In an era of increased stakeholder pressure for sustainable environmental management practices at workplace, organization should adopt and implement environmental ethics for seamless synergy amongst the needs of the business, the society, and the planet. Our study used resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities (DC) theoretical lenses to examine hypotheses derived from extant literature on the linkages amongst environmental ethics, environmental training, environmental performance and competitive advantage. Using survey questionnaire, we employed structural equation modeling (SEM) on 364 valid responses from managers to examine the hypotheses. The findings of our study will stir up researcher’s curiosity to unravel the human side of environmental management and that will surely steer future researches in significant directions. Results suggest that environmental ethics influences environmental training, environmental performance and competitive advantage. We also found that environmental training to employees mediates the influence of environmental ethics on firm’s environmental performance and competitive advantage. The findings of the study implies that organizational approach towards environmental ethical practices at workplace should be not be reactive but proactive with intentions to create and sustain synergy amongst the triads namely, profits, the society, and the environment. Environmental training should not be one-off event but a continuous process to beat competitions and improve environmental performance in the organization.

Introduction

The economic activities of firms always have other side to it – the ecological imbalance. Lately the firms have been witnessing greater stakeholders pressure to reduce the environmental impact created out of their business related activities (Longoni et al., 2018; Yu et al., 2017). As a result, firms are not only supposed to espouse environmental values to secure sustainable economic success (Tate and Bals, 2018) but they should view environmental management as measure of their ‘social performance’ (Short et al., 2016; Yawar and Seuring, 2017). That calls upon organizational leaders to be committed to environmental ethics through policy formulation and their implementation in day-today operations to reduce the environmental impact of business operations, if any (El-Kassar and Singh, 2018; Singh and El-Kassar, 2019). Several studies suggest that firm’s environmental performance depends upon their human resources’ sensitivity to environmental issues & possess specific green competencies related to core businesses for organizational usages in their value creation processes (El-Kassar and Singh, 2018; Guerci et al., 2016; Singh and El-Kassar, 2019). Therefore, we contemplate that the implementation of organizational intentions to ‘go green’ and manage environmental performance depends largely upon human resources across functions along with supportive HR systems & processes to effectively manage employee-related issues (Guerci et al., 2016; Nejati et al., 2017; Renwick et al., 2013). The extant literature also suggest for hiring candidates who demonstrate environmental knowledge and motivation (Jabbour et al., 2010) useful enough to enhance environmental performance as the later influences firm’s competitive advantage (Chuang and Huang, 2018; Famiyeh et al., 2018).

Abstract

Using a Neo-institutional framework, this paper discusses the role of national-specific social, cultural, legal, regulatory and economic differences when determining the way that companies committed to a specific voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative operate in different sustainability dimensions. The differences between companies’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of the companies operating in the three countries with highest number of firms committed to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) –Spain, France and Japan– is assessed through a multidimensional HJ-Biplot technique, which is a statistical technique that provides a joint graphical representation in a low dimensional Euclidean space (usually a plane), of a multivariate data matrix. This research contributes to the existing literature providing quantitative evidence of how different country-specific social and institutional schemes influence companies’ ESG performance. The main results reveal the existence of two clusters of companies behaving in different ways with regard of sustainability issues. First, Spanish and French companies exhibit similar levels of social and corporate governance performance, higher than those of Japanese firms. Second, Japanese firms seem more committed to environmental issues than Spanish and French companies. These results confirm that the different countries, with different institutional backgrounds, induce different priorities among their firms, in terms of ESG performance, even under a common commitment to the same principles of adopted CSR initiative.

The notion of green practices has become strategic important for many companies. Due to the increased concern about environmental sustainability, green practices are emphasized not only by governments but also by companies (Mitra and Datta, 2014). Globalization has also extended the scope of green practices. As firms rely more on their supply chain partners to obtain competitive advantage, green practices have been extended from single firms to the supply chain (Ghadimi et al., 2015; Zhu and Sarkis, 2004). For example, a Hong Kong toy manufacturer went bankrupt because it was sued by its US customers for using toxic paints purchased from a supplier (Ang, 2007). Accordingly, an increasing number of firms, especially large multinational corporations, are experiencing greater pressure from stakeholders to incorporate green practices into operations and supply chain practices (Rueda et al., 2017; Wilhelm et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2017). In line with this trend, many studies have been conducted to understand the antecedents and results of green practices in terms of companies’ economic and environmental performance (Sharma and Vredenburg, 1998; Subramanian and Gunasekaran, 2015; Walker et al., 2008). These studies address the concept of green supply chain management (GSCM), which is defined as the application of environmental management principles to the entire set of supply chain activities, including design, procurement, manufacturing, assembling, packaging, logistics, and distribution (Handfield et al., 1997). In a thorough literature review by Walker et al. (2008), internal and external drivers and barriers to GSCM practices are identified in prior studies. Although great progress has been made concerning the drivers of GSCM practices in recent years, several issues remain unresolved. First, there are few studies on the cost considerations driving GSCM practices; existing studies focus on outside pressures, such as the government and customers (Yu and Ramanathan, 2015). These few studies are case-based, and there is a need for further investigation of the impact of cost drivers conducted with a large sample. Second, very few studies have investigated the cost and customer motivations for GSCM implementation simultaneously. It would be interesting to understand how cost and customer drivers individually and simultaneously influence GSCM practices (Sarkis et al., 2011). Finally, extant studies focus on various drivers of GSCM practices with limited consideration of their contingent effects of firm characteristics. For example, there are debates on “whether SMEs are able to do good-enjoy high social and environmental performance – given their struggles to do well – to even survive given the high failure rate” (Arend, 2014). As such, a comparative study of large and small companies is needed to examine these firms’ differences in adopting GSCM practices.

مقاله سال 2017

هدف: این مقاله درصدد آن است که بررسی کند آیا مبلغ هزینه‌های افشاشده در ارتباط با کنترل‌های زیست محیطی با عملکرد زیست محیطی برحسب بازدهی اکولوژیکی – اقتصادی مبتنی بر تولید کربن ارتباط دارد یا خیر، و آیا هر رابطه‌ای بین این دو فاکتور استدلال‌های تئوری افشاگری اختیاری یا تئوری مشروعیت را تأیید می‌کند یا خیر. افزون بر این، در این مقاله سعی می‌شود به این سوال پاسخ داده شود که آیا این روابط در دوران پروتکل اولیه کایوتو متفاوت‌اند یا خیر؟

طرح/روش/رویکرد تحقیق: در این تحقیق، محوریت شرکت‌های ژاپنی در بازه زمانی 2002 تا 2012 بودند. هزینه‌های افشاشده کنترل زیست محیطی (مخارج سرمایه‌ای و هزینه‌های عملیاتی) مشخص و معیارهای بازدهی اکولوژیکی – اقتصادی مبتنی بر میزان انتشار کربن محاسبه شدند. روابط با بهره گیری از مدل‌های رگرسیونی که سایر ضرایب تأثیر احتمالی را لحاظ می‌کردند آزمایش شدند.

یافته‌ها: نتایج این مطالعه وجود رابطه‌ای منفی بین سطوح افشاشده هزینه‌های کنترل زیست محیطی و معیارهای عملکردی بازدهی اکولوژیکی – اقتصادی را نشان می‌دهند و برای دو معیار از بین سه معیار بازدهی اکولوژیکی – اقتصادی، یافته‌ها نشان می‌دهند که این رابطه منفی در دوران پروتکل کایوتو محسوس تر بوده است.

محدودیت‌ها/پیامدهای تحقیق: این نتایج توضیح تئوری مشروعیت را (برخلاف تئوری افشاگری اختیاری) در مورد رابطة بین سطوح هزینه‌های افشاشده کنترل زیست محیطی و بازدهی اکولوژیکی – اقتصادی مبتنی بر تولید کربن تأیید می‌کنند.

اصالت/ارزش تحقیق: این مطالعه اولین مطالعه‌ای است که نحوه بهره گیری شرکت‌ها را از انعطاف پذیری در طبقه بندی هزینه‌ها جهت ارتقای استراتژی افشاگری مورد بررسی قرار می‌دهد.

مقاله سال 2017

 مجله مدیریت خرید و تامین – Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management

Sustainable competition for most firms requires a commitment to new product development (NPD) and innovation (Sjoerdsma and van Weele, 2015). Relying on today’s products to generate tomorrow’s revenue may work for basic commodities, but will result in disaster for products that rely on a greater amount of value-added manufacturing. To capture long-term revenues and sustainable competitive advantage, companies must commit to bring new products to market on a recurring basis. Carefully managing the creative process can result in product, and ultimately firm, success or failure.

NPD processes in firms vary significantly in terms of methods and functional involvement. They may be limited to R&D engineers and scientists that integrate cutting-edge technology into new products. Customer preferences today are more demanding and diverse. It is essential to understand what customers want (Holmes, 2016). Exceptional product form and function may be just enough to play in the market, but might not be enough to be the order winner. Customer concerns of total cost of ownership, long-term product support and environmental impact have placed additional requirements on new products. NPD processes must be able to design products with these diverse objectives in mind (Tracey and Neuhaus, 2013).

To address multi-objective product designs, some firms have responded with multi-functional NPD teams. These teams must include the technical experts that can integrate functions to build capabilities, but they must also include team members that can evaluate and incorporate product inputs, that understand how to move a design to the production line, that can plan for distribution, product support and recovery, and that know how design will be received by the market (Sobek et al., 1999). This new approach to product design opens the door for supply chain professionals to take a seat at the NPD table in the areas of procurement, manufacturing, and logistics.