leads to an increased innovation performance, which in turn leads to financial and market performance.
Originality/value
– This paper is one of the first attempts to empirically validate sustainability exploitation and sustainability exploration practices. Besides, the analysis of the direct and indirect effects of sustainability exploration and sustainability exploitation practices on financial and market performance has not been yet addressed to a great extent.
... Recognizing the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability, a rapidly growing literature documents a wide range of specific sustainability practices being implemented by organizations (see, for example, Hahn and Scheermesser, 2006;Collins et al., 2010;Maletic et al., 2011;Fairfield et al., 2011). One key starting point in the debate on sustainability management is the inclusion of stakeholders and the integration of their respective demands (Seuring and Gold, 2013), which is suggested to be a critical process that helps organizations to understand their key environmental and social impacts (Rocha et al., 2007). ...
Background and Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse the effects of sustainability-oriented innovation practices on the overall organizational performance. Further, this paper also aims to advance understanding of the measurement of corporate sustainability practices with the focus on innovation dimensions.
Design/Methodology/Approach - The study uses data obtained from a survey of 116 organizations encompassing both the manufacturing and service industries in Slovenia. Descriptive statistics were used in order to determine the level of sustainability-oriented innovation practices deployment. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to extract the underlying factors and to provide a basis for assessing their reliability and validity. In addition, regression analysis was used to quantify the effect of sustainability practices on the organizational performance.
Results - Data analysis result showed that sustainability-oriented innovation practices are significantly associated with organizational performance. Therefore, empirical evidence from this research confirmed the premise that building innovation competencies and integrating innovation activities in organization’s processes lead to performance benefits. This contributes to the debate about the potential for organizations to be sustainable and competitive.
Conclusion - The presented research on corporate sustainability provides important theoretical and practical insights on which the deployment of sustainability-oriented innovation practices are conducive to fostering a broader set of performance benefits. As such, managers should increase organizations' capacity for innovation which can be beneficial in terms of performance implications and achieving sustainability goals.
Kajian ini dijalankan bagi mengkaji hubungan diantara dimensi pengurusan kualiti (PK) dengan prestasi mapan bagi organisasi ketenteraan. Melalui sorotan literatur berkenaan PK, empat dimensi PK iaitu kepimpinan, strategi dan objektif; amalan terbaik dan tumpuan pekerja telah dikenalpasti akan menyumbang kepada prestasi mapan organisasi. Soal selidik telah dibangunkan bagi mengenalpasti hubungan PK dengan prestasi mapan di organisasi tentera. Dalam kajian ini, sejumlah 200 kertas soal selidik telah diagihkan kepada responden di institusi latihan tentera yang melaksanakan PK. Semua data yang telah dikumpulkan dianalisa menggunakan Pakej Statistik untuk Sains Sosial (SPSS) versi 23 dan analisis regresi digunakan untuk menguji hubungan PK dengan prestasi mapan. Dapatan kajian ini menunjukkan kepimpinan, strategi dan objektif; amalan terbaik dan tumpuan pekerja mempunyai hubungan yang positif dengan prestasi mapan organisasi. Kajian ini dijangka akan dapat membantu institusi latihan tentera di Malaysia untuk menambah baik prestasi organisasi dalam meningkatkan keperluan strategik. Pada masa yang sama, kajian ini dapat menyumbang kepada pemahaman yang lebih ketara bagi dimensi PK dalam konteks organisasi ketenteraan.
Since last decade corporate sustainability has been of great interest to
practitioners and researchers, both. Successful implementation of
sustainability practices is vital for organizational survival and competitive
advantage. Based on institutional theory, this study aims at to enhance
understanding regarding the relationship of sustainability practices and
corporate performance directly and indirectly through non-financial
performance. Data from managerial level employees of manufacturing and
services providing organizations of Pakistan was collected through a survey
questionnaire. Based on 346 participants’ responses we found that
sustainability practices (exploration and exploitation) have significant
relationship with financial and market performance. The multi-mediation
analysis shows that all mediators partially mediate the relationship between
sustainability practices and corporate performance. In the context of Pakistan,
this study is the first of its kind to validate sustainability practices scale.
Laerte Idal Sznelwar (EPUSP) laertesz@usp.br Complexas relações de interdependência entre os diversas aspectos afetam o desenvolvimento sustentável global, tais como sinergias e conflitos entre questões econômicos, ambientais e sociais; entre os interesses de diversos atores da socieddade; entre as prioridades de curto, medio e longo prazo. Isso dificulta a atuação de empresas que buscam a sustentabilidade corporativa, pois nem sempre é possível implantar soluções que contribuem positivamente para todas as dimensões e prioridades devem ser definidas. Para conseguir gerenciar melhor os desafios derivados dos trade-offs entre os pilares da sustentabilidade, as empresas devem compreender melhor como se dá essa relação de prioridade entre aspectos econômicos, ambientais e sociais. Nesse contexto, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo aprofundar o conhecimento sobre os trade-offs entre os pilares da sustentabilidade, explorando os fatores considerados pelas empresas para avaliar a prioridade desses aspectos. Para isso, foram conduzidos estudos de casos multissetoriais em quatro empresas, contando com catorze entrevistas semi-estruturadas como principal fonte de dados. Assim, foram verificados quatro fatores principais: (1) estratégia & bonificação; (2) pré-requisito; (3) maturidade da questão para a empresa; e (4) urgência/criticidade. Os estudos mostram que ainda não há uma versão oficial da empresa para definir essas prioridades, que acabam sendo uma interpretação pessoal do posicionamento que a empresa possui. Palavras-chave: sustentabilidade corporativa, trade-offs, estudo de caso XXXV ENCONTRO NACIONAL DE ENGENHARIA DE PRODUCAO Perspectivas Globais para a Engenharia de Produção Fortaleza, CE, Brasil, 13 a 16 de outubro de 2015.
A growing number of organizations are integrating economic, ecologic and financial sustainability considerations into their management processes, driven by increased societal and stakeholder pressures. With a view to support organizations in this global challenge, this paper examines integration of sustainability into the two influential management approaches of quality management and supply chain management. To achieve this, a critical evaluation of the extant integrated models in the literature is undertaken, analyzing strengths and weaknesses and evidencing the limitations. Stemming from the gaps identified, a conceptual framework is formulated, holistically incorporating quality and supply chain management principles for organizational triple bottom line sustainable development. A road map for industrial practitioners is presented along with a business diagnostic tool that were constructed on the basis of novel, synergistic relationships established between the management principles of quality, supply chain integration and sustainability of organizations.
Maintaining profitability measures while conducting business through environmentally and socially sustainable operations is an optimization challenge for organizations globally and for our society. Aiming to contribute to the research streams on this global challenge, this paper studies the state of the art literature on two management methodologies along with sustainability management from an integration perspective: quality management with its intraorganizational focus and supply chain management with its interorganizational view. The paper establishes key themes, trends and new avenues for research through a structured systematic review. The systematic review undertaken includes both descriptive analysis and thematic synthesis of state of the art quality management, sustainability and supply chain management integration literature. Integration synergies of quality and supply chain management were established including performance improvements and integration increasing the effect of both methodologies. Incorporation of sustainability into quality and supply chain management was identified to be a highly emerging area with multi-dimensional (financial, ecologic and social) approaches highly in need for more sustainable supply chains. Ultimately, a new, emerging research area was revealed: sustainable supply chain quality management. Although, several reviews were conducted on the quality, supply chain and sustainability management practices, this study is one of the very few, undertaken from the perspective of all three approaches and cumulative integration. This contribution provides an initial theoretical framework to guide future theory building on a fruitful research avenue.
O termo sustentabilidade corporativa refere-se à capacidade de uma organização de sobreviver no longo prazo, mantendo-se (minimamente) lucrativa para que possa exercer suas atividades com cada vez menos impactos negativos ambientais e mais benefícios sociais. Considerando a lógica de que a empresa é aquilo que ela é capaz de mensurar, organizações sustentáveis demandam sistemas gerenciais de mensuração de desempenho que estejam alinhadas ao desenvolvimento sustentável. Assim, o presente estudo se propõe a discutir a seguinte pergunta de pesquisa: “Como é inserida a sustentabilidade nos sistemas de mensuração de desempenho corporativos?” Para isso, são propostos dois objetivos de pesquisa: (i) levantar os sistemas de mensuração de desempenho de sustentabilidade e explorar seus principais desafios; e (ii) explorar a importância relativa dada pelas empresas em relação aos indicadores de sustentabilidade. Para isso, a pesquisa conta com uma revisão sistemática da literatura e estudos de casos multissetoriais (um piloto e quatro exploratórios). A pesquisa traz evidências de que a temática de indicadores de sustentabilidade é ainda incipiente e pouco estruturada, com potencial de melhorar o aproveitamento da literatura já consolidada de sistemas de mensuração de desempenho. O estudo bibliométrico conta com (i) estatística descritiva, (ii) análise de redes de relacionamento (co-citação e palavras-chave) e (iii) análise de conteúdo a partir de uma amostra de artigos extraídos da base de dados ISI Web of Knowledge (Web of Science). Verifica-se que a literatura de indicadores de sustentabilidade aborda temáticas diversas, tais como vantagem competitiva, gestão de stakeholders e avaliação do ciclo de vida. Já os estudos de casos baseados em entrevistas semi-estruturadas permitiram o levantamento dos seguintes sistemas de mensuração de desempenho com incorporação de indicadores de sustentabilidade: sistema de avaliação de desempenho das áreas, sistema de avaliação de desempenho individual, indicadores para elaboração de relatórios internos e externos e sistema de avaliação inicial de projetos. Além disso, foram identificados fatores que interferem na prioridade dos indicadores de sustentabilidade: estratégia corporativa, pré-requisito; maturidade da questão e urgência. Dentre os desafios apontados pelas empresas, encontram-se a definição de indicadores para avaliar os benefícios sociais decorrentes das atividades da organização, a quantificação
monetária de retorno de iniciativas ambientais e sociais e o engajamento dos colaboradores na sustentabilidade corporativa, independente da natureza das suas atividades. A pesquisa mostra que há benefícios na incorporação da sustentabilidade no sistema de mensuração de desempenho corporativo e que isso ainda tem potencial para ser abordado de forma mais sistemática, sem depender exclusivamente da iniciativa de determinados líderes. O papel desses atores para implantação de práticas sustentáveis na organização é fundamental e necessário, mas não suficiente, já que a sustentabilidade corporativa depende do engajamento de diversos stakeholders (internos e externos à organização), que podem ser influenciados pela cultura e pelos processos de negócios alinhados à lógica do desenvolvimento sustentável.
Theoretical and empirical research often points to a positive relation between corporate sustainability
and organisational performance; however, attempts to conceptualise the multi-dimensional nature of
sustainability practices are rare in the current literature. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present a
conceptual framework to aid in understanding and explaining the relationship between sustainability
practices and organisational performance. The concepts of exploitation and exploration are adopted to
distinguish between different types of sustainability practices. The research model is then analysed in
terms of different outcomes related to sustainability performance, quality performance and business
performance. Based on an interdisciplinary perspective, this paper suggests a new approach for the
discussion of corporate sustainability and its implications for the organisational context. The results of
the research suggest that the organisation may place a stronger focus on developing new sustainability-
centred competencies when it is faced with an uncertain and rapidly changing environment. In contrast,
efficiency and responsiveness to various stakeholders' expectations and demands might dominate in
highly competitive environments. The primary conclusion of this paper is that the alternative relation-
ships between sustainability practices (exploitation and exploration) and organisational performance
depend on different factors, including environmental uncertainty, competitiveness, long-term orienta-
tion and institutional approaches. These arguments indicate that managers in resource-constrained
contexts may benefit from focusing on the management of trade-offs between sustainability explora-
tion and sustainability exploitation demands; however, for long-term success, the simultaneous pursuit
of exploration and exploitation is both desirable and necessary.
The current research identifies constructs that are supportive of an innovative culture in small to medium-sized enterprises. A sample of 429 employees in 23 small to medium-sized manufacturing firms was used to identify constructs associated with an innovative culture. Supervisory support and reward system support are both positively related to an innovative culture. Perceived work overload is negatively related. Companies with cultures supportive of innovation tend to be smaller, have fewer formalized human resource practices, and less munificent resources. There is no direct relationship between an innovative culture and firm performance; however, when the competitive environment is changing rapidly firm earnings are enhanced by an innovative culture.
Little empirical work has been done on the effect of stakeholder management on corporate performance. In this study, we contributed to stakeholder theory development by (1) deriving two distinct stakeholder management models from extant research, (2) testing the descriptive accuracy of these models, and (3) including important variables from the strategy literature in the tested models. The results provide supports for a strategic stakeholder management model but no support for an intrinsic stakeholder commitment model. Implications of these findings for management practice and future research are discussed.
The environmental sustainability of businesses depends largely on employees' creative environmental ideas and innovative solutions to environmental problems. This article analyzes how companies that want to improve their environmental performance can increase their employees' willingness to eco-innovate. Results of an employee survey show that supportive behaviors from line managers significantly increase the probability that employees will try environmental initiatives. Even in firms that have sustainable development policies, line managers are less supportive when managing environmental issues compared to managing other business issues. Stated environmental policies may not have much of a direct influence on employees' willingness to eco-innovate. This article shows how firms can encourage line managers to adopt behaviors that employees perceive to be supportive of environmental actions, and it indicates which behaviors and policies are most effective at supporting environmental innovations.
Abstract Sustainability has,become,a major,competitive,factor for many,manufacturing,organisations,in Europe. In other parts of the world, market forces and social and environmental factors have also started to make manufacturing,companies,consider,sustainability more,seriously. This paper,presents,a case,study which,highlights the challenges,and,issues faced by Small,and,Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) when ,implementing ,sustainable manufacturing ,practices ,in the ,absence ,of a supportive,business,environment,and,without adequate,financial resources,and,expertise. The application oftools such as life cycle analysis, stakeholder analysis and SWOT analysis are discussed, and the roles ofecolabeling, environmental standards, national and international certification programmes and government,agencies,are explored. The benefits of collaborationwith,local universities and,ofthe utilisation of student projects as a low cost development,mechanism,are illustrated. Keywords Sustainable manufacturing, Implementation study, SMEs
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey study on quality performance measurement practices in the Turkish top 500 manufacturing companies. The study evaluates both financial and non‐financial aspects of quality performance measures in Turkish manufacturing companies.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology of the study was a postal questionnaire survey. The survey was conducted with the top 500 industrial enterprises in Turkey specified by the Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ICI) for the year 2005. These firms are selected and ranked by ICI according to production‐based sales.
Findings
Two major findings of the study are: Turkish manufacturing companies utilize non‐financial measures more frequently than financial measures; and Turkish managers perceive non‐financial measures to be more effective than financial measures.
Research limitations/implications
The sample is restricted to the top 500 industrial enterprises in Turkey. As the data in this study were collected from the manufacturing companies, the findings should not be generalized to other sectors.
Originality/value
The study is unique in reflecting the general practices and perceptions of manufacturing companies on quality performance measures across Turkey.
This article describes the Human Resource Management system in place at Herman Miller, Inc. (HMI). HMI's HR strategy is comprised of three primary goals: (1) building employee capabilities, (2) building employee commitment, and (3) improving the professional capabilities of the HR function itself. Key emphases of HMI's HR management infrastructure include (1) employee competency identification and development, (2) building employee participation, (3) building business literacy, (4) creating a “corporate community” through strong values and a sense of “belonging”, (5) community responsibility and environmental protection, (6) competently delivering the HR “fundamentals”, and (7) developing innovative partnerships with suppliers. Key challenges for the future include (1) change management, (2) clarifying HR's strategic role throughout the firm, and (3) attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to explore the broad issues related to business excellence and the application of such programs.
Design/methodology/approach
– In brief, this study investigated the use of business excellence programs including the use of the ISO 9000:2000 series of standards, by Canadian organizations. The results of a national survey on the use of business excellence programs are reported.
Findings
– The use of business excellence programs by Canadian organizations appears to be related to the size and location of the organization. Organization size and location also appear to be related to the sequence in which businesses choose to implement various components of business excellence as well as the difficulty they experience with that implementation. There may be differences in the use of business excellence programs between organizations within different industry sectors, and those with different organizational structures. Finally, the use of business excellence programs was found not to affect organizations' self‐reported level of excellence.
Originality/value
– The results of this study have implications for government policy makers who seek to better support businesses, quality program administrators, and business practitioners.
This paper presents a new perspective which calls for an integration of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) into the company strategy as a source of competitive advantages. The research question we pose is how a company can successfully carry out this integration of CSR into its strategic management, for which a model that includes three stages - introduction, implementation and generalization of CSR - is presented. Based on an exploratory case study within a Spanish technology-intensive firm (Indra), we show the way this company has developed and implemented an explicit plan for the integration of ethical values and CSR initiatives into its corporate and business strategies. Although this company has established its own methodology in order to develop and implement CSR plans, it fits in essence to our three-stage model of CSR integration. In general, our analyses show a beneficial impact of the development and implementation of CSR plan for this technology-intensive company. In particular,
On the basis of a literature review, 20 factors essential for successful integration of
ecodesign in product development are presented in this paper. The success factors are structured
according to six areas of concern: management, customer relationships, supplier relationships,
development process, competence and motivation. By relating the factors to a number of product
development elements that are generally claimed to be important for product development success,
it is indicated that the integration of ecodesign to a great extent are related to the same elements.
A few factors seem to be specific for the integration of ecodesign. These factors are related to
competence and motivation. As many of the ecodesign integration success factors relate to those
elements that are acknowledged to affect product development success, this implies that a
company that manages product development well increases the likelihood of being successful when
integrating ecodesign into product development
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore and investigate the process of green management adoption in small and medium‐sized enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
– The study used the qualitative methods of case study, in‐depth interviews and document analysis to collect data from two companies, one in the acoustic equipment, the other in the electronics industry.
Findings
– The paper finds that the extant literature in the field of business and management has largely ignored green management practices within small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The study finds that SMEs can make themselves greener by making strategic and organizational changes. For greener management, the factors of organizational structure, innovation capability, human resources, cost savings and competitive advantage can influence organizational change. The outcomes of the case studies confirmed this. The paper argues that further research is needed in order to identify how management practice might reduce negative sustainability impacts. The paper argues that such research can benefit from the methodological and theoretical insights of other disciplines.
Originality/value
– The paper is of benefit to academics and managers by providing a new way to consider green management and strategies of SMEs. Since green sustainability is obviously challenging to all companies, to increase understanding of how to cope with green management is necessary, but has been rarely researched in SMEs.
b>Purpose – The purpose of the study is to examine the influence of multiple factors on the green purchase intention of customers in Australia.
Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model is proposed and was subjected to empirical verification with the use of a survey of metropolitan and regional households in Victoria, Australia. The data were analyzed using both descriptive measures and exploratory factor analysis to identify and validate the items contributing to each component in the model. AMOS structural modeling was used to estimate the measure of respondents' overall perception of green products and their intention to purchase.
Findings – The results indicate that customers' corporate perception with respect to companies placing higher priority on profitability than on reducing pollution and regulatory protection were the significant predictors of customers' negative overall perception toward green products. The only positive contribution to customers' perception was their past experience with the product. Other factors including the perception of green products, product labels, packaging, and product ingredients did not appear to influence customers' perception. The results also indicate that customers are not tolerant of lower quality and higher prices of green products.
Research limitations/implications – The knowledge of the overall perception formation about green products and its predictors provides management with the facility to identify and implement strategies that may better influence the change of attitude by customers. Corporations can also benefit from the identification of the types of information required to enable management to influence this process of perception formation.
Originality/value – The present findings contributes to an understanding of the antecedents of green purchasing and highlight that green customers rely more on personal experience with the product than the information provided by the marketer.<br /
We outline a supply and demand model of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on this framework, we hypothesize that a firm's level of CSR will depend on its size, level of diversification, research and development, advertising, government sales, consumer income, labor market conditions, and stage in the industry life cycle. From these hypotheses, we conclude that there is an "ideal" level of CSR, which managers can determine via cost-benefit analysis, and that there is a neutral relationship between CSR and financial performance.
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to illustrate an approach for developing a framework of indicators for integrating environmental protection into corporate performance. This paper also highlights Green Productivity Index (GPI) of the Continuous Improvement (CI) performed in a foundry casting, which includes both economic and environmental performances.
Design/methodology/approach
In the paper data were collected from a foundry and used for developing indicators and Green Productivity Index (GPI). Mass balance concept was used for quantification of environmental indicators.
Findings
The paper finds the approach adopted will provide a clear guidance for developing indicator and GPI to various types of industries. A casting case indicates that the GPI can be used as an actionable feedback for leadership to make effective decisions.
Research limitations/implications
This research in this paper developed a framework of indicators for measuring direct environmental impact from the foundry, while indirect environmental impact due to electricity consumed has yet to be performed. Limited external validity of the indicator framework, as the analysis was performed in a single foundry.
Practical implications
The paper relies on a unique foundry data. Environmental indicators may vary, since the melting furnace used for melting metal and type of molding process used for making molds may vary from one foundry to another.
Originality/value
This paper is a holistic approach of combining theory and practical ideas to cover the scope of sustainable development. From a research perspective, it establishes a framework of indicators for the integration of environment into foundry and creates new research and application opportunities to other pollution‐intensive industries. From a practical perspectiv e, the framework of indicators developed to this point provides a guideline of immediate applicability.
Evidence can be marshalled to support either the view that pollution abatement is a cost burden on firms and is detrimental to competitiveness, or that reducing emissions increases efficiency and saves money, giving firms a cost advantage. In an effort to resolve this seeming paradox, the relationship between emissions reduction and firm performance is examined empirically for a sample of S&P 500 firms using data drawn from the Investor Responsibility Research Center's Corporate Environmental Profile and Compustat. The results indicate that efforts to prevent pollution and reduce emissions drop to the ‘bottom line’ within one to two years of initiation and that those firms with the highest emission levels stand the most to gain.
Globalization has created immense competitive pressures on corporates. In order to survive and prosper, organizations in the Third World need to redesign themselves for corporate creativity, i.e., for high rates of sustained and successful technological as well as non-technological innovations. This paper provides several examples of how deregulation of the West's airlines industry in the decade of the 1980s stimulated its corporate creativity. It then reviews the literature on the organizational design for corporate creativity to derive a model of the corporate's organizational design requirements for copious and successful innovations. The model proposes that, for superior corporate creativity in a regime of intensifying environmental pressures, the organization needs to choose the following: i) innovation-friendly business strategies; ii) organizational structure; iii) top management style; iv) middle management practices; and v) effective modes of managing innovations. These choices would lead to innovational success, which, in turn, would confer competitive excellence on the organization.
This paper reports a test of the model through questionnaire-based data on 65 Indian corporates collected from late 1999 to early 2003. Data were gathered from an average of five top and senior level executives from each corporate on 6-point scales, and each scale was anchored by a statement at each extreme. All the responses from each organization were averaged for each rated scale and converted into a percentage score for the organization. The scales were grouped for aggregation into: i) environmental pressure; ii) innovations-supportive strategic management; iii) innovations-supportive top management style; iv) innovations-supportive organizational structure; v) innovations- supportive managerial practices and culture; vi) effective management of innovations; vii) corporate innovational success; and viii) corporate competitive excellence.
The data were secured for the situation ‘now’ and three years earlier and this enabled the computing of changes in each study variable. The data indicated that change in effective mangement of innovations was the strongest predictor of change in innovational success which, in turn, was the greatest predictor of change in competitive corporate excellence. In order to identify the major strategic choices in the face of high versus low environmental pressure, cluster analysis was performed on the data from the 30 highest scoring corporates on environmental pressure and the 30 lowest scoring corporates on environmental pressure. It revealed that, regardless of environmental pressure, organizations that chose to adopt an organizational design compatible with high corporate creativity outscored those organizations that did not choose such a design in terms of both innovational success and competitive excellence.
The data also indicated that organizational design for corporate creativity may yield far better performance when change in environmental pressure is modest than when it is large. The reason may lie in differential rates of the diffusion of innovations in high versus low pressure environments. High pressure environments may induce a more rapid diffusion of innovations. The faster the institution-alization of innovations in an industry, the lower, or less durable, may be the competitive advantage conferred on the innovating organization. This paper strongly recommends the following: Managers should redesign their organizations for higher corporate creativity. The core curriculum of MBA programmes needs to incorporate values, competencies, and management concepts that can nurture organizational creativity.
Specifically, this paper provides suggestions to practising managers for enhancing corporate creativity which are as follows: Conduct a diagnosis of the design of your organization and identify the items where the gaps with the model are large. Form a cross-functional team to tackle each major gap area. Review the recommendations of the team and identify action points for implementation. Institutionalize a culture of brainstorming for novel and effective solutions and a number of specific innovation-friendly practices.
Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) majorly describes its effects on corporate financial performance or consumers' behavior towards CSR. Relatively few studies have focused employee's sentiments towards CSR. This study analyzes the multifaceted influence of CSR on employee's organizational commitment and organizational performance. The study uses exploratory approach; primary data is collected from 371 professionals working in different sectors of Pakistan. The study uses structural equation model (SEM) technique to test the hypotheses. The study found significantly positive relationship between CSR actions and employee organizational commitment, CSR and organizational performance and employee organizational commitment and organizational performance. The study discusses important implications regarding uses of CSR for enhancing employee's organizational commitment and improving organizational performance.
The economic policies highlighting only productivity and economic growth, without addressing environment, have resulted into adverse and irreversible environmental impacts. A combined approach called Green Productivity signifies a new paradigm on socio-economic development aimed at the pursuit of economic and productivity growth while protecting the environment, simultaneously. A study was undertaken with the support from Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) for application of GP in soyabean sector in Indian in view of low productivity and environmental pollution. Soyabean sector plays a vital role in strengthening Indian economy in terms of export potential and employment, and rapid growth is expected in this sector in India. The study was carried out at Rama Phosphate Ltd., Indore (M.P.) processing soy having 400 TPD Solvent Extraction Plant and 100 TPD oil refinery. The field studies included various areas such as water, wastewater, energy, steam, emissions to air, loss of oil during extraction as well as refining and various housekeeping measures. Based on the information gathered during the review and detailed study, concentration diagram and eco-maps were prepared to identify major problem areas like oil loss in DOC and refinery, hexane loss in SEP, energy loss, and inadequate steam generation. Each problem area was subjected to intensive cause-effect analysis using Ishikawa diagrams. Subsequently, 38 GP options were identified for implementation resulting into reduction in oil content in DOC, hexane loss, increase in SEP capacity, increase in power generation and saving in steam cost and coal. By applying the concept of Green Productivity, M/s. Rama Phosphate Ltd., Indore has not only gained financially but also increased the overall productivity by 20% and met the regulatory requirements. The company reduced the hexane losses by 13% and oil losses in de-oiled cake (DOC) by 20%. The boiler efficiency of the existing boiler increased from 60% to 80%. Apart from these benefits, the company received ISO 14001 certificate, the first in edible oil sector in India, by the end of the project.
Business is focusing increasingly on products' environmental performance. Product design and development which considers a product's environmental impacts is a new area. "Eco-design" or "Design for Environment" (DfE) refers to the systematic incorporation of environmental factors at this stage. To move beyond this stage towards "Design for Sustainability" (DfS) or "Sustainable Product Design" (SPD), new structures, skills and systems will be required.
OVERVIEW: Nearly 41/2 billion people, all over the world, earn less than three dollars a day. These are largely rural, largely uneducated - but not stupid - individuals whom we do not understand and on whom corporations have never seriously tried to focus. The assumption has always been that this is a market for governments or the not-for-profit sector to worry about, sort of like an international division of labor. However, this base of the pyramid is where the biggest business opportunities lie. As technologists, it is the early market that we should be looking at.
Applying institutional theory, we argue that environmentally legitimate firms incur less unsystematic stock market risk than illegitimate firms. Firms earn environmental legitimacy when their performance with respect to the natural environment conforms to stakeholders' expectations. This relationship was supported with the analysis of media reports and stock prices of 100 firms over a five-year period. The analysis also showed that firms with low environmental legitimacy can attenuate this effect by expressing commitment to the natural environment.
Previous studies have paid much attention on product quality, corporate image, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty, but none have explored them about green innovation or environmental management aspects. This study wants to fill this research gap. Therefore, this study proposes the rare and novel constructs respectively – green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty and provides a research framework to explore the relationships among green product quality, green corporate image, green customer satisfaction, and green customer loyalty. With the use of a questionnaire survey, consumers who had experienced purchasing green or environmental products were identified as the subjects of this study. The empirical results show that (1) green product quality is positively associated with green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty; (2) green corporate image is positively associated with green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty; and (3) green customer satisfaction is positively associated with green customer loyalty. The results indicate that green product quality could bring about green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty. Additionally, green corporate image contributes to green customer satisfaction and green customer loyalty.
We conducted a qualitative study of the motivations and contextual factors that induce corporate ecological responsiveness. Analytic induction applied to data collected from 53 firms in the United Kingdom and Japan revealed three motivations: competitiveness, legitimation, and ecological responsibility. These motivations were influenced by three contextual conditions: field cohesion, issue salience, and individual concern. In this article, we also identify the conditions that likely lead to high corporate ecological responsiveness.
We test the relationship between shareholder value, stakeholder management, and social issue participation. Building better relations with primary stakeholders like employees, customers, suppliers, and communities could lead to increased shareholder wealth by helping firms develop intangible, valuable assets which can be sources of competitive advantage. On the other hand, using corporate resources for social issues not related to primary stakeholders may not create value for shareholders. We test these propositions with data from S&P 500 firms and find evidence that stakeholder management leads to improved shareholder value, while social issue participation is negatively associated with shareholder value. Copyright ? 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In the field of ecodesign research, existing paradigms still stress the importance of relatively traditional internal value chain issues, such as formal organisation, tool development, customization and formal management commitment. Field research shows that companies perceive additional aspects equally or even more importantly. Such aspects include more social, psychological and sometimes intangible processes that can ‘make or break’ ecodesign implementation. Unwillingness to cooperate, gaps between ecodesign proponents and executors, and other organisational complexities play an important role. Moreover, it has become clear that the relative importance of such issues play different roles in different stages of the product development process (PDP). Discrimination between earlier and later stages of the PDP reveals additional insights that researchers in academia and industry alike should incorporate in prescriptive and descriptive research activities related to ecodesign implementation.
Performance measures are often used to increase the competitiveness and profitability of manufacturing companies through the support and encouragement of productivity improvements. This paper reviews the most frequently used performance measures to identify their strengths and weaknesses and the situations in which they are most appropriately deployed. The performance measures under review are compared in terms of how easily they are derived from strategic objectives, how easy they are to understand and whether they help form a long-term view of performance. Suggests that it is important to select performance measures to match the situation in which they are to be used; more importantly, it is necessary to combine various types of performance measure to provide a fair complete and balanced view of a company or the operations under evaluation.
The EMAS Regulation (Reg 761/01 EC) is an EU scheme for the implementation of an Environmental Management System (EMS) by any organization, implemented by the European Commission since the year 1993. The EMS has been originally proposed both by the European Commission and by ISO as the frontrunner of a series of policy tools that were conceived to enable companies to simultaneously pursue environmental objectives and competitive targets (in a synergetic way). Based on the unique dataset of the EVER project, this paper investigates whether or not an EMS implemented within the EMAS Regulation has an effect on firm performance both from an environmental and a competitive point of view. The econometric analysis shows a positive impact of well-designed environmental management system on environmental performance and, as a consequence, on technical and organizational innovations. Effects on other competitive variable as market performance, resource productivity and intangible asset are not strongly supported
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the major factors that impact the quality commitment of employees in organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper uses a cross‐sectional design and the propositions are validated through two sample surveys conducted in two separate organizations in Turkey.
Findings
– The study presents four independent variables as the major factors affecting quality commitment of employees, viz. the leadership commitment towards quality; the quality orientation of the organization; team effectiveness and effectiveness of quality‐related communication. The four hypotheses are found to be valid.
Originality/value
– The paper attempts to contribute towards the literature on quality commitment of employees. So far, studies on quality commitment have been quite limited and hence this effectively fills a gap in the literature. Examination of data collected from a government ministry and a manufacturing company reveals some significant findings, which contributes to quality management literature.
While many culture researchers have devoted numerous articles to the nature and definitions of culture, relatively fewer articles have contributed towards culture and performance research. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possible relationships between corporate culture and organizational performance among Singaporean companies. The objectives of this study are twofold: first, it aims to investigate the validity of the culture construct. Can culture construct be operationalized along distinct, repeatable dimensions? Second, it attempts to assess how culture affects organizational performance. The organizational culture profile was used as the primary research instrument. Culture was found to impact a variety of organizational processes and performance. While more research remains to be done in this area, this study has demonstrated the power of culture in influencing organizational performance.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence, which could be used by small and medium enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
Altogether, seven variables are proposed in the overall and work unit level for measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence. The proposed model for evaluating organizational performance and organizational excellence was taken through a round of pre‐testing using relevant statistical analyses, in order to validate the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
Excellence is redefined as the ability or capacity of one performance variable to affect or influence the other performance variables in an organization. Total correlation is suggested for measuring different excellences and equations are suggested for calculating overall organizational performance and overall organizational excellence.
Practical implications
The model developed for measuring performance and excellence can be used by small and medium enterprises to evaluate their performance and excellence periodically.
Originality/value
The definition and model developed for measuring excellence can contribute significantly to existing literature on excellence measurement. Further research can help in adding more variables to this measure to make the model a holistic one.
Purpose
This paper aims to outline and discuss how to incorporate a practical‐focused rules approach to guide strategic processes to enhance competitiveness and growth, while improving performance measurement and accountability of green organization initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
An examination of theoretical perspectives was undertaken to determine the relevance of the theory to guide business flexibility and decision making to enhance competitiveness and growth, while enabling the implementation of a green agenda, in a changing business environment.
Findings
Understanding the importance of flexibility, strategic processes would enable individuals and organizations to better respond to green factors associated with changing business opportunities and customer demands.
Practical implications
The paper advocates that an understanding of the focused rules concept can enable business leaders to create green yet practical business strategies to build organizational flexibility, which in turn will lead to enhanced competitiveness and growth opportunities.
Originality/value
The paper presents an overview of the literature which enhances both personal knowledge and understanding at the theoretical and practical levels, enabling business leaders to gain insight into the inherent factors that may be influenced to advance organizational environmental goals and objectives.
Purpose
– Continuous improvement has become an important strategy in improving organizational performance. Unfortunately, product development is often excluded in continuous improvement programs due to the special characteristics of product development activities. The overall purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of continuous improvement in the context of product development.
Design/methodology/approach
– A central aspect in this context is that many organizations find it difficult to improve and learn if work is carried out in the form of projects. In this paper, a quality perspective on continuous improvement is introduced and its usefulness is tested empirically through three case studies in Swedish organizations. The focus is on the improvement programs used and the quality principles displayed in a product development context.
Findings
– The results show that the three investigated organizations have multiple improvement programs, but that some configurations of improvement programs seem to be more successful than others. For instance, co‐ordination of multiple improvement programs, scope creep, and separating between product development processes and project management models are important success factors for continuous improvement. In addition, an introduction of an improvement program without adoption of a critical mass of quality principles is doomed to fail.
Originality/value
– The research initiative is one of the first to conduct an empirical investigation of how organizations design and work with improvement programs in the context of product development. It provides knowledge to both academics and practitioners on how organizations can design and implement initiatives on quality management, especially in the context of product development.
The future trends with respect to globalisation, customer orientation, process orientation, and high productivity have led to increased focus on productivity and enterprise competitiveness. In order to improve competitiveness, it is necessary to measure performance. The classical approach to this is to apply the Sink and Tuttle model describing seven performance criteria. A more modern approach has been advised by the TOPP program. TOPP measures performance along three dimensions: efficiency, effectiveness and adaptability. TOPP uses questionnaires to collect data. Another approach is applied in the EU ENAPS project where the goal is to build a European benchmarking database. ENAPS provides a set of tools to a number of agents actually doing the benchmarks. Performance measurement requires an enterprise model. The EU FOF project developed such a model. This was further developed by TOPP and then further refined in ENAPS.
This paper presents a conceptual model of stakeholder management and expands upon the relationship between organisational sustainability and global sustainability. The theoretical discussions have been inspired and deducted from theory on stakeholders, quality management and sustainability. A model is developed that takes account of practical and theoretical implications of stakeholder-oriented management in pursuit of organisational and global sustainability. The model might be used to explain actual behaviour of organisations and the distinction between organisational and global sustainability.
Purpose
– Enterprises are used to managing quality together with productivity but neglecting environmental management. This involves higher costs and lower benefits than if they were managed jointly. Therefore, efforts must be made to link all of the main aspects of the global performance/efficiency. In recent years several methodologies have been developed and implemented to consider and sort out single aspects of performance (concurrent engineering, quality function deployment, rapid prototyping, lean production, design for assembly and disassembly, total quality management, LCA) seeks to propose a method to attain such a result, within a continuous improvement environment.
Design/methodology/approach
– The method is based on the correlation between 12 aspects of performance/efficiency in the production processes, general specifications of the project, detail specifications for sub‐systems, and productive modalities.
Findings
– It is found that this can be done by constructing specific matrices, by utilizing both technical and economic data, which permit to identify the modifications to introduce in the process/product to improve the various aspects of performance.
Originality/value
– The way to follow is necessarily the adoption of methodologies able to integrate all aspects, to pursue and achieve an increasing efficiency.
Purpose
Green supply chain management is a concept that is gaining popularity in the South East Asian region. For many organizations in this region it is a way to demonstrate their sincere commitment to sustainability. However, if green supply chain management practices are to be fully adopted by all organizations in South East Asia, a demonstrable link between such measures and improving economic performance and competitiveness is necessary. This paper endeavors to identify potential linkages between green supply chain management, as an initiative for environmental enhancement, economic performance and competitiveness amongst a sample of companies in South East Asia.
Design/methodology/approach
For this purpose a conceptual model was developed from literature sources and data collected using a structured questionnaire mailed to a sample of leading edge ISO14001 certified companies in South East Asia followed by structural equation modelling.
Findings
The analysis identified that greening the different phases of the supply chain leads to an integrated green supply chain, which ultimately leads to competitiveness and economic performance. Future research should empirically test the relationships suggested in this paper in different countries, to enable comparative studies. A larger sample would also allow detailed cross‐sectoral comparisons which are not possible in the context of this study.
Originality/value
This paper presents the first empirical evaluation of the link between green supply chain management practices and increased competitiveness and improved economic performance amongst a sample of organizations in South East Asia.
The ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard has been designed to help organizations in the creation of structured mechanisms for continuous improvement in environmental performance. This paper evaluates how ISO 14001 EMS and EMS-like standards aid organizations in operating continuous source reduction programs by exploring some critical elements for program success. The ISO 14001 standard helps organizations define important EMS elements for continuous source reduction. However, adopting these elements may necessitate cultural changes, the core elements of which are embodied by TQM principles. The cultural changes support complex operational activities aimed at source reduction. Three case study firms are used to evaluate these critical EMS elements. Each firm showed substantially idiosyncratic situations attributable to each organization’s size, history, corporate culture, and technology. Despite the differences, however, the cases highlighted one critical point: employee empowerment, their willingness to make suggestions for improvement, and management’s effort to create employee participation in decision making are critical elements in managing continuous source reduction programs. These initial empirical observations provide some insight into how this cultural change may occur.
Sustainability risk management requires holistic and systematic integration of ecological, socioeconomic, and corporate risk factors in the business management. This paper presents an integrative conceptual framework for sustainability risk management in enterprise-wide. The development of this integrative framework is accomplished by tailoring of the enterprise risk management framework. In this paper, the conceptual model to corporate sustainability is offered as the specific management and organizational system to both manage and integrate the corporate goals in order to create economic and financial value and awareness of environmental and social responsibility.
This study examines the construct validity of creative potential and practised creativity, two overlooked aspects of creativity that may be useful for identifying untapped creative resources in organizations. Results of an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) utilizing structural equation modelling techniques provide some initial evidence in support of the construct validity of these concepts. These findings appear to have important managerial implications for increasing creativity and overall organizational effectiveness. The results presented here also suggest some directions for future research aimed at examining the relationships between creative potential, practised creativity and other variables of interest.
This study examines the influence of various cultural and psychological factors on the green purchase behavior of Chinese consumers. To this end, a conceptual model has been proposed and subjected to empirical verification with the use of a survey. The survey results obtained in two major Chinese cities provide reasonable support for the validity of the proposed model. Specifically, the findings from the structural-equation modeling confirm the influence of the subjects' man–nature orientation, degree of collectivism, ecological affect, and marginally, ecological knowledge, on their attitudes toward green purchases. Their attitudes toward green purchases, in turn, are also seen to affect their green purchase behavior via the mediator of green purchase intention. Although the present findings provide a better understanding of the process and significant antecedents of green purchasing, they also highlight two areas for more thorough investigation. These are the exact role of ecological knowledge in Chinese consumers' green purchasing process and the underlying factors that account for their low level of green purchase. This study also discusses how the present findings may help the Chinese government and green marketers to fine-tune their environmental programs. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
We argue that positive employee relations effectively serves as an intangible and enduring asset, and may, therefore, be a source of sustained competitive advantage at the firm level. We survey a number of measures of firm-level performance and conceptualize how each measure is likely to be affected by highly positive firm-level employee relations. We then empirically investigate whether positive employee relations is related to firm performance, focusing on publicly traded firms included in the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America.” The relative performance of these “Best Companies” is examined via comparisons to both companies in the broad market and a group of matched firms. Our analyses suggest that companies on the 100 Best list enjoy not only stable and highly positive workforce attitudes, but also performance advantages over the broad market, and in some cases, over the matched group.
Despite the growing awareness of the importance of researching core strategic resources and activities, the work that has been done to date has largely taken the form of anecdotal reports and case study analysis. We have yet to see large-sample studies demonstrating how organizational elements, independently, complementarily and interactively, may or may not enhance the organization's performance. Moreover, little attention has been given to researching this topic in public sector organizations. The present study aims to bridge this gap by examining the impact of a set of independent intangible organizational elements and the interactions among them on a set of objective organizational performance measures in a sample of local government authorities in Israel. The results of a multivariate analysis indicate that organizational performance (measured by self-income ratio, collecting efficiency ratio, employment rate, and municipal development) can be well explained by six intangible organizational elements (managerial capabilities, human capital, internal auditing, labor relations, organizational culture, and perceived organizational reputation) and the interactions among them, which need to be taken into account in any cost effective development. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
One of the older questions in the debate about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is whether it is worthwhile for organizations
to pay attention to societal demands. This debate was emotionally, normatively, and ideologically loaded. Up to the present,
this question has been an important trigger for empirical research in CSR. However, the answer to the question has apparently
not been found yet, at least that is what many researchers state. This apparent ambivalence in CSR consequences invites a
literature study that can clarify the debate and allow for the drawing of conclusions. The results of the literature study
performed here reveal that there is indeed clear empirical evidence for a positive correlation between corporate social and
financial performance. Voices that state the opposite refer to out-dated material. Since the beginnings of the CSR debate,
societies have changed. We can therefore clearly state that, for the present Western society, “Good Ethics is Good Business.”
We examine the process of strategization of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within 12 Israeli firms using a longitudinal
qualitative approach. We analyzed the process of CSR strategization under Jarzabkowski’s framework. Our findings identify
the differentiating characteristics of CSR strategization processes, including the requirement for informative communications
rather than persuasive negotiations, and the absence of resistance within the organizational community. These unique aspects
of CSR strategization may be attributed to the moral and value-centric nature of CSR activity.
KeywordsCorporate Social Responsibility-strategy-strategization-volunteerism