عملیات سبز و نقش تعدیل توانایی مدیریت زیست محیطی و تامین کنندگان در عملکرد شرکت تولیدی

The increased pollution arising from different stages of producing, distributing, and disposing of electronics products highlights the importance of green operations (GO) in terms of process and product stewardship to mitigate environmental damages and satisfy the escalating social expectation for environmentally friendly operations in the electronics industry. Drawing on the natural-resource-based view, the purpose of this paper is to examine the boundary spanning role of GO and investigate the influence of environmental management capability (EMC) of suppliers on firm performance and pollution reduction. The findings from a survey of 122 manufacturing firms indicate that the success of GO is contingent on the EMC of suppliers. In addition, we found that process stewardship has a positive influence on performance outcomes and that the EMC of suppliers moderates the relationship between process stewardship and financial performance. These findings indicate that manufacturers should emphasize the EMC of suppliers in their GO to reap financial as well as environmental benefits.

According to a study conducted by the Office of Solid Waste U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2008, only 18% of the end-of-life electronics products, ranging from computers to home appliances, were collected for recycling while 82% of them were disposed to landfills. There are hazards caused by electronics wastes ranging from polluting the environment and damaging the health of workers, to losing production capability (Economy and Lieberthal, 2007) due to the release of toxic substances including lead, mercury, cadmium, beryllium arsenic, barium, chromium, and various flame-retardant chemicals. The importance of a pro-environmental reputation for enterprises to compete internationally has been widely acknowledged (Cole et al., 2006). These electronics wastes highlight the lack of direction by electronics manufacturers on environmental protection in the globalization of their production and marketing activities to gain financial benefits. Nowadays, environmental consequences are considered strategically essential for business operations with the aim to reduce costs and develop quality products (Atasu et al., 2008 and Kleindorfer et al., 2005). The scope of green operations (GO) spans from product development to management of the entire product life cycle involving such environmental practices as eco-design, clean production, recycling, and reuse with a focus on minimizing the expenses associated with manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal of products (Lai and Wong, 2012; Guide and Van Wassenhove, 2001 and Kleiner, 1991). According to the environmental management literature, GO is concerned with both product- and process-oriented environmental practices (Ferguson and Toktay, 2006, Gilley et al., 2000 and Rogers and Tibben-Lembke, 2001) to reduce the damage of products and supply chain processes on natural resources (Dechant and Altman, 1994, Porter and van der Linde, 1995a and Porter and van der Linde, 1995b). In product management, GO ensures quality and environmental conformance, preventing negative corporate reputation by environmentally negligent products. In process management, GO emphasizes closed-loop operations involving practices like recuperation and recycling with the objective to reduce waste, capture residual value of products (Ferguson and Toktay, 2006 and Rogers and Tibben-Lembke, 2001), and deploy environmental technology and cleaner transportation in the downstream supply chain for pollution prevention. These two distinct components of GO are helpful for firms to comply with environmental regulations, reducing the risk of legal fees, liability costs, and fines (Hunt and Auster, 1990). By embracing GO, firms will reap financial gains by capturing the residual values of their products and promote product innovation through analysis of the returned products for possible design improvement (Rogers and Tibben-Lembke, 2001). Past research on GO is confined to identifying the antecedents (e.g., institutional pressures, regulations, and customer requirements), their influences on the implementation (Lai et al., 2011 and Zhu et al., 2011), and the business and environmental values of implementing GO (King, 2007, Min and Galle, 2001, Rothenberg et al., 2001 and Zhu et al., 2007). There is a general belief on organizational capability for successful environmental practices and sustainable operations (Bowen et al., 2001, Christmann, 2000, Handfield et al., 1997, Russo and Fouts, 1997 and Sarkis et al., 2011), without which the performance outcomes of GO can be compromised (Kovacs, 2008 and Porter and van der Linde, 1995a). The literature has acknowledged the value of GO and the internal capability of firms for its success (Corbett and Klassen, 2006, Dechant and Altman, 1994, Handfield et al., 1997 and Lai et al., 2010), but the complementary role of upstream suppliers to enhance performance remains under-explored (Pagell et al., 2007 and Vachon and Klassen, 2007). A recent study by Lee and Klassen (2008) highlighted the importance of environmental management capabilities (EMC) of suppliers, which reflect the ability of suppliers to improve their performance on environmental issues. Nevertheless, how such capability influences the GO of buying firms was not considered. While the negligent behaviors of suppliers can devastate the GO of their downstream partners (Preuss, 2001), a systematic investigation on supplier role in GO is timely and an important environmental management topic. Drawing on the natural-resource-based view (NRBV) of a firm, this study examines the boundary spanning role of GO and investigates the influence of EMC of suppliers on manufacturing firm performance and pollution reduction with empirical data collected from electronics manufacturers in Taiwan. A structural equation model and multi-group analysis were used to test these practice–performance relationships. By doing so, this study makes two major contributions to the literature. First, we address the increasing public concern on the electronics wastes causing air, soil, and water pollution by examining the performance implications of GO in terms of product- and process-oriented environmental practices in lessening the environmental damages. Furthermore, we evaluate the EMC of suppliers and determine how it can facilitate the product- and process-related practices of GO in contributing to environmental and financial performance. This study advances theoretical and practical knowledge on evaluating GO and EMC, as well as the environmental practices that form these two organizational capabilities essential for performance gains. The study results will provide managerial insights and useful reference for electronics manufacturers to embark on GO and leverage the EMC of suppliers to succeed. Second, we examine the supplier role in support of their downstream partners for environmental protection, where the EMC of the former is not adequately addressed in prior studies. There is evidence that suppliers are instrumental in complementing the environmental management practices of their downstream partners by offering environmentally friendly inputs and facilitating pollution prevention processes (Corbett and Klassen, 2006). This supplier role sheds light on the importance of EMC in suppliers as external complementary assets for successful implementation of GO, particularly in the electronics industry characterized with highly inter-related and complex manufacturing operations(Yeung et al., 2005).

This study advances the knowledge of environmental management in green operations and the supplier role to improve performance. We adopt the NRBV to examine the performance outcomes of GO in terms of product and process stewardship that work with suppliers characterized with high and low levels of EMC. We provide empirical evidence to account for the EMC of suppliers that influence the organizational success of implementing GO to achieve business as well as environmental goals. The study findings provide evidence to show the performance impacts of product and process stewardship with high and low variations of the supplier EMC. We provide managerial insights into the value of supplier EMC and the level of supplier EMC conducive to the performance of product and process stewardship. This research lays foundation for this line of environmental management research with topics on other complementary capabilities of suppliers such as information processing (Wong et al., 2009) and supplier cooperation and commitment (Lai, 2009) affecting performance outcomes of GO and how manufacturing firms may leverage the EMC of their suppliers to compete and in other industrial contexts such as shipping and transport logistics (Lun et al., 2011).