No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Building Competitive Advantage with Sustainable Products -A Case Study Perspective of Stakeholders
Abstract
Sustainability has gained momentum in literature as government and non-governmental policymakers to fight climate change. Sustainability principles can be good for business and the economy, but businesses have been slow to replace non-sustainable products with sustainable ones. We argue that this is because businesses have a harder time seeing how to build a stronger competitive advantage with sustainable products than they have with the products they already offer. This study thus addresses the question of how sustainable innovators can build competitive advantage around sustainable products. Stakeholder theory advises business owners to build products around the interests of all stakeholders. This paper thus uses a grounded theory approach based on a series of interviews with fifteen key business stakeholders: entrepreneurs, investors, customers, and academics/NGO representatives. There are four major and interconnected findings, viz: (1) investors are the most doubtful concerning sustainable innovations, while customers are receptive and keen to be involved; (2) sustainable entrepreneurs are subsequently advised to make sure that the underlying business case of their firm is well developed as much as the product; (3) the overall barrier hindering the success of some sustainable innovations is not their cost, but the human nature to put off change until problems become critical; and (4) at the moment, investing in sustainable innovations is more attractive in regions with positive sustainability regulations such as California and some European countries.
... In parallel, product competitiveness is a wide-ranging phenomenon from multiple perspectives and relevant interdisciplinary areas (Shpak et al., 2019). Therefore, it is worth explaining that different business areas generate specific conditions and thus significantly impact product competitiveness (Kahupi, Eiríkur Hull, Okorie, & Millette, 2021). Subsequently, considering the distinctiveness, it is reasonable to focus research on specific products. ...
... The identification of product competitiveness has been performed regarding; 1) market share (Chen & Chang, 2013), 2) sales growth rate (M. Zhou, Govindan, & Xie, 2020), 3) export rate (export/sales volumes), 4) profit growth rate, 5) productivity growth rate (Kahupi et al., 2021), 6) new product rate (unique product/total sales) (Stock, Tsai, Jiang, & Klein, 2021) and 7) innovation rate (total number of products/number of unique products) (L. Liu & Jiang, 2016). ...
... Barney, 1991), qualified human resources are an indispensable trigger for building competitive advantage. One feature of competitive advantage is quality products that can satisfy customers (Kahupi et al., 2021). Consequently, developing employee core competency will generate competitive products in the international market (Falk & de Lemos, 2019). ...
This study examines the link between employee competency, creativity, and performance in generating product competitiveness in the weaving industry. It also analyzed the moderating role of time sufficiency in reinforcing employee performance and product competitiveness. This study was designed quantitatively by administering a questionnaire to 662 employees from 331 weaving SMEs in Indonesia using structural equation modelling. The analysis revealed that employee competency positively affects creativity, performance, and product competitiveness. Additionally, time sufficiency was confirmed as moderator in strengthening the linkage between employee creativity, performance, and product competitiveness.
... Not all sustainability is competitive (c.f., [1]), i.e., one that helps an organization outperform its competitors financially. Competitive sustainability can both preserve and repair the natural environment and eliminate nonsustainable competition. ...
... The default thinking, despite emerging evidence that sustainability can be competitive (e.g., [6]), seems to be that sustainability hurts competitiveness and profitability. While sustainability is not necessarily competitive [1], we saw evidence in all the articles in this Special Issue that it can be a competitive advantage, and that a knowledge barrier seems to be keeping many managers from using competitive sustainability when it is an option. Ironically, this knowledge barrier may increase the competitive advantage sustainability provides to those who recognize and pursue it, or at least until the competition realizes it is losing ground and it too adopts competitive sustainability to defend itself [5]. ...
... The resource-based theory suggests that competitiveness arises from adding value not just for shareholders, but for other major stakeholders in a business, including employees, suppliers, customers and debtholders [10]. These stakeholders, and the managers who balance their needs, tend to respond well to sustainability if they see its benefits to them [1], but in many cases, they may need to learn more about how valuable sustainability can be for them [2,3,11]. This Special Issue offers considerably more evidence [2,4,5,8] that sustainability clearly being valuable to customers and other stakeholders, making it competitive, and with companies responding by implementing it. ...
Sustainability that beats the competition is different from sustainability that does not [...]
... Recent work (e.g., [1]) suggests that sustainability, by itself, may not be enough to yield a competitive advantage for business: While customers might approve of sustainability in general, they are not necessarily willing to choose sustainable products for themselves if the only distinguishing feature of the sustainable product is its sustainability. In fact, sustainability is sometimes believed to erode profitability, rather than support it. ...
... To enable the co-creation of sustainable consumption behaviors, the sustainable product must first exist and the company must communicate and market the sustainable features of its goods or services to consumers [2]. Some research suggests that sustainability can be a competitive advantage, but it is not automatically one [1]. Building on the resource-based view and the resource management perspective [3][4][5][6][7], and on evidence that the engagement strategy drives the success of such ventures [8], this study thus sets out to empirically evaluate three questions: (1) Can a firm's use of sustainability as a competitive advantage (e.g., by differentiating on the basis of a sustainable design feature) lead to consumers choosing the firm's sustainable products? ...
... Sustainability is distinguished from observable product innovation in that the sustainability attribute of the product often originates from the use of new materials, production process, or design, and, therefore, may not be directly observable, easily communicated, or valued by consumers and other stakeholders [17][18][19]21]. Despite evidence that individuals are rarely willing to sacrifice for the greater good [18], and that sustainability in and of itself may not be sufficient to provide a competitive advantage [1], sustainability issues, including climate change and pollution, have grown increasingly urgent in the minds of consumers [13,[21][22][23]. In the case of the fashion sector, [20] noted that although there is general improvement in cognitive and affective awareness of sustainability, this does not translate into aligned purchase behavior. ...
Research suggests that sustainability may not be sufficient to yield a competitive advantage. Building on the resource-based view, this research evaluates three questions: (1) Can using sustainability as a differentiator lead to consumers choosing sustainable products? (2) Does product sustainability appeal more to environmentally concerned consumers? (3) Does product sustainability appeal more when paired with innovation? To test the hypotheses, an online survey of 344 US respondents was conducted. Consumers were given a hypothetical budget for an office chair and asked to choose between two products at a time. Hypotheses were tested with frequency and Chi-square tests and logistic regression. Findings indicate that the innovative product was preferred over the undifferentiated one, but the sustainable product was preferred over both innovative and undifferentiated products. The sustainability–innovativeness bundle was not preferred over the sustainable product. Environmental concern increased preference for the sustainable product over the innovative product, but not over the undifferentiated one. These findings suggest that sustainability is a stronger differentiator than innovation, but that bundling both features does not further enhance product choice. Attitude toward the environment may not predict behavior. Instead, preference for the sustainable product may originate in variety-seeking behavior, with sustainability seen as an innovation.
... Stakeholder theory is an influential notion that implies that business organizations focus on stakeholder interests (Freeman, 1984) in making strategic decisions (Freeman et al., 2018). The theory posits a relationship between businesses and communities, groups, and individuals that share common goals and mutual influence (Baah et al., 2021) involving collaboration (Miles, 2017) to create and enhance value (Damert et al., 2020;Kahupi et al., 2021) and innovates sustainably (Oruc and Sarikaya, 2011). Business performance is consistent with this theory because it involves the company interacting with various stakeholders, especially internal ones, such as employees and managers. ...
... It implied that social capital was key in organizations making strategic decisions and sustainable innovations to achieve organizational goals (Freeman et al., 2018). The relationship between internal stakeholders, i.e., employees and managers, was mutually influenced (Baah et al., 2021) and involved collaboration (Miles, 2017) to collaborate in creating value (Damert et al., 2020;Kahupi et al., 2021). This finding also provided empirical evidence that SMEs began intensively developing their competitive strategies (Herrera Madueño et al., 2016) for continuous improvement (Dey et al., 2021). ...
... The government and non-governmental organizations benefit from adopting environmental initiatives (Singh et al., 2018;Agnello et al., 2015). Incentives include additional or financial rewards (Ling and Xu, 2021) that encourage organizations to design or implement environmental practices (Kahupi et al., 2021). Previous studies stated that GEIs are allocated to design policies related to sustainable innovation (Koval et al., 2023), return on social investment, waste reduction and the ability to produce environmentally friendly products (Shaikh et al., 2023) to provide added value economic, social and environmental (Gupta et al., 2021;Yadegaridehkordi et al., 2023). ...
... The governments and countries concerned about saving the environment must provide green economy subsidies, tax incentives, soft loans and subsidized materials to increase sustainable waste management strategies (Singh et al., 2018;M€ olemann, 2016). First, the regulations can strengthen the commitment and consistency of SMEs to saving the environment efforts (Kahupi et al., 2021;Lin et al., 2015;Roxas and Coetzer, 2012). Second, proper utilization of the government's GEIs by SMEs managers will increase commitment to the environment. ...
Purpose
The present study aims to examine the relationship between green economic incentives (GEIs) and environmental commitment (EC) as drivers of the circular economy (CE) practices in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional study of 594 assistant managers and SME managers was used while data were analyzed through Smart PLS.
Findings
The results showed that GEIs positively affect the SMEs' EC and the CE practice model. Furthermore, EC is the mediator between GEIs and the three CE practices: internal environmental management, eco-design and corporate asset management and recovery (CAM&R).
Practical implications
The present study provided a basis for understanding the relevance of SMEs' CE practices and designing a strategic plan for its implementation. Also, it provides insight into that collaboration between triple helix (the government, SMEs and the community) is needed in increasing environmental awareness toward sustainability.
Originality/value
This study enhanced the natural resource-based view (NRBV), describing the mechanisms that view GEIs and EC as pollution prevention in CE practice.
... This challenge could be "due to credit constraints or inability to borrow, inability to issue equity, dependence on bank loans, or illiquidity of assets" (Lamont et al. 2001, p. 529). According to Kahupi et al. (2021), investors' skepticism about sustainability-based innovations owing to their costs, yields, and inherent risks impedes the financing of new sustainable firms. Access to external funding is crucial for the seamless functioning of a firm's operations and for eco-friendly and sustainable practices (Knight et al. 2019). ...
... This finding is analogous to that of Ullah et al. (2021), who argue that access to internal and external financing leads to superior sustainability performance in SMEs. Prior research suggests that a crucial impediment to the effective implementation of green and sustainable business practices in lean SMEs is a financial constraint, given the absence of immediate quantifiable benefits, high operating costs, and declining sales because of the premium price of green products (Caldera et al. 2019;Kahupi et al. 2021). Fifth, our findings suggest that circular economy practices are significantly associated with firms' sustainability performance. ...
Coupling the practice-based view (PBV) of firms with dynamic capabilities theory (DCT), we assess the effect of Fintech adoption (FA) on organizational sustainability performance (SP) through circular economy practices (CEP). Additionally, this research examines the moderating roles of a firm’s access to finance (AF) and absorptive capacity (AC) in the interplays between the constructs. 300 responses were collected from Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs using a structured questionnaire. We examined our conceptual model using a two-staged structural equation modeling-artificial neural network (SEM-ANN) approach. The empirical findings unveiled that Fintech adoption significantly drives organizational CEP and SP and that CEP acts as a mediator between the FA and SP linkage. Furthermore, the findings also confirmed the moderating effect of AF on the FA and CEP association and the impact of AC on the CEP and SP association. Hence, this scholarship adds pivotal insights to the extant literature by establishing the roles of multiple mediators and moderators in the interplay of FA and firms’ SP. Given the paucity of primary-data-based research, this empirical study addresses the gaps in the Fintech, CE, and sustainability literature and yields crucial implications for theory and practice.
... It has become increasingly important for companies to incorporate sustainability in their operations and business models to gain a competitive advantage, particularly in favourable sustainable regulatory frameworks (Kahupi et al., 2020). An international study conducted by Unilever (2017) found that a third of consumers choose brands that they believe are ethical or environmentally friendly. ...
... The problem is addressed in the European nonwovens market, which is used as a case market for this study. Several articles study businesses engaging and promoting sustainability (Kahupi et al., 2020;Witjes & Lozano, 2016), but their approach is mainly based on environmental effects such as recycling and waste results. ...
As industrial markets have become more competitive, and pressure from stakeholders such as consumers, policymakers, legislators, and partners has increased, businesses have changed their core values and activities. At the same time, branding has taken on a more comprehensive meaning to differentiate the company from the competition. Transparency is widely considered to attract consumers, and its importance has also increased within the business-to-business market. This study focuses on the European nonwovens market, which is undergoing a lot of changes from a sustainability and consumer behaviour standpoint. A change in the market has resulted in the need for better branding and a better understanding of consumer needs, which reflect the business-to-business market and relationships within the value chain.
This study consists of an integrative literature review, in which theory and previous studies are used to deepen the knowledge to answer the research questions designed for this study, as well as three objectives supporting the main research question. The literature review focused on brand management, competitive advantage, and transparency disruption in business. In addition to comprehensive secondary-data review, this case study completed with eight in-depth interviews with professionals of the European nonwovens market. These interviews complement the reliability of the study and underlines the findings of the study. This study answers the main research question: How to achieve a competitive advantage in the European nonwovens market by transitioning to transparency through branding?
Based on the results, in order to gain a competitive advantage in the European nonwovens market, it is necessary to increase transparency in communication, internally and externally. In addition, it will be necessary to establish better partnerships within the value chain. It is also critical to fulfil promises and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders, by implementing strategic actions and considering the effects throughout the entire value chain. As a result of interacting with all parties involved and creating reliable buyer-supplier relationships, it becomes evident the importance of creating a strong brand with targets aligned with partners and consumer’s values and preferences. By creating a strong brand in the name of sustainability and transparency, as well as creating more effective messages for a market, and involving internal stakeholders in the process, a competitive advantage is likely to be achieved.
... Although ongoing research continues to explore entrepreneurial initiatives across a variety of resource and institutional contexts [10,11], there is a paucity of knowledge on the motivation of grassroots ecopreneurs (GEs) who operate at the "bottom of the pyramid" (BoP) in these marginalized societies, and their role in addressing local challenges [12]. Extant research has opined that BoP entrepreneurs were pushed into entrepreneurship due to necessity or survival instincts, as individuals at the BoP are disproportionately affected by the adverse effects of climate change. ...
... We see this in our data where ecopreneurs seek to use waste resources, as seen in the circular economy [10], or natural elements, in a renewable fashion so as to perpetuate resource amounts over a long stretch of time and to serve as many community members as possible. Motivated to address a pressing ecological need, while also seeing the opportunity to differentiate their market positioning via their sustainable innovation [11], and make the solution available to more people, the data shows they are likely to adopt such venture-building principles. ...
This qualitative study focuses on the factors that motivate grassroots ecopreneurship at the base of the pyramid (BoP). Our study is anchored by the research question, “How are grassroots ecopreneurs at the BoP of Kenya motivated?” The participants were mainly drawn from beneficiaries of a multinational Non-Governmental Organization. Using a grounded theory approach, we conducted 12 qualitative case studies, 10 focus groups and 2 interviews, recording 61 participants. We triangulated data sources through data collected from primary and secondary sources, such as archival documents and archival interviews. Extant research suggests that grassroots ecopreneurs (GEs) at the BoP primarily engage in necessity-driven ventures. However, this study demonstrates that GEs’ motives to launch new ventures appear to be multifaceted and simultaneous (not linear or sequential). We also observed an interlinkage of environmental and economic motives in GEs who diversified their investments into related and unrelated areas. Our findings also indicate that GEs at the BoP developed socio-ethical motives-the GEs’ concerns toward other members of the community-and a desire to create social value beyond private value. All these motives contributed to the GEs establishing and sustaining viable businesses.
... These challenges are echoed in recent research demonstrating that circular economy strategies depend on consumer behavior (Kasulaitis et al., 2020) and stakeholder decision-making (Singh et al., 2021). Additional opportunities exist in exploring stakeholder management theory (Kahupi et al., 2021) to understand perceived barriers and identify factors to enable the success of new models. The managerial focus should maximize the displacement of primary production through increased quality, price competitiveness, and alignment with target markets, rather than just closing material and product loops. ...
... For both circular models discussed above, effective policy is likely to be required as a critical enabler for bringing sustainable innovations into practice (Kahupi et al., 2021). Such policies may include expanded liability protection for companies who donate usable food (Evans & Nagele, 2018), expanding economic incentives for firms to produce bio-products from organic waste (De Clercq et al., 2017), or providing capital grants to lower costs of resource recovery infrastructure (Shahid & Hittinger, 2020). ...
Circular economy offers a compelling alternative to linear consumption and production practices that waste monetary and physical resources. However, the inconsistent development, implementation, and assessment of circular business models have hindered widespread adoption and realization of sustainability benefits from circular economy solutions. This chapter reviews the development of the circular economy field, drawing from foundational theories in management, science, economics, and design. To demonstrate the varying scales and scopes at which circular economy has been applied in practice, we review implementation challenges and success for the food system, consumer electronics, and cross-cutting examples in other sectors. Critical needs are also discussed for assessing circular economy models to avoid unintended consequences or rebound effects that offset potential environmental, social, or economic benefits.
... In the literature, the use of organic materials or products refers to the use of raw materials from organic farming (Delate et al., 2021), which can provide a competitive advantage in the form of differentiation as well as be useful for targeting niche markets of consumers (Harsanto, 2021;Kahupi et al., 2021). This applies as an example in the case of SME 28, which uses organic ingredients as a differentiator for their soap products, which helps it target a niche market with strong differentiation that is different from similar products on the market. ...
Prior research suggests that today, sustainability is an important key in innovation. While the integration of sustainability into innovation in large enterprises has been widely studied, research on small-medium enterprises (SMEs) is still lacking. The aim of this study is to understand the sustainability innovation practices in SMEs. We interviewed 30 SME owners and managers in Indonesia and analyzed the data using thematic analysis to understand how SMEs practice sustainability innovation. The findings show that sustainability innovation in the form of product innovation is commonly practiced through the use of more environmentally friendly raw materials and packaging materials. As for process innovation, the practices include local sourcing and empowerment of the surrounding community as well as small-scale waste treatment to help reduce the damaging impact on the environment.
... Additionally, influencing regional executive authorities during the development of state programs to further develop the types of infrastructure needed by the business can be effective. However, it should be understood that infrastructure projects for organic agriculture entail additional expenses, which will be included in the price of the products and, consequently, reduce their competitiveness [15][16][17]. Thus, the government gains another mechanism for stimulating infrastructure activity among organic agricultural product producers -increasing their competitiveness through promoting local brands, providing advantages in government procurement, and more. ...
This paper analyzes the impact of rural infrastructure in the regions of the Siberian Federal District on the organic farming development. Authors determine that the Novosibirsk and Omsk regions and southern part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory are characterized by the most favorable conditions for the organic farming development in terms of engineering, transportation and social infrastructure. The infrastructure is relatively well developed in the Altai Territory, the Republic of Khakassia, Kemerovo, Tomsk, and Irkutsk regions. Weak infrastructure development characterizes the Republics of Tuva and Altai, as well as remote areas of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Irkutsk, and Tomsk regions. The primary mechanisms by which infrastructure influences the organic agricultural sector development are: reducing transportation and transaction costs and increasing profits in producing high-value-added products close to cultivation areas, enhancing the attractiveness of rural employment for skilled professionals, and generating solvent demand among the local population. The article proposes various options for increasing the efficiency of government and business actions in rural areas, including public-private partnerships for implementing infrastructure projects, associated training contracts, institutionalization of remote jobs, government procurement of organic agricultural products with advantages for local agricultural producers.
... As a result, authors seem to remain uncertain about the weight that individual factors play concerning the consumption of sustainable products. Some authors seem to confirm the central role played by the psychological and personal dimensions [70,71], while others believe that economic and performance factors still represent significant barriers to the purchase of sustainable products [72][73][74]. The impact of environmental factors remains uncertain, although many authors underline a growing and positive influence on consumers' purchasing choices [75,76]. ...
Due to the growing concern towards natural resource depletion and the increasing levels of waste generation caused by economic growth, sustainable consumption has gained the attention of both governments and society. Despite this, the market share of sustainable products remains low, and studies analysing the factors influencing consumers’ perception of sustainable products provide inconclusive results. This work aims to help bridge this gap by summarising the main literature results and focusing on practical implications. We perform a systematic literature review to identify the factors influencing consumers’ perception of sustainable products. Next, we classify these factors according to the triple bottom line framework, to provide a holistic perspective on the subject and present useful suggestions for companies. The findings suggest that most studies adopt a partial perspective on sustainability, focusing on only one of the sustainability dimensions or considering a single product category. The results also show that there are numerous factors that can influence consumer perception across all three sustainability dimensions. To increase the market share of sustainable products, companies should try and target new customer segments, by adopting a holistic approach to sustainability and analysing how consumers manage the trade-offs between the factors related to different sustainability dimensions. From a practical perspective, this study provides managers with a solid starting point to identify and assess the value of sustainable products in relation to the sustainability dimensions and the characteristics of the target customer segments.
... Startups are organizations representing sustainable entrepreneurship initiatives in the Brazilian context and they were used as unit of analysis. The search for articles on the present subject reveals that a few studies have a similar scope, namely, building of competitive advantage with sustainable products by using the stakeholder theory (Kahupi et al., 2021), innovative business models, circular economy and sustainable performance in organizations economy in the organic olive oil industry (Galati et al., 2018). This shows that there is still an opportunity to carry out further exploratory, qualitative studies with this scope. ...
This study analyses how startups implement circular business models supported by innovation and Industry 4.0, in which strategic stakeholders for value creation are to be found in this specific business ecosystem. The theoretical framework of circular business models supported by innovation was used for analysing the startups based on some assumptions of stakeholder theory. Fifty-one startups were selected, which correspond to the unit of analysis for this study on the improvement of supply chains through circular business models supported by innovation aimed at sustainability in organizations. We conducted a multiple case study whose results suggest that: (i) circularity is strategic for the business to assume its commitment to a sustainable development agenda, especially regarding pollution prevention and proactive action; (ii) visionary entrepreneurs are actively engaged with circular economy practices and technological innovation to promote a circular flow for their business ecosystem; (iii) Industry 4.0 is still incipient, but it is synergistic and beneficial for a successful circular economy in startups; and (iv) primary stakeholders are the activators of circular cycles in the startups surveyed. The present study contributes to the literature in four ways by: (i) presenting a framework which brings together exploratory theoretical propositions on strategic stakeholders for startups, innovative capabilities and assumptions of circular business models; (ii) validating exploratory theoretical propositions with 51 startups; (iii) providing lessons learned so far by the startups which are in line with the assumptions of circular business models for triggering their innovation capabilities and promoting Industry 4.0; (iv) providing an original typology of circular economy assumptions and technological innovations adopted by startups. The originality of this study lies in presenting useful insights for motivating managers to: (i) invest in circular business to become one of the first entrants and earn extra profits; (ii) make investments in circular business and technological innovations to obtain efficiency, practicality and process optimization; (iii) internalize Industry 4.0 technologies concomitantly with technological innovations and circular economy to generate systemic effects; (iv) integrate relevant stakeholders of the business ecosystem to generate a synergistic and effective effect for sustainable development.
... Investors can be regarded as transport vessels for corporations and individuals from ideas, inventions, or laboratory breakthroughs to prosperous bodies and disruptive innovations. Investors can be resourceful in aspects such as starting capital and resources (Kahupi et al. 2021). ...
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), Goal 16: Peace, justice, and strong institutions can drive positive environmental, social, and economic changes in sub-Saharan Africa while transforming informal sectors. Peer-reviewed English language publications on Google Scholar were explored based on a systematic literature review using loop analysis modelling, mapping out currently underdeveloped gaps such as the intersection of circular economy and the ASM sector in African countries. By identifying the significance of circular economy adoption within the realm of sub-Saharan Africa, which is rightly rich in quarried natural resources, this chapter laid the groundwork for the significance of strong institutions for the adoption of a circular approach and environmental management. Thereby, the problem of mining waste was highlighted, and the state of institutions was identified as the main facilitator of a circular economy for the ASM sector. Countries with institutional voids, weak policies, and marginal international collaboration are instructed by this chapter to carry out formalization that can enable stakeholder participation as well as institutional and policy changes, which support targets and indicators of SDG16. Given the blurred margins of functioning systems in emerging economies such as the case of developing sub-Saharan African countries, often the indicators for implementation, monitoring, and distribution data may be inadequate. Therefore, stronger regard for further research is encouraged to target more refined versions of clearer circular economy approaches, which would offer clearer and supportive adoption guidelines, i.e., easier to implement in poor or informal communities. The chapter is aligned with the need of formalizing the ASM sector toward efficiency and the decarbonization of the global economy at all levels of production, starting with the sourcing of raw materials – “mining.”KeywordsSDG16Strong institutionsCircular economyASM
... In addition, innovation serves as an important insight for the redesign of products, processes and services (Brown et al., 2021). It generates opportunities for the continuous creation of value ) and for the prospect of lasting relationships with customers and users of products and services (Kahupi et al., 2021). It inspires the creation of new circular business models, i.e., rethinking the system of accessing products and offering services to society (Pieroni et al., 2021). ...
This article analyzes how the circularity of resources occurs in Brazilian craft breweries supported by innovation and proposes the creation of alternative craft breweries to promote circular economy. Data were collected through 11 interviews with entrepreneurs in the craft brewery segment, checklist application, and access to the website of the cases investigated. Our results expand the relationship with innovation suggesting that: a) the circularity of resources is still focused on several long-cycle practices; b) short cycles, which are the most desired for the retention of resource value in the production chain, are already present, but demand more attention from the enterprises surveyed; c) innovation practices can become barriers to or drivers for the feasibility of circular economy in the beer context; d) technical cycles are consolidated in most of the researched cases, while biological cycles still demand greater engagement from all stakeholders; e) the nature and content of circular practices imply different adoption stages in the cases investigated; f) companies invest in strengthening the relationship with consumers and suppliers in order to obtain support for current circular strategies in their ventures.
... Organizations must adopt and implement innovations and technological interventions to keep the environment green and healthy and manage organizational resources efficiently [21,22]. In the organizational context, it is necessary to realize the stakeholder's views about green products, their attitude to consuming green, and their demand for green products to formulate strategies based on these perspectives [23]. Furthermore, as the human factor is inseparable from organizations, it is essential to identify the commitment of managers and practices adopted by the human resource department to confront the challenges of technology, gain a competitive advantage along with enhancing the performance of the economy and environment [24]. ...
Green innovation is an essential and burning topic for environmental and organizational performance. Therefore, this research aims to examine the effect of green innovation on environmental performance, which leads to organizational performance. Another objective is to measure the impact of two dimensions of green innovation, such as green process & green product measures, on green innovation. The second prime aim of this research is to evaluate the moderation of management commitment & human resource practices in an association between green innovation and organizational & environmental performance. A total of 320 employees provided their perspectives on a self-administrated questionnaire from the textile industry of Pakistan. We have employed SEM-based multivariate modeling to examine the data. This research has measured the reflective indicators measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis, an obvious choice of structural equation modeling to examine observed and unobserved variables and indicators using PLS-SEM (partial least square-structural equation modeling). The research findings reveal a positive & significant effect of product & process innovation on green innovation. Further, green innovation significantly impacts environmental and organizational performance. A two-way interaction (moderation) of human resource practices & green innovation does not have a cogent moderating effect on organizational & environmental performance. However, management commitment has a significant moderation between green innovation & organizational performance. A three-way interaction (moderated moderation) model finds a substantial effect on organizational attainment but an insignificant impact on environmental performance. The research outcomes significantly contribute and suggest that practitioners and policymakers must institutionalize green innovation practices in their organizations to enhance their organizational and environmental performance. HR practitioners play a vibrant role in creating green norms and organizational culture. The study findings also suggest that management commitment to green innovation advocates organization-level transformations toward adopting green practices.
... Molodchik [19] highlighted the negative effect of financial constraints on source knowledge availability. Along the same vine, Kahupi et al. [20] presented evidence to support the environmental engagement integration in the corporate business plan. They proved that the idea of sustainability is not enough to provide a competitive advantage. ...
This paper examines the influence of informal competition on SME innovation in the Eastern European transition economies. Using the BEEPS VI, which covers the period from 2018–2020, we investigated the conditional mediation of credit constraints moderated by business plan elaboration. Looking at SMEs’ product innovation, process innovation, radical innovation, and green innovation, we find that informal competition’s direct effect enhances all the innovation proxies. Besides, the informal sector increases SMEs’ credit constraints, which indirectly leads to less corporate innovation. The negative indirect effect is alleviated by the business strategy development. Finally, using bootstrap resampling, we confirm the significant conditional mediation effect of credit constraints on the informal competition and the innovation proxies.
... Molodchik [19] highlighted the negative effect of financial constraints on knowledge source availability. Along the same vine, Kahupi et al. [20] presented evidence to support the environmental engagement integration in the corporate business plan. They proved that the idea of sustainability is not enough to provide a competitive advantage. ...
This paper examines the influence of informal competition on SMEs innovation in the Eastern European transition economies. It investigates whether credit constraints mediate this relation. SMEs innovation is presented through four measures: Product innovation, Process innovation, Radical innovation and Green innovation. Using the BEEPs VI that covers the period from 2018-2020, we show that informal competition affects positively the product, process and radical innovation. Yet, it has a non-significant effect on green innovation. Besides, the informal sector increases SMEs credit constraints, which indirectly leads to less corporate innovation. The negative indirect effect restrains the positive direct effect. Hence, a partial mediation effect of credit constraints on the informal competition and the innovation proxies is reported with the exception of green innovation.
... Sustainability provides a competitive advantage in business (Kahupi et al., 2021;York, 2009). ...
Sustainable development is an essential purpose behind formulation of government policies because of its contribution to socio-economic and environmental well-being. The research conducted over the last few decades have emphasized that green and sustainable enterprises support this. As a result, it is imperative to ascertain the link between green and sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainable development. Thus, this study aims to examine how green entrepreneurship relates to the sustainable development and growth of a sustainable enterprise. It further studies the relationship between independent variables (economic (ECD), social (SD), strategic sustainability (SSD), and environment development (ED) with dependent variables (green (GE), sustainable entrepreneurship (SE), and sustainable development (SDG). Cause and effect relationship used to develop a conceptual model, and random-effect meta-analytic structural equation modeling (meta-SEM) used to evaluate latent relationships between this relationship. The work also analyses how ventures properties (venture age, venture size, and venture types) have moderating effects on this relationship. Secondary data used and data obtained from prior research publications. This study contains a comprehensive analysis of the sustainability literature, including one additional dimension with the current three dimensions of sustainability in a unified framework, and expanding its relationship with green and sustainable business. The study also provides significant theoretical contributions and implications for entrepreneurship and sustainability literature.
... Implementing food waste reduction and recycling relies on significant commitment, coordination, and communication among disparate stakeholders (Halloran et al., 2014), as well as new business models and incentive structures (Borrello et al., 2017). Neither are likely to be realized without effective policy interventions that translate sustainable innovations into practice (Kahupi et al., 2021) and provide consistent and effective incentive structures (Leipold and Petit-Boix, 2018;D'Amato et al., 2017). For example, policies may provide liability protection for companies who donate useable food (Evans and Nagele, 2018), financial incentives for firms to convert organic wastes to bio-products (De Clercq et al., 2017), or capital grants to reduce upfront costs of food waste infrastructure investments (Shahid and Hittinger, 2021). ...
Food waste is a growing global sustainability challenge. The United States plays a major role in food waste generation and yet has seen limited progress towards significantly reducing the amount of food ultimately being landfilled. Circular economy offers a compelling alternative to the current linear management of food and food waste, but the U.S. also lacks comprehensive public policy that would enable circular economy in the food system. This article provides a systemic analysis of U.S. federal and state policy to identify whether current regulations and initiatives are helping or hindering circular food waste management. One key finding is that the U.S. has ambitious national goals and initiatives aimed at reducing and recovering wasted food, but these efforts are voluntary and lack enforcement mechanisms. Individual states have enacted a wide array of policies expected to both directly and indirectly influence wasted food generation and management, including highly variable requirements for food date labeling and using excess food as animal feed. The majority of U.S. states have policies in place that would support donation of excess food for human use, and a few actually mandate wasted food management through landfill bans or diversion targets. However, the heterogeneity inherent to the observed “patchwork” of state policies is expected to confound broader circular economy goals and potentially limit new business models and stakeholder participation. Therefore, high priorities for policy efforts include federal standardization of date labeling and regional harmonization of state rescue and redistribution policies to support efficient business implementation and compliance.
... Green freight proves to be beneficial from both environmental and economic levels [53]. It has become an indispensable option for firms to gain a competitive advantage by using their green image and to maintain sustainability in the face of growing environmental pressures [25]. The Economic Survey of India shows that an improvement in freight efficiency will result in a reduction of indirect logistics costs by up to 10% and consequently a 5%−8% increase in exports [37]. ...
Nowadays, freight logistics industries are seeking to adopt green freight practices in their transport systems to reduce environmental concerns; efficient green freight practices lead to reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while using less energy and material. The freight logistics industry, despite its’ significant contribution to a country's monetary development and economic welfare, is not well regarded because of its role in contaminating the climate. However, the freight logistics industry is trying to implement a green freight transportation system to improve their image with buyers. However, they are facing a lot of obstacles. Therefore, this paper seeks to identify the barriers to the implementation of green freight in first world and third world nations and formulate them into a single numeric index. The Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IVIFS)-based graph theory and matrix approach (GTMA) technique has been used in this research to derive the green freight barrier impact index value. The PERMAN algorithm is used to compute the permanent function of matrices. Findings suggest that the freight logistics industries in third world nations should pay more attention to societal and managerial barriers for successful implementation of green freight. This research will assist policymakers and managers of freight logistics industries to create strategies to overcome the hurdles in properly implementing green freight practices.
... Hoffman, 2018;Weidinger, 2014), such knowledge will likely become a competitive advantage for enterprises and a benefit for their stakeholders (e.g. Cantele & Zardini, 2018;Kahupi et al., 2021;Laszlo & Zhexembayeva, 2017). ...
The growing societal and political focus on sustainability at global level is pressurizing companies to enhance their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance to satisfy respective stakeholder needs and ensure sustained business success. With a data sample of 4292 companies from Europe, East Asia and North America, this work aims to prove through a cross-regional empirical study that quality management systems (QMSs) and environmental management systems (EMSs) represent powerful business tools to achieve this enhanced ESG performance. Descriptive and cluster analyses reveal that firms with QMSs and/or EMSs accomplish statistically significant higher ESG scores than companies without such management systems (MSs). Furthermore, the results indicate that operating both types of MSs simultaneously increases performance in the environmental and social pillar even further, while the governance dimension appears to be affected mainly by the adoption of EMSs alone. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, such large-scale, cross-regional analysis of the impact of QMSs and EMSs on ESG performance is absent from the literature, thus paving the way for pioneering academic research. The study is grounded in stakeholder theory and demonstrates managers how the implementation of MSs can assist in successfully translating stakeholders’ sustainability concerns into actionable business practice. Furthermore, it allows decision-makers to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of QMSs and EMSs for tackling specific ESG issues and highlights the performance advantages of combining both MSs. The work also depicts policymakers how corporate sustainable performance (CSP) can be improved by fostering MSs adoption, thereby emphasizing the importance of supporting and facilitating the diffusion of these systems.
... This paper helps advance our understanding of the drivers of heterogeneity among firms' environment/sustainability practices. Over the past thirty years, there has been an active debate in the literature about why firms fail to adopt seemingly profitable environmental management practices [7,8]. Recent work focuses on the adoption of circular economy business strategies where firms look to "close material loops, reduce raw material use, reuse or remanufacture products, and recycle products and material" [9]. ...
Why are some firms more successful in adopting profitable environmental management practices than others? A key role of corporate managers is to encourage subsidiaries to adopt innovative practices. We examine the conditions under which corporate managers use information provision to encourage subsidiaries to adopt advanced environmental management practices. Focusing on the distribution of expertise across subsidiaries, we propose that corporate managers are more likely to elect an information provision strategy when subsidiaries (i) possess moderate levels of related expertise, (ii) exhibit significant heterogeneity in this expertise, and (iii) are more diversified and less concentrated. We study the diffusion of pollution prevention practices by firms in the information and communication technology sector in the United States and find empirical support for our four hypotheses. These findings promote a greater understanding of which firms adopt advanced environmental management practices and when firms adopt information provision strategies to encourage knowledge transfer within the organization.
... Los eslabones suponen la forma en la que se desem-peñan las actividades de la cadena que pueden afectar los costos de otras actividades que están relacionadas [18]. Los eslabones en el cultivo del cacao se clasifican en dos tipos: el eslabón inicial, que se relaciona con la producción y sus componentes como son la zonificación del cultivo, la caracterización de los productores y el sistema de cultivo agronómico; y el eslabón final, que corresponde a los procesos relacionados estrictamente al cultivo del cacao como: cosecha, fermentación lavado y secado, extendiéndose al proceso de acopio y comercialización [19], [20]. ...
In this article, we analyze the waste and losses in the links of the cocoa value chain in the provinces of Cotopaxi and Pastaza. To this aim, information on the volumes of cocoa production in each province was described. Subsequently, the impact of the 2020 pandemic on cocoa production was analyzed. For this,the Student's t contrast was applied to this variable in the aforementioned provinces. Finally, a description was made of the intensity with which waste and losses are generated in the main links corresponding to the value chain of cocoa production. It was determined that the links of collection and extraction of grains, as well as that of grafting, were the most representative in the waste of the value chain. In the same way, considerable losses were evidenced in the handling of the product and the pruning of diseases or pests. Keywords: Art, cocoa, value chain, product losses, waste. References [1]Sistema Nacional de Información, “Indicadores de cosecha y siembra,” Sistema Nacional de Información del Ecuador, June 2020. [2]C. Arévalo, E. Arévalo, F. Barraza, A. Farfán, Z. He, and V. Baligar, “Growth and nutritional responses of wild and domesticated cacao genotypes to soil Cd stress,” Sci. Total Environ., vol. 763, p. 144021, April 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144021. [3]J. Díaz, E. Varela, and J. Gil, “Livelihood strategies of cacao producers in Ecuador: Effects of national policies to support cacao farmers and specialty cacao landraces,” J. Rural Stud., vol. 63, pp. 141–156, August 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.08.004. [4]V. Barrera et al., La cadena de valor del cacao y el bienestar de los productores en la provincia de Manabí-Ecuador. Quito: ARCOIRIS Producciones Gráficas,May 2019. [5]C. Moreno, I. Molina, Z. Miranda, R. Moreno, and P. Moreno, “La Cadena de Valor de Cacao dn Ecuador: Una Propuesta de Estrategias para coadyuvar a la Sostenibilidad,”Bioagro, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 205–214, October 2020. [6]I. Cañadas, “Análisis de la cadena de suministro de cacao en el contexto de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana,” Rev.ECA Sinerg., vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 17–28, March 2019,[Online]. Available: https://revistas.utm.edu.ec/index.php/ECASinergia/article/view/1483/1983. [7]Banco Central del Ecuador, “La pandemia incidió en el crecimiento 2020: la economía ecuatoriana decreció 7,8%,” March 2021. https://www.bce.fin.ec/index.php/boletines-de-prensa-archivo/item/1421-la-pandemia-incidio-en-el-crecimiento-2020-la-economia-ecuatoriana-decrecio-7-8 (accessed Oct. 18, 2021). [8]Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias, La cadena de valor del cacao en América Latina y el Caribe. Quito, PI, Ecuador, October 2019. [9]M. Vassallo, “Diferenciación y agregado de valor en la cadena ecuatoriana del cacao,” Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (IAEN), Quito, PI, Ecuador, 2015. [10]E. Chavez et al., “Concentration of cadmium in cacao beans and its relationship with soil cadmium in southern Ecuador,” Sci. Total Environ., vol. 533, pp. 205–214, November 2015, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv. 2015.06.106. [11]C. Kilelu, L. Klerkx, A. Omore, I. Baltenweck, C.Leeuwis, and J. Githinji, “Value chain upgrading and the inclusion of smallholders in markets: reflections oncontributions of multi-stakeholder processes in dairy development in Tanzania,” Eur. J. Dev. Res., vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 1102–1121, January 2017, doi: 10.1057/s41287-016-0074-z. [12]J. Rodríguez, C. Giménez, and D. Arenas, “Cooperative initiatives with NGOs in socially sustainable supply chains: How is inter-organizational fit achieved?,”J. Clean. Prod., vol. 137, pp. 516–526, November 2016, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.07.115. [13]S. Dubey, R. Singh, S. Singh, A. Mishra, and N. Singh, “A brief study of value chain and supply chain,” no. September, pp. 177–183, 2020. [14]M. Mujica, A. Makhloufi, and P. Scala, “On the logistics of cocoa supply chain in Côte d’Ivoire: Simulation-based analysis,” Comput. Ind. Eng., vol. 137, no.September, p. 106034, November 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.cie.2019.106034. [15]J. Palomeque and J. Lalangui, “Propuesta de una ruta turística bananera en base a la historia regional, provincia El Oro, de Ecuador,” Rev. Científica Univ. ySoc., vol. 8, no. 3, p. 150, September 2016. [16]L. German, A. Bonanno, L. Foster, and L. Cotula,“‘Inclusive business’ in agriculture: Evidence from the evolution of agricultural value chains,” WorldDev., vol. 134, October 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105018. [17]S. Lyon, T. Mutersbaugh, and H. Worthen “Constructing the female coffee farmer: Do corporate smart-economic initiatives promote gender equitywithin agricultural value chains?,” Econ. Anthropol., vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 34–47, March 2019, doi: 10.1002/sea2.12129. [18]I. Kahupi, C. Eiríkur, O. Okorie, and S. Millette, “Building competitive advantage with sustainable products – A case study perspective of stakeholders,”J. Clean. Prod., vol. 289, p. 125699, March 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125699. [19]C. Maney, M. Sassen, and S. Hill, “Modelling biodiversity responses to land use in areas of cocoa cultivation,” Agric. Ecosyst. Environ., vol. 324, no.September 2021, p. 107712, 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.agee.2021.107712. [20]M. Calle and M. Mendieta, “Estructura de la cadena del valor del cacao en el cantón Santa Rosa,” Tesis de grado, Universidad de Cuenca, Cuenca, AZ, Ecuador, 2014. [21]S. Barrezueta, W. Moreira, and C. Quezada, “Análisis del cacao y café ecuatoriano desde su cadena de valor,” Rev. Científica Agroecosistemas, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 7–17, December 2018, [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330520473_Analisis_del_cacao_y_cafe_ecuatoriano_desde_su_cadena_de_valor_en_el_periodo_2010-2015. [22]M. Torres et al., “Diversidad de Trichoderma en el agroecosistema cacao del estado de Tabasco, México,” Rev. Mex. Biodivers., vol. 86, no. 4, pp. 947–961, November 2015, doi: 10.1016/j.rmb.2015.07.012. [23] J. Zambrano and E. Chávez, Diagnóstico del estado del arte de la cadena de valor del cacao en América Latina y el Caribe. Quito: Instituto Nacional Autónomo de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIAP) de Ecuador, 2018. [24]F. Barraza et al., “Beyond cadmium accumulation: Distribution of other trace elements in soils and cacao beans in Ecuador,” Environ. Res., vol. 192, no. September 2020, 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110241. [25]F. Barraza et al., “Cadmium bioaccumulation and gastric bioaccessibility in cacao: A field study in areas impacted by oil activities in Ecuador,” Environ. Pollut., vol. 229, pp. 950–963, December 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2017.07.080. [26]M. Tardzenyuy, Z. Jianguo, T. Akyene, and M. Mbuwel, “Improving cocoa beans value chain using a local convection dryer: A case study of Fako division Cameroon.,” Sci. African, vol. 8, p. e00343, July 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.sciaf.2020.e00343. [27]D. Argüello, E. Chavez, F. Lauryssen, R. Vanderschueren, E. Smolders, and D. Montalvo, “Soil properties and agronomic factors affecting cadmium concentrations in cacao beans: A nationwide survey in Ecuador,” Sci. Total Environ., vol. 649, pp. 120–127, February 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.292. [28]E. Arévalo et al., “Cacao agroforestry management systems effects on soil fungi diversity in the Peruvian Amazon,” Ecol. Indic., vol. 115, no. April, p. 106404, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106404. [29]J. Rodriguez and A. Pierdant, Estadística para administración. México D.F.: Grupo Editorial Patria, 2015. [30]Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería, “Productivo,” 2021. http://sipa.agricultura.gob.ec/index.php/sipa-estadisticas/estadisticas-productivas (accessed November 22, 2021). [31]J. Quito, “Biochar como enmienda edáfica para bajar los niveles de absorción de cadmio en Cacao (Theobroma Cacao L) Cultivar CCN-51,” Tesis de grado, Universidad Técnica de Machala, Machala, Ecuador, December 2020.
... the unprepared market for a particularly sustainable product or service, problems with escalation activities and the potential source of mission deviation in the process of business expansion, raw material variability and product volatility given informal contracts and ad-hoc arrangements with suppliers(Cullen & De Angelis, 2021;Rok & Kulik, 2021).Kahupi et al. (2021) report how investors are more doubtful about sustainability-based innovations due to their costs, the returns and risks associated with investments, which ends up hindering the financing of new sustainable businesses. Furthermore, consumers emerge as increasingly receptive to this type of innovation. ...
The circular economy (CE) emerged as an alternative model to the linear system to foster sustainable development. Entrepreneurship represents a key factor in capturing new circular business opportunities. Research on circular entrepreneurship remains at an early phase and is correspondingly somewhat dispersed. Thus, the research objective here is to bring entrepreneurship into the focus of discussions on CE through a systematic literature review. In the absence of any systematic review on this theme, this work aims to map the relevant research and identify the themes discussed in the literature straddling entrepreneurship and the CE currently dispersed across the existing literature. Based on a sample of 102 articles collected from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, this approach identified four thematic groups: growing circular SMEs, born circular firms and start‐ups, social entrepreneurship in CE, and support ecosystem for circular entrepreneurship. A greater emphasis on the study of growing circular SMEs to the detriment of other groups is observed. Also, research in the field is mainly focused on European countries. We then propose a future research agenda and a conceptual model for the entrepreneurial process in CE as a point of departure for further developing and deepening the literature on circular entrepreneurship.
... El manejo o administración del producto tienen como fuerza ambiental impulsora minimizar los costos en el ciclo de vida del producto, por lo que se incluye toda la cadena de valor del producto (Hart, 1995;Hart y Dowell, 2011). Las preocupaciones ambientales en esta estrategia se integran en cada etapa del ciclo de vida o cadena de valor del producto, es decir, desde la adquisición de las materias primas hasta el uso del producto, y obedece a las perspectivas externas de los stakeholders ante el requerimiento de aspectos ambientales en los procesos de diseño y desarrollo de productos, de ahí que la integración de los stakeholders sea un recurso clave para el desarrollo de esta estrategia (García-Román, Sánchez-Medina, Díaz-Pichardo y Caballero-Caballero, 2018;Hart, 1995;Kahupi, Eiríkur, Okorie y Millette, 2021). El costo ambiental del manejo del producto puede reducirse mediante la maximización en el uso de materiales no renovables, evitar el uso de materiales tóxicos, uso de materiales de bajo impacto ambiental en la elaboración del producto y la reutilización o reciclado al final de la vida útil de producto (García et al., 2018;Hart, 1995;Shrivastava, 1995). ...
Este artículo analiza el impacto del manejo del producto y la prevención de la contaminación en la ventaja competitiva en costos, diferenciación y crecimiento empresarial, para ello se utiliza la visión basada en los recursos naturales (NRBV, por sus siglas en inglés), la cual fundamenta una relación entre diferentes estrategias ambientales y la ventaja competitiva. Se realizó una investigación cuantitativa, utilizado la técnica de mínimos cuadrados parciales para un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales (PLS-SEM, por sus siglas en inglés), basado en datos de encuestas realizadas a 61 negocios de mezcal ubicados en la “Región del Mezcal” del estado de Oaxaca. Los resultados demuestran que el manejo del producto impacta la ventaja competitiva en costos y el crecimiento empresarial, mientras que la prevención de la contaminación no arrojó resultados significativos, lo cual contradice los argumentos planteados en la NRBV. El artículo propone una serie de implicaciones teóricas y prácticas, enfatizando principalmente en la necesidad de proponer modelos más idóneos a contextos en subsistencia y la necesidad urgente de apoyo institucional al sector estudiado.
... En este sentido los conceptos de deportes y turismo potencian el desarrollo de un modelo de negocio generador de riqueza que contribuye a promover un turismo sostenible, respetuoso con el medio ambiente y desestacionalizado (Forradellas, Alonso, Vázquez, Fernández, & Miró, 2021;Kudinova, Loginova & Zhukova, 2021). Si bien los principios de sostenibilidad pueden ser buenos para las empresas y la economía, las empresas han tardado en reemplazar los productos no sostenibles por productos sostenibles (Kahupi, Eiríkur, Okorie, & Millette, 2021). Un ejemplo de esto es la industria deportiva que cada vez genera más consumismo de acuerdo con organizaciones deportivas y sus cambios constantes de reglamentos en los deportes. ...
La literatura existente aún no proporciona una orientación suficiente con respecto a la asignación de ciertos recursos al final de su vida útil entre los puntos de reciclaje para maximizar la economía circular y los resultados de sostenibilidad en organizaciones deportivas. Tampoco se evidencian cuáles son los elementos de la economía circular para las organizaciones deportivas latinoamericanas. En tal sentido, el objetivo de esta investigación es concebir un modelo de economía circular para las organizaciones deportivas latinoamericanas. La investigación parte de un análisis teórico y metodológico el cual permite la generación y validación de 21 indicadores, agrupados en seis variables, que se utilizan en el diagnóstico, diseño del modelo y la validación de los resultados. El diagnóstico realizado en cinco países: Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador y Argentina. Entre los principales resultados se obtuvo que el Sistema de gestión en el deporte, no constituye un factor analizado desde la perspectiva de la economía circular en el deporte. La selección de proveedores deportivo no es coherente con el medioambiente y se refleja en el consumo de materiales deportivos, indicador con menor carga factorial. El clúster jerárquico permitió agrupar las variables en dos grupos al que se les denominó Potenciadores y Determinantes de la economía circular, respectivamente. Summary: The existing literature does not yet provide sufficient guidance regarding the allocation of certain end-of-life resources between recycling points to maximize circular economy and sustainability outcomes in sports organizations. Nor is it evident what the elements of the circular economy are for Latin American sports organizations. In this sense, the objective of this research is to conceive a circular economy model for Latin American sports organizations. The research starts from a theoretical and methodological analysis which allows the generation and validation of 21 indicators, grouped into six variables, which are used in the diagnosis, design of the model and the validation of the results. The diagnosis made in five countries: Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Argentina. Among the main results, it was obtained that the Management System in sport does not constitute a factor analyzed from the perspective of the circular economy in sport. The selection of sports suppliers is not consistent with the environment and is reflected in the consumption of sports materials, an indicator with a lower factor load. The hierarchical cluster allowed the variables to be grouped into two groups called Enhancers and Determinants of the circular economy, respectively.
... Given this, a sustainability-based mindset, integrating a CSR approach at the strategic core of businesses allows companies to leverage cleaner production processes and practices, and to engender responsible consumption patterns in consumers' propensity towards buying sustainable products (Vȃtȃmȃnescu et al., 2017(Vȃtȃmȃnescu et al., , 2018(Vȃtȃmȃnescu et al., , 2018Gong and Ho, 2018;Dabija and Bȃbuț, 2019). Consistent with Luchs et al. (2010, p.19), sustainable products can be defined as goods "with positive social and/or environmental attributes", objectivized via information cues such as sustainability labels, narrative claims, physical appearance, etc. (Bangsa and Schlegelmilch, 2020;Kahupi et al., 2021). ...
... Business management is today facing important challenges regarding how to build an environment mutually sustainable for all stakeholders involved [1][2][3][4]. The paradigm changes observed by behavioural economists [5,6] forced businesses to embrace cooperation as an efficient strategy [7][8][9] resulting in the creation of clusters and in the development of sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems. ...
The article focuses on the creation and the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem around the innovation clusters. Clusters are believed to have a well-defined strategic approach aimed at boosting businesses’ sustainable development, especially if clusters are centred around small and middle-sized enterprises. Having undertaken a piece of phenomenological qualitative research, we found that large companies were more open to cooperation and sustainability than the small and middle-sized ones, thus initiating and developing innovation clusters around them (particularly in high-technologized industries such as the automotive and Information Technology). Additionally, we highlight that a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem is based on strong pillars, of which small companies’ capabilities, including the entrepreneurial ones, are innovation-driven, and place them in the centre of the innovation cluster. This piece of research also provides relevant insights for private and public organisations and policymakers in order to co-create a local innovation and entrepreneurship strategy. Our findings have implications for both cluster literature and the field of entrepreneurship.
... It can be considered a niche product or a product that replaces the less sustainable alternatives on a limited number of occasions only. A possible cause can be the lack of performances or presence of any issues that do not enable the full substitution of less sustainable alternatives [52,53]. For example, the manual washing machine or the solar cooker are two clear examples targeted by eco-design books that have not replaced traditional washing machines or cookers in peoples' life. ...
Eco-designed products can contribute to sustainable development if consumers choose them rather than the less environmentally friendly alternatives and if they are used properly. However, eco-design methods have so far failed to address the issue of unsustainable behaviors, whose sources have not been recognized. In light of this deficiency, the authors have analyzed a large number of eco-designed products with the aim to capture the possible unsustainable behaviors arising from their use and consumption. The subsequent characterization of unsustainable behaviors has led to the creation of a framework of unsustainable behaviors, which has been subjected to the evaluation of a pool of experts in the field. In its final version, the framework includes nine classes of unsustainable behaviors, which are categorized into the corresponding product lifecycle phases (purchase, use, end of life), and different kinds of undesired effects (harmful, insufficient, excessive) based on the TRIZ-oriented functional analysis. The classes, whose significance has been checked in the literature, include frequent causes of unsustainable behaviors and corresponding examples. Through the framework, designers can take into due account the possible circumstances that would prevent their developed products from being prone to unsustainable behaviors. In a future step, the classes of unsustainable behaviors are to be linked with indications arising from Design for Sustainable Behavior.
... Given this, a sustainability-based mindset, integrating a CSR approach at the strategic core of businesses allows companies to leverage cleaner production processes and practices, and to engender responsible consumption patterns in consumers' propensity towards buying sustainable products (Vătămănescu et al., 2017;2018;Gong and Ho, 2018;Dabija and Băbuț, 2019). Consistent with Luchs et al. (2010, p.19), sustainable products can be defined as goods "with positive social and/or environmental attributes", objectivized via information cues such as sustainability labels, narrative claims, physical appearance, etc. (Bangsa and Schlegelmilch, 2020;Kahupi et al., 2021). ...
The current exploratory endeavour sets out to scrutinize the relationships between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach of fashion companies, their strategic CSR communication, corporate reputation, and consumers' propensity towards buying sustainable products. The study elaborates on consumers' perspective on these variables, comparing two-time frameworks, before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical research was performed on 977 Millennials and Gen Zers, thus extending previous studies based on the generational theory. Emphasis was placed on the fashion sector as one of the industries most challenged by the pandemic, with Italy being one of the most affected European countries. Scrutiny relied on a questionnaire-based survey; data being processed via structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. The findings reveal that consumers attach great importance to the social and environmental sustainability practices applied by companies (i.e., circular economy issues, location of apparel production, organic production of raw materials, pollution generated during production, respect of workers’ rights and health, and use of recycled materials) and to the attributes of targeted products, even since the spread of the virus. The empirical evidence has substantive implications for scholars, professionals, and companies, urging that sustainability priorities are critical to favourable consumer behaviour, and implicitly to business survival.
... The resource-based theory emphasizes that providing value to stakeholders can create a competitive advantage for businesses [6]. It implies that businesses need to proactively take the interests of multiple stakeholders into account [7,8]. As a consequence, many companies have voluntarily engaged in socially and environmentally responsible behaviors. ...
While engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gradually become mainstream in the business context, the investigation of CSR communication and its effectiveness remains limited. This study examines how environmental CSR communication affects consumer perception and behavior through an experiment design. We distinguish three CSR communication factors-message content (climate responsibility vs. sustainable use of natural resources), message style (green-hushing vs. uniform vs. greenwashing) and praise tactics (consumer praise vs. company praise)-and assess their impacts on consumer trust, purchase intention and consumer advocacy, respectively. We also investigate the moderating role of attributed intrinsic and extrinsic corporate motives on engaging in environmental CSR. An online experiment (N = 304) revealed that a uniform message style outperforms the other two styles, whereas greenwashing is found to be least effective. In addition, attributed intrinsic corporate motives moderate the impacts of environmental CSR communication on consumer trust, purchase intention and consumer advocacy, respectively. No moderation effect was found for attributed extrinsic corporate motives. The findings provide important implications for effective environmental CSR communication with respect to specific message styles and attributed corporate motives.
... In addition, innovation serves as an important insight for the redesign of products, processes and services (Brown et al., 2021). It generates opportunities for the continuous creation of value and for the prospect of lasting relationships with customers and users of products and services (Kahupi et al., 2021). It inspires the creation of new circular business models, of rethinking the system of accessing products and offering services to society (Pieroni et al., 2021). ...
Purpose
There is no literature that sought the revision and integration of ecological modernization of theory (EMT) and circular economy (CE). This article aims to answer the questions: How have companies developed circular economy practices within their operations? Why have companies invested in circular economy practices? Based on the answers to these questions, it would be possible to understand how the assumptions of EMT explain the adoption of CE practices.
Design/methodology/approach
The research method is based on multiple case studies with Brazilian craft brewery companies.
Findings
Companies studied have pursed the adoption of circular economy practices, but the full potential of the use of biological cycles within their processes of production has been hampered by the lack of external policies and clear governance toward circular economy. Thus, pollution prevention policies may be an important driver for organizations be able to advance in circular economy practices.
Research limitations/implications
Research limitations are coverage only of organizations located in an emerging country. A second limitation is that the data saturation was partially achieved in some of the analyzed cases, especially by the limitation of the time period surveyed (transversal research). The longitudinal evaluation is timely for circular economy surveys.
Practical implications
The formulation of a regulatory framework through a participative, interactive and decentralized process, capable of delegating responsibilities and incentives to all entities, to contemplate a tax restructuring for the alcoholic beverage sector, could corroborate to create a new standard of action for the sector.
Social implications
This document highlights how the principles of ecological modernization can contribute to the advancement of the circular economy. The understanding can help in the design of processes that provide circular and sustainable operations as a social good in a effective value.
Originality/value
The principles from EMT, such as the development of an institutional environment towards corporate environmental proactive, could enhance the adoption of circular economy practices within the brewery sector. Despite of the class association of the brewery sector has supported the companies studied to move forward in other matters, a clear governance is necessary to guide organizations towards circular economy practices.
... Tiba et al. (2020) conduct stakeholder interviews to better understand how to increase sustainability entrepreneurship, but the unit of analysis is a set of regional activities, not the specific networking arrangements of an incubator. Kahupi et al. (2020) interview a variety of developed-nation stakeholders to understand building competitive advantage for sustainable products. Aid et al. (2017) interview public and private actors to identify challenges and opportunities in increasing circularity in waste management in Sweden. ...
What are the challenges and opportunities involved in the development of circular-economy incubators in a developing economy? A grounded theory approach is used to explore these challenges and opportunities in Trinidad and Tobago. Local stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, non-profits, academics and government agencies, are interviewed and the results are analyzed via axial coding to extract trends in attitudes and perceptions. Two principal results emerge from the analysis: First, while government involvement was viewed as part of the process, stakeholders do not trust the government to lead the development. Second, many stakeholders do not fully understand circular-economy strategies and opportunities, emphasizing traditional waste management approaches such as recycling over value-added conversion of waste. Different stakeholders demonstrate different knowledge gaps, e.g. entrepreneurs tend not to recognize the financial case for circular economy, a prerequisite to their motivation to participate in incubation. These results suggest that circular-economy incubators would help entrepreneurs find and pursue circular-economy opportunities with a limited role for government. Also, education about circular-economy approaches is needed to motivate and inform participation in a circular-economy incubator.
Entrepreneurship has been recognized as a crucial driver for a nation’s economic growth, wherein the entrepreneurs exploit social and environmental assets to generate financial gains, making them accountable to the community and the environment. The current state of the environment, the socioeconomic divide, and insufficient access to resources and opportunities are the primary concerns. Recent academic works have highlighted the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship as a solution to minimizing the negative effects of entrepreneurial industries on environmental deterioration and social inequality. Scholarly interest in this field has grown in recent years as a result of its ability to incorporate the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. However, there is still a lack of awareness and understanding of nature and the future of sustainable entrepreneurship in both theory and practice. Therefore, this systematic review paper along with the bibliometric analysis aims to show how sustainable entrepreneurship has changed after the introduction of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focusing on recent research trends. This literature review will reveal the trend and ascertain the future directions for novel and senior researchers in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship.
This chapter analyses the importance of Portuguese consumers' degree of environmental awareness when faced with the decision to purchase sustainable products, with the purpose of helping to better understand the ecologically aware consumer profile. It was applied an online questionnaire survey to collect the data, and 269 answers were obtained. The authors followed recommendations of scales proposed by authors such as Straughan and Roberts; Chan; and Panucci-Filho, Rossato, and Henkes. The results highlight environmental awareness as a relevant factor for the purchase of sustainable products, and the variables age and gender were the ones that proved to be most significant to describe the profile of the ecologically concerned consumer because it denotes more accentuated levels in the female gender as well as in a younger age group. Another conclusion to be drawn is that the level of environmental awareness and purchase intention and actual purchase are positively related, that is, an ecologically aware consumer more easily considers the purchase of sustainable products.
In this global era, Innovation Management is referred to as a fundamental requirement for organizational survival, success and competitiveness. There is an imperative need for innovation management. The global marketplace is like a war zone; if the firm does not manage the innovation, the firm will eventually die. Therefore, this study endeavors to explore the constructs and measures of innovation management in Indian MSMEs. The constructs and their respective measures from the past literature were identified, and then the hypotheses are developed. Based on the developed hypotheses, a questionnaire was formulated. Obtained response on more than 400 questionnaires through various sources, out of these 379 questionnaires were filtered and rest were discarded, and then on the filtered data Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied using SPSS. From the past literature, identified ten constructs and 39 measures. From the pattern matrix, it is found out that all the identified 39 measures belong to their respective constructs and are highly loaded on them. The results of the correlation matrix show that the top management is positively correlated with all the constructs and influence significantly the communication and organization culture and also the financial resources construct has a high correlation with collaboration. This paper helps in exploring the significant constructs of innovation management and their respective measures and also gives the clarity on which measures facilitates which constructs of innovation management in Indian MSMEs.KeywordsConstructsEFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis)InnovationInnovation managementMeasuresMSMEs (Micro Small & Medium Enterprises)
The objective of Sustainable Manufacturing practices (SMP) in manufacturing industries are to minimize the adverse effects of manufacturing operations on the environment and at the same time optimize the production efficiency. In post COVID-19 scenario, customers and manufacturers both are more conscious about the sustainability initiatives. Traditionally the concept of Sustainable Manufacturing (SM) was looked upon by the small-scale industries as the hurdle to the efficiency and profitability. Many researchers have carried out the studies and shown that the adoption of SMP is beneficial in the long term for manufacturing organizations. However, studies on SMP adoption in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to be done holistically. Current research presents a case study on adoption of SMP in an Indian small-scale industry. Semi structured interviews, website, and other published information are source of primary and secondary data used for case study. From case study it is observed that technology up gradation, training of employees, formulation of appropriate organizational policies, following government rules and regulations, proper handling of the market competition, creating customer demands are the main factors that case organization considers for the implementation of SMP.KeywordsSustainable manufacturing practicesSMEsIndianCase study
In the era of a green economy, green innovation has become a way for enterprises to gain competitive advantage, and it is of great theoretical and practical significance to explore the driving force of enterprises' green innovation. This study explores the peer effect of an enterprise's green innovation and conducts an empirical test using data from 3338 Chinese listed companies in 2020. The results show a significant positive peer effect of enterprises' green innovation, and the green innovation of individual enterprises increases by 0.869 for each unit increase in industry-average green innovation. Further research shows that market power is the channel by which peer influence affects an enterprise's green innovation. Moreover, regional heterogeneity exists in the strength of the peer effect, which varies according to firm maturity and board size. These findings provide a reference for enterprises and governments to promote green transformation.
Sustainability reporting is measuring, disclosing, and being accountable to internal and external stakeholders for organizational performance toward sustainable development. Using the Systematic Quantitative Assessment Technique, this study reviewed 100 Sustainability Reporting (SR) articles published over the last decade. The intention is to provide insight into the various actions and progress made by the key participants and stakeholders regarding sustainable development and the quality and currency of sustainable reports from 2011 to 2020. Besides this primary objective, this review also sought to understand these SR articles' time distribution, geographic distribution, types, and data collection methods. A study of empirical evidence revealed that SR had attracted a lot more attention in recent years but what is not very clear is the level of commitment from the various stakeholders. The review also revealed the intertwining nature of the SR and sustainable development, which is further enhanced by adopting a robust accounting system. In this case, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the most acceptable, not without criticism. It is argued that the system does not give room for local realities that are often important in providing solutions to problems.
The responsibilities of leaders have grown as a result of information technology organizations’ increasing reliance on information and development to carry out their work. It is important for leaders to guide and support organizations as they respond to the challenges of continually generating new innovation and information frameworks. The participative initiative, therefore, is characterized as an authority that draws on part data and part insight to reduce progressive obstructions by including individual hierarchical individuals in the decision-making process. The participative initiative encourages a positive style of leadership in which the leader provides workers with the chance to partake in dynamic and critical thinking through consolation, backing, and impact. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of participative leadership on employee innovative work behavior through the mediating role of employee knowledge-sharing attitude and absorptive capacity, with project risk management as moderator. The non-probability convenience sampling technique was used and data collection occurred over three months from January 2022 to March 2022. As data collection took place in one time period, the design is cross-sectional in nature. The data were collected from 273 workers (i.e. engineering manager, project manager, project leader, team leader, software engineer, advisor, and expert) working in different public and private sector IT companies of Portugal. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both hard and soft copies of surveys were distributed via email. The analysis was performed using Smart PLS version 3.2.8. The results revealed that participative leadership had a direct effect on employee innovative work behavior that was positive and significant. Also, both the knowledge-sharing attitude and absorptive capacity of employees positively and significantly mediate the relationship between participative leadership and employee innovative work behavior. Project risk management, however, only significantly moderates the relationship between absorptive capacity and employee innovative work behavior. Lastly, some theoretical, practical implications, study limitations and future directions were discussed.
Despite substantial efforts in examining the drivers of sustainable innovation, we still do not know enough about the impact of co-innovation behavior. In this study, we investigated the effect of co-innovation behavior on sustainable innovation and the combinative effect of absorptive capacity and competitive intensity on this relationship. Data collected from 312 firms revealed that a firm's level of co-innovation behaviors is positively associated with sustainable innovation. Moreover, we find that the effect of co-innovation behaviors on sustainable innovation is amplified when absorptive capacity is high. Finally, the moderating effect of absorptive capacity is exacerbated by competitive intensity. These findings contribute to the co-innovation and sustainable innovation literature. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
The importance and inherence of innovations in the context of the current technological paradigm cause the necessity to develop approaches and tools for their effective management within individual enterprises at the level of groups of economic entities and sustainable development of regions of their localization as a whole. The formation of such solutions requires an analysis of the problems of innovative development and innovation policy to identify the basic patterns of their changes, and mutual interaction in the temporal, spatial, and sectoral context. The purpose of the study was to analyze the potential spatiotemporal influence of key factors groups on innovation activity effectiveness and its delay in the context of industry-based specifics of specialization of the Russian Federation regions. The authors considered the variants of manifestation of factors on the initially diverse geographical, socio-economic, political, and other conditions groups (regions) of resources and abilities to assess the influence of specified factors on the systems different by the initial parameters. Moreover, the specific feature is the analysis of factors’ impact on the result of implementation in the systems rather than disparate sets of resources and abilities. The authors analyzed possible specific patterns depending on the structure of this system and its initial conditions, which can serve as the basis for changes in the methodology of innovative development management as one of the key directions of modernization of industrial production and sustainable development of territories. The influence of an attributing factor on the result differed both in direction and in the power of influence between regions, which confirmed the need for the differentiated approach to innovative activity management and evaluation of the results of its manifestation. The analysis shows that the patent activity impact on the volume of innovative goods, works, and services varies greatly depending on the structure of their economic activities. The level of innovative activity is manifested strongly and rapidly in multi-sectoral and mid-specialized regions with an average weight of specialization industries of local and national significance, and in three years, multi-sectoral regions appear to be more sustainable. Almost all multi-sectoral regions show a one-time positive influence of losses for innovative activity, and in three years, it is rather negative for most regions.
The constantly changing environment has forced many banks to adopt improvised and harmonious responses to some unexpected events. These events sometimes led to the creation of the need for a method of strategic improvisation in order to preserve the sustainability of the environment. Here, the researcher felt the need to conduct a deep study on the relationship between strategic improvisation and sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, this research seeks to reveal the relationships that can lead to suggesting an intermediary model that investigates the relationships between the variables of strategic improvisation, organizational memory, and sustainable competitive advantage. The current research uses the quantitative method in collecting data and information through the employees of the senior administrations in (8) eight Iraqi private banks. The research found that strategic improvisation is positively related with sustainable competitive advantage, and the most importantly, organizational memory was the mediating variable between strategic improvisation and sustainable competitive advantage. However, the current research will contribute to reducing to some extent the shortcomings of the traditional resource-based vision, enhancing the understanding of strategic improvisation, as well as contributing to the achievement of sustainable development goals. The research also contributes to providing some suggestions to managers, in terms of encouraging them to learn improvisation, and to make decisions in difficult situations.
Natural food products are becoming increasingly popular worldwide due to their health and environmental benefits. However, these products' increasing anecdotal popularity has not translated into their widespread adoption; in fact, demand for natural food products remains confined to a relatively small segment of consumers. Despite this, little is known about the facilitators and inhibitors of favourable attitude of consumers towards these products. Recognising this gap, our study employed the theoretical lens of expectancy theory to investigate these factors. Through an extensive review of the pro-environmental consumption literature, we identified four facilitating and inhibiting factors: health consciousness, environmental concern, natural content and price barrier. Our subsequent analysis of responses collected from 357 existing consumers of natural food products in the United States confirmed a statistically significant positive association of health consciousness and natural content with consumers' attitude towards natural food products and a statistically significant negative association of price barrier and attitude towards natural food products. To better understand the overall dynamics of these associations, we also examined the moderation effect of brand love and image barrier. Our results revealed that brand love moderates the association between health consciousness and attitude while image barrier moderates the association between price barrier and attitude. This study's findings make a novel contribution to research and practice related to natural food product consumption.
Este livro apresenta 12 capítulos de revisão da literatura sobre algumas temáticas ambientais de fundamental importância para a compreensão dos desafios ambientais e as tecnologias existentes e passíveis de serem geradas para cada uma delas.
The circular economy (CE), which reimagines waste as economic opportunity, has been largely overlooked by traditional entrepreneurs. One explanation for this oversight is that limited information flow and cognitive bias limit their ability to recognize and develop CE opportunities. We propose a framework for a CE-focused incubator that removes these barriers to circular economy entrepreneurship. The framework defines how multiple stakeholders interact in order to provide critical information for CE development. Stakeholders include firms seeking economical ways to handle waste, firms that might use waste as value-added input, government agencies, and circular economy analysts that can provide potentially beneficial information, e.g. via Material Flow Analysis. Entrepreneurs would be recruited to develop CE ventures. The government would be asked to support initial financing, but the final start-ups would stand on their own as enterprises worthy of venture capital funding. The collaborative environment would promote profitable CE behavior. CE entrepreneurs need access to relevant information and a supportive network, both of which the CE-focused incubator we propose provides. Future work is needed to implement CE-incubators to engage entrepreneurs to realize economic and environmental benefits.
Can material flow analysis (MFA) support strategic decisions necessary for the development of circular economy (CE) in a developing country? MFA can be an essential tool in providing necessary data inputs for decisions related to the development of CE. Data-poor environments in developing economies, however, e.g. lack of data on physical flows in manufacturing, pose challenges to doing MFA. Other data however, in particular trade statistics accounting for shipment mass, are often available. We undertake a case study to characterize plastic flows in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) for 2016, demonstrating how leveraging such data enables MFA. A notable result from the MFA is that much (48%) of the landfilled plastic in T&T comes from plastic packaging for imported products rather than intentional domestic use. This is an example of what is probably a typical CE challenge for island nations: Importing materials with limited domestic demand at end-of-life. We use the MFA results to propose suggestions for a more circular flow of plastics in T&T. First, there is potential to divert plastic waste (including packaging plastic) for use as feedstock in a local cement plant. Second, the scale of PET plastic flows is of sufficient scale (26,000 metric tons annually) to make domestic recycle feasible. Techno-economic studies are needed to properly develop and evaluate these proposals, the role of the MFA here is to identify promising directions.
Infrastructure systems form the backbone of every society, providing essential services that include energy, water, waste management, transport and telecommunications. Infrastructure can also create harmful social and environmental impacts, increase vulnerability to natural disasters and leave an unsustainable burden of debt. Investment in infrastructure is at an all-time high globally, thus an ever-increasing number of decisions are being made now that will lock-in patterns of development for future generations. Although for the most part these investments are motivated by the desire to increase economic productivity and employment, we find that infrastructure either directly or indirectly influences the attainment of all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including 72% of the targets. We categorize the positive and negative effects of infrastructure and the interdependencies between infrastructure sectors. To ensure that the right infrastructure is built, policymakers need to establish long-term visions for sustainable national infrastructure systems, informed by the SDGs, and develop adaptable plans that can demonstrably deliver their vision. © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
Research Summary
How do new entrants create and capture value in established industries? Starting from the foundations of neoclassical economics we model entrepreneurial entry and competition as occurring simultaneously in production technology space and product attribute space. Our model’s central feature is to disaggregate entrepreneurial rents into four components: arbitrage, innovation, organization, and uncertainty‐bearing. This permits us to model the nature of value creation from a common analytical platform, and to measure value capture as a set of distinct rent streams available to multiple stakeholders over time.
Managerial Summary
Although there is broad consensus that the essence of entrepreneurship is the creation and capture of new value, both scholars and practitioners have struggled to connect this basic exhortation to the entrepreneurial process. This paper argues that returns to entrepreneurial action can be generated through four main mechanisms: innovation, uncertainty‐bearing, new business models, or inter‐industry arbitrage – either uniquely, or in combination. Examining these mechanisms for value creation together reveals implications for how best to organize and manage the entrepreneurial process so that that returns to entrepreneurial action can be appropriated equitably.
The European Union has recently introduced the ’circular economy’ as a high-level strategy to move our societies beyond the limits to growth. In the eyes of European policy makers, we will reach a circular economy through business innovation or the promotion of existing sustainable business models based on circular economy principles. Yet, we know next to nothing about how European businesses perceive or take up this strategy and whether it contributes to business innovation or the promotion of sustainable business models. To fill this gap, this paper analyses the business community’s view on the circular economy. It focuses on the bio-based sector as one of the most resource-intensive in Europe and scrutinizes EU level debates as well as business practices in Germany. Based on a document analysis and participant observation data, the results show that business stakeholders currently relate the circular economy predominantly to established practices and to technological business models. This leaves considerable room for innovation in areas like social or organizational business models. Yet, the directions and effects of current activities remain uncertain. Connecting the debates about the circular economy and the bioeconomy could benefit the discussion of these possible directions and their effects. As our results show, exploring the relation between the circular economy and the bioeconomy highlights the need to define which cycles contribute most to a sustainable future economy. Existing guidelines and standards developed for businesses have been criticized for lacking exactly this definition. Hence, strengthening the link between circular economy and bioeconomy debates may provide a crucial step towards defining the sustainability of the circular economy, thereby setting clear priorities for sustainable business practices.
While the terms Circular Economy and sustainability are increasingly gaining traction with academia, industry, and policymakers, the similarities and differences between both concepts remain ambiguous. The relationship between the concepts is not made explicit in literature, which is blurring their conceptual contours and constrains the efficacy of using the approaches in research and practice. This research addresses this gap and aims to provide conceptual clarity by distinguishing the terms and synthesising the different types of relationships between them. We conducted an extensive literature review, employing bibliometric analysis and snowballing techniques to investigate the state of the art in the field and synthesise the similarities, differences and relationships between both terms. We identified eight different relationship types in the literature and illustrated the most evident similarities and differences between both concepts.
Sustainability aims at addressing environmental and socio-economic issues in the long term. In general the literature on sustainability has focused mainly on the environmental issues, whereas, more recently, a Circular Economy has been proposed as one of the latest concepts for addressing both the environmental and socio-economic issues. A Circular Economy aims at transforming waste into resources and on bridging production and consumption activities; however, there is still limited research focusing on these aspects This paper addresses the link between procurement and supply practices, and proposes changing from a traditional public procurement process, based on product-selling business models, to a more service- oriented system. The paper proposes a framework to include technical and non-technical specifications of product/service combinations that improve resource usage efficiency through recovery. The framework also considers socio-cultural specifications and physical and social proximity between the stakeholders in the procurement process. The framework is based on collaboration, which is a vital link between the public procurement process and the development of more sustainable business models, where the experience gained in the collaboration process serves as the bases for suppliers and procurers in improving their contribution to CE, whilst at the same time securing economic benefits for both parties. Although, in this process, the specification setting may take longer, the relationships between procurer and supplier tend to be longer lasting and stronger. This research shows that collaboration between procurers and suppliers throughout the procurement process can lead to reductions in raw material utilisation and waste generation, whilst promoting the development of new, more sustainable, business models.
The origins of the Linear Economy - the ‘take-make-use-dispose’ model of consumption - date from the Industrial Revolution and the global economy developed around this model. Various social, economic and environmental factors mean that it is no longer sustainable. A radical new model - the Circular Economy - is being advocated but as yet it is not widely practiced. This paper proposes that designers are crucial to the development of this new economic model; furthermore, this model facilitates education for sustainability and enhances employability.
Eco-innovations, eco-efficiency and corporate social responsibility practices define much of the current industrial sustainability agenda. While important, they are insufficient in themselves to deliver the holistic changes necessary to achieve long-term social and environmental sustainability. How can we encourage corporate innovation that significantly changes the way companies operate to ensure greater sustainability?
Sustainable business models (SBM) incorporate a triple bottom line approach and consider a wide range of stakeholder interests, including environment and society. They are important in driving and implementing corporate innovation for sustainability, can help embed sustainability into business purpose and processes, and serve as a key driver of competitive advantage.
Many innovative approaches may contribute to delivering sustainability through business models, but have not been collated under a unifying theme of business model innovation. The literature and business practice review has identified a wide range of examples of mechanisms and solutions that can contribute to business model innovation for sustainability. The examples were collated and analysed to identify defining patterns and attributes that might facilitate categorisation.
Sustainable business model archetypes are introduced to describe groupings of mechanisms and solutions that may contribute to building up the business model for sustainability. The aim of these archetypes is to develop a common language that can be used to accelerate the development of sustainable business models in research and practice. The archetypes are: Maximise material and energy efficiency; Create value from ‘waste’; Substitute with renewables and natural processes; Deliver functionality rather than ownership; Adopt a stewardship role; Encourage sufficiency; Re-purpose the business for society/environment; and Develop scale-up solutions.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how trust can be built in a relationship between a project and its stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical data are based on a qualitative case study with in‐depth interviews following a semi‐structured approach. A Norwegian project, the new opera house, is studied. This is a large public construction project, with a great deal of media and public attention by Norwegian society.
Findings
The study results show that trust is built in a project‐stakeholder relationship by improving communication skills, behaving reliably, showing commitment, being sincere, benevolent and competent, obtaining and acting with integrity, working towards reaching project milestones and establishing common goals.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should investigate other scenarios, types of projects, cultures and countries, so that these findings may be generalized.
Practical implications
This research concludes that trust is important for building a well‐functioning business relationship. Trust can be seen as a result of good project‐stakeholder relations, and trust is reciprocal. Trust is something that must be earned, and it can be easily lost.
Originality/value
How to build trust in project‐stakeholder relationships is studied in this research paper.
Although public interest in sustainability increases and consumer attitudes are mainly positive, behavioral patterns are not
univocally consistent with attitudes. This study investigates the presumed gap between favorable attitude towards sustainable
behavior and behavioral intention to purchase sustainable food products. The impact of involvement, perceived availability,
certainty, perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE), values, and social norms on consumers’ attitudes and intentions towards
sustainable food products is analyzed. The empirical research builds on a survey with a sample of 456 young consumers, using
a questionnaire and an experimental design with manipulation of key constructs through showing advertisements for sustainable
dairy. Involvement with sustainability, certainty, and PCE have a significant positive impact on attitude towards buying sustainable
dairy products, which in turn correlates strongly with intention to buy. Low perceived availability of sustainable products
explains why intentions to buy remain low, although attitudes might be positive. On the reverse side, experiencing social
pressure from peers (social norm) explains intentions to buy, despite rather negative personal attitudes. This study shows
that more sustainable and ethical food consumption can be stimulated through raising involvement, PCE, certainty, social norms,
and perceived availability.
This paper identifies practices of business-to-business relationship management that lead to building resilience during crisis. Business relationships play a significant role when firms face turbulence and disruption. Crises create resource limitations that businesses need to manage by the rapid formation of new relationships to access resources and build adequate capabilities. Mindfully managing such relationships requires a combination of trust, doubt and control mechanisms to enable exchange while safeguarding against relational vulnerabilities. Drawing on data from 33 firms operating within highly turbulent and uncertain environments, and crisis management literature, we apply the concept of mindfulness and introduce a model of mindful management of relationships as a process that combines the cognitive and behavioural capabilities of trusting, doubting, verifying, and adjusting relational exposure. This process enables a rapid acquisition of resources and building capabilities while enabling businesses dealing with issues before relational failure manifests. The mindful process supports ongoing and highly interactive relationships that adjust to changing circumstances fostering collaboration to deal with crises. Results encourage managers to rapidly develop relationships and trust new partners, whilst practicing suspicious thinking, enacting continuous interaction, empowering experienced boundary personnel, enabling frequent informal communication, and supporting the development of diverse social bonds.
Entrepreneurship has been recognized as a mechanism with which to generate economic benefits. However, due to the emergence of the concept of sustainable development as a pressing issue that is affecting the current global system, it has been pointed out that entrepreneurship should not be based solely on generating wealth. This brought about the emergence of the sustainable entrepreneurship notion which has received rapidly increasing attention in the last decade. This proliferation of studies has resulted in a lack of a theoretical framework, so this field needs to be analyzed, organized and synthetized to bring clarity. The aim of this study is to provide a bibliometric analysis of the status of the field, recognize main topics from existing research and establish future challenges for research. The results based on a sample of 216 articles show that the number of published articles and citations has grown constantly, especially in the last two years. Through bibliometric performance indicators, the most productive and relevant journals, countries, institutions and authors are presented. Moreover, through graphic mapping of strategic diagrams, this study identifies the most significant research tendencies enabling the proposal of several future research directions. The findings of this research can be useful for novel and senior sustainable entrepreneurship researchers, as it contributes to bringing clarity to this field by providing a complementary overview of the evolution and current status, as well as to finding a comprehensive, synthesized and organized summary of the diverse definitions, perspectives and research trends.
The study explores the key reinforcing factors of green competitive advantage among equipment manufacturing enterprises in China. Primary data using a survey method has been collected from managers and customers of equipment manufacturing organizations. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CBSEM) using SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 23.0 have been employed to estimate empirical findings. The results show that green brand image leads the process of reinforcing green competitive advantage. It has been seen that customer pressure, regulatory pressure and green creativity positively influence green production. However, the influence of customer pressure is higher, which provide an insight to the decision makers. Additionally, the work has indicated that although green production and green creativity directly have a positive role in reinforcing green competitive advantage. But, the role becomes stronger when it contributes toward green competitive advantage via green brand image. The study concludes that the role of customers is highly significant, they can play a vital role in reinforcing green competitive advantage for the enterprises and also they can influence firms to adopt green production. Similarly, the green awareness programs would be pivotal to create awareness among the general customers for persuading a business environment for cleaner production in the country.
Achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 is a Grand Challenge, especially for business academics who have a responsibility to work with businesses regarding their management and contributions. Two main challenges are examined in the article: the need for academics to work together towards holistic solutions to SDG problems, and the need for stronger engagement to reduce the distance between academics and practitioners/ practice. It then develops a framework that considers the knowledge-generation and application roles business academics face in addressing groups of insiders and outsiders. Finally, the use of the framework is demonstrated via a case study of modern slavery in corporate supply chains.
JEL Classification: M14, Q01
It is widely agreed that humanity faces major sustainability challenges that require immediate action. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are the most recent political call for action in this direction. In this study, we examine what role entrepreneurship in Germany plays in achieving the German SDGs. Thus, we pick up the discussion on sustainable entrepreneurship as a lever for change and search for empirical evidence that entrepreneurs in Germany identify and develop opportunities along the entire SDG spectrum. For our study, we examined a total of 193 venture competitions in Germany, collected data on a total of 588 rewarded ventures and used a semi-automated content analysis process to allocate those ventures to the main 17 SDGs based on their business activities. With our work offer a scalable and repeatable approach to map SDG related activity of new ventures, and we provide a detailed analysis of Germany's entrepreneurship landscape along the 17 SDGs. We found a very heterogeneous distribution of entrepreneurial activities along the goals, but also significant correlations between multiple goals that are frequently addressed jointly. Contrasting entrepreneurial activity along the SDGs with the national overall SDG performance of Germany we identified multiple SDGs that are rarely addressed by entrepreneurs despite strong needs for improvements. The identified patterns constitute a starting point for additional research on the potential of SDG related entrepreneurship and they direct policy makers and entrepreneurs where they can make the largest contribution to the SDGs.
Research Summary
We used interviews with elite informants as a case study to illustrate the need to expand the discussion of transparency and replicability to qualitative methodology. An analysis of 52 articles published in Strategic Management Journal revealed that none of them were sufficiently transparent to allow for exact replication, empirical replication, or conceptual replication. We offer 12 transparency criteria, and behaviorally‐anchored ratings scales to measure them, that can be used by authors as they plan and conduct qualitative research as well as by journal reviewers and editors when they evaluate the transparency of submitted manuscripts. We hope our article will serve as a catalyst for improving the degree of transparency and replicability of future qualitative research.
Managerial Summary
If organizations implement practices based on published research, will they produce results consistent with those reported in the articles? To answer this question, it is critical that published articles be transparent in terms of what has been done, why, and how. We investigated 52 articles published in Strategic Management Journal that reported interviewing elite informants (e.g., members of the top management team) and found that none of the articles were sufficiently transparent. These results lead to thorny questions about the trustworthiness of published research, but also important opportunities for future improvements about research transparency and replicability. We offer recommendations on 12 transparency criteria, and how to measure them, that can be used to evaluate past as well as future research using qualitative methods.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role of the inter-organizational learning contributing in transforming the green entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation to the improvement of sustainable competitive advantages.
Design/methodology/approach
The structural equation model was established to explain the complex relationship between green entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and sustainable competitive advantage. To test the hypothesis, this study used partial least square with data from a survey of 280 firms.
Findings
There is a strong tendency that the inter-organizational learning plays a pivotal role as an intervening variable that operates by receiving the input from green entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation, which plays as the exogenous construct. Hence, the greater inter-organizational learning leads the firms to achieve the greater sustainable competitive advantage.
Originality/value
This study extends the discussion on how organization should contribute to the well-being of the economic, social and environmental system by investigating the role of inter-organizational learning in achieving the sustainable competitive advantage.
The stakeholder perspective has provided a rich forum for a variety of debates at the intersection of business and society. Scholars gathered for two consecutive years, first in North America, and then in Europe, to discuss the major issues surrounding what has come to be known as stakeholder theory, to attempt to find common ground, and to uncover areas in need of further inquiry. Those meetings led to a list of “tensions” and a call for papers for this special issue to help address them. In this article, we introduce the resulting articles and provide some brief commentary on their importance. We end with a few of our own observations about the stakeholder perspective and stakeholder research.
Research Summary: Using arguments derived from transactions cost economics and incomplete contract theory, this article shows that the assumption that shareholders are a firm's only residual claimants is logically inconsistent with resource‐based theory's model of profit generation. It follows from this conclusion that resource‐based theory's model of profit appropriation must incorporate a stakeholder perspective. Some theoretical and empirical implications of this conclusion for resource‐based theory's model of profit generation, profit appropriation, the role of managers and entrepreneurs in resource‐based theory, and how conflicting interests among stakeholders can be resolved are all discussed. Finally, some continuing differences between stakeholder theory and incorporating a stakeholder perspective into resource‐based theory's model of profit appropriation are also discussed.
Managerial Summary: Some argue that since shareholders are the only stakeholder who have a claim on a firm's profits, managers should focus only on maximizing shareholder wealth. Not only will this satisfy shareholders, it will also satisfy a firm's other stakeholders, since—in principle—these other stakeholders get paid before shareholders. This article shows that this logic is deeply flawed. In particular, it shows that if the only stakeholder who has a claim on a firm's economic profits is shareholders, then—in most competitive settings—a firm will not be able to attract the kinds of resources it needs to generate these profits. To attract the kinds of resources that can generate profits, managers must recognize that stakeholders, besides shareholders, have claims on the profits that their resources help generate. This, in turn, suggests that managers seeking to generate economic profits must adopt a stakeholder perspective in how they manage their firm. This article explores the managerial implications of this conclusion.
Unmet needs in the area of enterprise applications have led to a new type of collaborative open source innovation development across institution borders: Community source. We use the Kuali community source network, a jointly managed, border-spanning organization that supplies the institutions that created it, to describe how community source works. This study builds a theoretical basis for understanding the individual and institutional factors affecting community source network formation and the decision by organizations to join a community source network. We identify eight antecedents of decisions about forming or joining community source initiatives: motives, learning, trust, norms and monitoring, institutional similarity, external funding, hostile external environment, and information technology.
Upper echelon theory highlights the importance of top management teams in large and established firms; however, effects are not always clear outside of this context. Due to the unique nature of new ventures, the composition of entrepreneurial teams and its effects on performance is worthy of investigation. Accordingly, we meta-analyze the effect of three characteristics of entrepreneurial team composition (i.e., aggregated, heterogeneity, team size) on new venture performance. Our meta-analysis, which includes 55 empirical samples and 8,892 observations, finds significant and unique effects of entrepreneurial team characteristics on new ventures. Based on our findings, we derive avenues for future research.
The concept of circular economy (CE) is to an increasing extent treated as a solution to series of challenges such as waste generation, resource scarcity and sustaining economic benefits. However the concept of circularity is not of novel as such. Specific circumstances and motivations have stimulated ideas relevant to circularity in the past through activities such as reuse, remanufacturing or recycling. Main objectives of this work are: to provide a comprehensive review of research efforts encompassing aspects of resources scarcity, waste generation and economic advantages; to explore the CE landscape in the context of these three aspects especially when they are considered simultaneously; based on an idea of a comprehensive CE framework, propose an implementation strategy using top-down and bottom-up approach in a concurrent manner. To fulfill this objective a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art research is carried out to understand different ideas relevant to CE, motivation for the research and context of their recurrence. Main contributions of this paper are a comprehensive CE framework and a practical implementation strategy for a regenerative economy and natural environment. The framework emphasizes on a combined view of three main aspects i.e. environment, resources and economic benefits. It also underlines that joint support of all stakeholders is necessary in order to successfully implement the CE concept at large scale. The proposed framework and implementation strategy also identify new avenues for future research and practice in the field of CE.
Since the 1990s, Product Service Systems (PSS) have been heralded as one of the most effective instruments for moving society towards a resource-efficient, circular economy and creating a much-needed ‘resource revolution’. This paper reviews the literature on PSS in the last decade and compares the findings with those from an earlier review in this journal in 2006. Close to 300 relevant papers were identified, over 140 of which have been referenced in this review. Research in the field of PSS has become more prolific, with the output of refereed papers quadrupling since 2000, while on average scientific output has only doubled. PSS has also become embedded in a wider range of science fields (such as manufacturing, ICT, business management, and design) and geographical regions (Asia now produces more papers than Europe). The literature of the last seven years has refined insights with regard to the design of PSS, as well as their business and environmental benefits, and confirmed the definitions and PSS concepts already available in 2006. A major contribution of the recent literature is research into how firms have implemented PSS in their organization and what the key success factors and issues that require special attention are (such as a focus on product availability for clients; an emphasis on diversity in terms of services provided rather than the range of products; and the need for staff to possess both knowledge of the product and relationship management skills). The reasons why PSS have nonetheless still not been widely implemented, particularly in the B2C context, seem to have already been explained fairly well in the literature available in 2006. For consumers, having control over things, artifacts, and life itself is one of the most valued attributes. PSS are often less accessible, or have less intangible value, than the competing product, in part because PSS usually do not allow consumers as much behavioral freedom or even leave them with the impression that the PSS provider could prescribe how they should behave.
Sustainable entrepreneurship pursues a triple bottom line approach of economic, social and ecological goals. The main aim of this paper is to add to our understanding of the process of sustainable entrepreneurship. Since the field of sustainable entrepreneurship is in a nascent stage, we conduct a qualitative study. We employ a multiple case study design to build theory. Based on four case studies we develop a model, which describes the process of sustainable entrepreneurship, including six phases: 1) recognizing a social or ecological problem; 2) recognizing a social or ecological opportunity; 3) developing a double bottom line solution; 4) developing a triple bottom line solution; 5) funding and forming of a sustainable enterprise; 6) creating or entering a sustainable market. By developing a convergent process model with two pathways, we make theoretical contributions to the emerging fields of sustainable entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. A key finding is that the triple bottom line of ecological, social and economic goals is integrated sequentially, not simultaneously. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
The growing awareness regarding environmental sustainability has fully reached business reality. Consumers and companies alike are looking for alternatives to mitigate pressing environmental demands resulting from continuous population and economic growth. On the other hand, companies must deal with an increasingly competitive scenario where innovation is regarded as a survival need in most markets. It is thus clear that systematic academic research is paramount to guide companies to succeed in environmentally sustainable product innovation. In this context, this paper (i) consolidate extant research and aggregate findings of different studies on environmentally sustainable product innovation through an interpretative framework of published literature on the topic, and (ii) map critical success factors that drive the success of product innovation developed in this new logic of production and consumption. To achieve these objectives, a systematic literature review on environmentally sustainable product innovation was conducted. Results show that there are four main critical success factors for environmentally sustainable product innovation: market, law and regulation knowledge; interfunctional collaboration; innovation-oriented learning; and R&D investments. The factors identified in this research and corresponding variables were subjected to a brief empirical test by professionals. The test allowed a preliminary approval of the developed framework and identification of the most important variables within each factor. A research agenda based on the state-of-the-art on the topic is also proposed.
Editor's Note. Three years ago, I invited Robert (Bob) Gephart to write a "From the Editors" column designed to help authors improve their chances of success when submitting qualitative research to AMJ. Judging from the increasing number of quali- tative studies that have been accepted and pub- lished in AMJ since that time, I would like to think that his article, "Qualitative Research and the Academy of Management Journal," has had a pos- itive impact. Continuing in this tradition, I asked Roy Sud- daby—an excellent reviewer (and author) of quali- tative research—to tackle another "big issue" that the editorial team has noticed with respect to qual- itative submissions to AMJ: overly generic use of the term "grounded theory" and confusion regard- ing alternative epistemological approaches to qual- itative research. Like Bob before him, Roy has, I believe, produced an analysis that will greatly ben- efit those who are relatively new to qualitative re- search or who have not yet had much success in getting their qualitative research published. Hope- fully, Roy's analysis will help even more authors to succeed, thus allowing AMJ and other journals to continue to increase the quality of insights pro- vided by rich qualitative studies of individual, or- ganizational, and institutional phenomena. Sara L. Rynes
Now nearing its 60th printing in English and translated into nineteen languages, Michael E. Porter's Competitive Strategy has transformed the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy throughout the world. Electrifying in its simplicity -- like all great breakthroughs -- Porter's analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces. Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his three generic strategies -- lowest cost, differentiation, and focus -- which bring structure to the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided. In the almost two decades since publication, Porter's framework for predicting competitor behavior has transformed the way in which companies look at their rivals and has given rise to the new discipline of competitor assessment.
More than a million managers in both large and small companies, investment analysts, consultants, students, and scholars throughout the world have internalized Porter's ideas and applied them to assess industries, understand competitors,, and choose competitive positions. The ideas in the book address the underlying fundamentals of competition in a way that is independent of the specifics of the ways companies go about competing.
Competitive Strategy has filled a void in management thinking. It provides an enduring foundation and grounding point on which all subsequent work can be built. By bringing a disciplined structure to the question of how firms achieve superior profitability, Porter's rich frameworks and deep insights comprise a sophisticated view of competition unsurpassed in the last quarter-century.
Book Description
Publication Date: June 1, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0684841487 | ISBN-13: 978-0684841489 | Edition: 1
Clique Aqui
give an overview of the origins, purposes, uses, and contributions of grounded theory methodology / grounded theory is a general methodology for developing theory that is grounded in data systematically gathered and analyzed (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper investigates the challenges and opportunities of how firms and organizations can and will be able to strike a better balance between economic growth and environmental stewardship in the context of China’s emerging ‘circular economy’ policy paradigm and based on ecological modernization theoretic approaches.Based on three company case studies in the information technology and electronic industries in China, we identify and demonstrate how a blended business and environmental value can be created from adopting a sustainable supply chain management approach. The adoption of a sustainable supply chain management approach is rapidly becoming a key business challenge and opportunity in China and other large emerging economies around the world, where our greatest environmental management challenges currently reside and will continue to exist for many years to come. The value creation framework proposed in research focuses on evaluating three case study companies who appear in various stages of an electronic industry supply chain. Value creation within a supply chain can provide the impetus for organizations to adopt circular economy, sustainable supply chain practices, for competitive reasons.In addition, we describe how a value proposition can be evaluated at two levels of analysis, a more specific micro-level and a more general meso-level of analysis. The four major business value dimensions include cost reduction, revenue generation, resiliency, and legitimacy and image.The initial findings are that a variety of opportunities exist for electronic firms in emerging and developing countries, while results from this study provide an important scholarly foundation to develop and refine sustainable supply chain management practices in emerging and developing economies.
Regulation has been an important instrument in pushing the business community towards improved environmental performance. However, there has also been increasing pressure from a growing number of stakeholders, including employees, customers, neighbours, NGOs etc. In order to improve corporate relationships with various stakeholders, companies need to be able to identify these stakeholders and assess their influence. The first part of this paper will discuss the relevant theory and introduce a model to analyse and identify the most significant stakeholder groups and their influence on corporate behaviour. Based on a recent survey of Danish companies, the second part of the paper will report on the success of a variety of stakeholders in forcing companies to introduce environment-related initiatives. The results will then be discussed in light of the theory and other reported results. The paper closes with a discussion of research implications. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the issues currently involved in social and environmental sustainability in the clothing industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a case study approach to investigate a business that operates successfully in this challenging market.
Findings
As a consequence of increasing demand for ethical clothing, it has become standard practice for UK clothing retailers to develop CSR policies which impact upon their methods of garment sourcing and partnerships with suppliers. There is also a significant trend for retailers to offer ethical clothing ranges made from organic cotton or produced by Fair Trade manufacturers. The paper includes a case study on People Tree, which sells Fair Trade clothing sourced from developing countries. People Tree is rare amongst clothing companies in that it provides customers with a transparent view of its production sources via the internet. The company provides an example of how socially responsible and environmentally sustainable global sourcing can be applied in practice.
Research limitations/implications
The study focuses on aspects of sustainability in an individual retailer. This could be extended to other ethical retailers in different countries, and a longitudinal study of such companies could be conducted.
Originality/value
Literature on ethical fashion companies and their use of socially responsible strategies is sparse, and there is a lack of research that covers both social and environmental sustainability in this market. This paper fills some of the gaps.
