ایزو 14001 گواهی گیاهان در برزیل - طبقه بندی و اقدامات

Research on taxonomies has helped in shedding light on similarities between firms in a particular group and differences between each group. However, few studies have analyzed how operations managers of manufacturing firms in emerging countries adopt diverse strategies of environmental management, with diverse operational practices and results. This study fills this gap by proposing a taxonomy for ISO 14001-certified plants, describing the differences for each group for a set of key variables related to internal and external perspectives. For this purpose, we conducted a survey of ISO 14001-certified manufacturing plants in Brazil, in a restricted set of industries including chemical, manufactured metal products, and electronics. A sample of 99 plants was analyzed using multivariate data analysis techniques, such as principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). We have identified three clusters, according to their motivations to certification: internal focus, external focus, and holistic group. Internal focus companies are characterized by their emphasis on internal operations and resources. External focus companies deal with social pressure and institutions that regulate the environment. Holistic companies place high value on all motivation dimensions regardless if they are internal or external. We present an illustrative example related to the Holistic group. Companies in this group present a more efficient use of raw materials and inputs as well a higher integration with suppliers and external research and development (R&D) centers. This group combines external actions with internal results regarding environmental management. Thus, the results suggest that external integration and the improvement of internal processes efficiency allow a more integrated approach in environmental practices, resulting in better environmental performance. On the other hand, companies with the external focus strategy tend to have lower environmental performance and lower levels of operational practices linked to the environmental management.

Pressures from clients and society have led manufacturing companies to develop efforts and adapt their processes in order to reduce or eliminate the negative impact of their operations on the environment. Options such as cleaner production, environmental management systems, and pollution control systems have been used as tools to address these needs (Cervelini and Souza, 2009; Klassen and Whybark, 1999a). Environmental Management Systems (EMS), of which the ISO 14000 family of standards is an example (Gavronski et al., 2008), tend to impact mitigation and create conditions for sustainable operations, matching expectations of stakeholders and a growing number of interested people (Cagno et al., 1999). Increasing interest in protecting natural environment against industrial pollution means that EMS and technologies related to sustainable operations are more than an option, becoming, in fact, an inevitable choice (Alberti et al., 2000). Factors such as environmental protection laws, increasing cost of raw materials energy production, and natural resources policies have impacted on companies' economic systems, which in turn affect companies' performance and competitiveness and demand revisions in management paradigms (Ferrer, 2008). The development and diffusion of EMS represent a significant part of this commitment to rethink conventional management wisdom (Cagno et al., 1999). Numerous studies in the literature have investigated the major reasons for companies adopting EMS and corporate social responsibility practices (CSR) (Bansal, 2005; Bansal and Hunter, 2003; Fryxell and Szeto, 2002; Gavronski et al., 2008; Massoud et al., 2010; Oliveira et al., 2010; Zhu et al., 2007) and their impacts on firm performance (Cervelini and Souza, 2009; Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2011; Jacobs et al., 2010; McGuire et al., 1988; Melnyk et al., 2003; Montabon et al., 2007; Nawrocka and Parker, 2009). However, there are still knowledge gaps about the relationship among motivation for EMS implementation, environmental practices and results especially in companies located in emerging economies such as Brazil. More than 600 companies have been certified in the ISO 14001 standard in Brazil, according to the Brazilian Institute for Metrology (INMETRO). Past studies have looked at why companies in emerging economies such as Brazil adopted an EMS based in the ISO 14001 standard (Gavronski et al., 2008; Oliveira et al., 2010). In this study, we will use a taxonomy related to ISO 14001 motivations to identify strategic groups and compare the environmental operational practices and environmental performance between these strategic groups. In operations strategy literature, several studies have tried to identify and understand how companies can be classified in terms of strategic decisions. Miller and Roth (1994) proposed a taxonomy of operations strategy based on the competitive priorities. Later replications of this taxonomy and other related studies were conducted by Menor et al. (2001), Frohlich and Dixon (2001), and Zhao et al. (2004). The Journal of Operations Management, in 2000, dedicated a special issue about companies' strategic configurations, with studies focusing on operations strategy's categories of decision. Most configuration studies gather data from developed countries. One exception is the work of Kim and Lim (1988), which used perceptual data from 54 Korean top managers to provide a numerical taxonomy of strategic groups. In the field of environmental and sustainable operations, very few studies attempted to find strategic groups of companies and environmental issues in developing countries. Klassen and Whybark (1999a,b) identified a numerical taxonomy in the developed United States. No study was found, though, about taxonomy of companies adopting ISO 14001 in developing countries. Thus, what are the strategic groups that emerge from motivation of companies in emerging countries, such as Brazil, to adopt ISO 14001? How different are these strategic groups in terms of environmental operational practices and environmental performance? Therefore, this paper has two objectives. First, we obtain a numerical taxonomy that classifies the environmental operation strategies of manufacturing plants according to the major reasons for adoption of ISO 14001 by Brazilian companies. Second, we describe the differences among the strategic groups we obtained in the numerical taxonomy regarding environmental practices and results. To achieve our first objective, we rely on resource-based view (RBV) and institutional theories to conceptualize the major reasons Brazilian companies adopted such environmental management system. Following the recommendations from Bozarth and McDermott (1998), we have integrated operations strategy literature with the business strategy literature, by using such mainstream explanations (RBV and institutional), using the motivations to the ISO 14001 certification to classify manufacturing companies according to their environmental strategy. From an academic perspective, our main contribution is to shed light on the strategic patterns followed by companies in emerging countries when adopting ISO 14001. By doing this, we provide a source for comparison with other related studies on companies from developed countries (Klassen and Whybark, 1999a,b). In this paper we present a numerical taxonomy of companies adopting ISO 14001 in emerging countries. Our work will identify and distinguish characteristics of groups of companies and serve as a basis for future studies also developing numerical taxonomies of ISO 14001 and other related EMS. From a social-level perspective, our contribution is to find out how companies in developing countries perceive and act when facing the social challenges related to caring for the environment and natural resources. By revealing such characteristics of companies, decision makers in developing countries can design public policies to help companies achieving higher levels of environmental performance. The next section introduces a brief review of the related literature. In the methodology section, we describe the major methodological procedures. Then, we present results in two parts: first we show the outcome from the survey, and second we present a qualitative case related to the proposed taxonomy. Finally, we discuss major findings, conclusions, and limitations of the study.

The overall results suggest that the prior motivations for ISO 14001 certification may be a good predictor of the environmental strategy a company pursues. In addition, the environmental strategy relates to the environmental performance results and operational practices in the companies. Thus, we investigated the environmental practices and results of Brazilian companies that adopted ISO 14001 in a comparative approach based on a taxonomy of environmental strategies, derived from the motivations to certification. Initially, we reviewed prior literature to argue that Brazilian companies are motivated by either internal pressure for better use of resources or external pressure for matching social norms and obtaining recognition from stakeholders. We collected data from 99 Brazilian companies that implemented ISO 14001 and we performed cluster analysis to find strategic groups of companies and ANOVA statistical tests to assure that our findings were robust in discriminating those groups. As expected, results showed the existence of one group of companies whose focus was on performance and another group of companies whose focus was on market aspects and search for rewards. A third group of companies focused both on internal performance and on market demands. The case presented strengthens these aspects. Our major contribution is to provide a numerical taxonomy discriminating companies according to their reasons to implement ISO 14001 and their practices and results. Previous studies presented classification schemes of companies and environmental issues. Our study attempts to go a step further in the direction of a more rigorous and scientific approach to classify companies in respect with environmental issues. In doing so, we also shed light on the environmental practices and results for certified companies from an emergent country and bring them to the surface of the extent literature since most studies concentrate on exploring companies in developed countries. Briefly, the results suggest that the Holistic group combines external and internal actions related to environmental issues. When we compare the environmental results, the main differences are related to the use of raw materials and inputs. Complementarily, differences on environmental policies are more related to integration with suppliers and cooperation with external R&D centers and other institutions. The results suggest that external integration may improve internal processes efficiency, creating a more integrated approach to environmental management. The clusters solution indicates that the Holistic group also presented the highest levels for market expectations, environmental responsibility and management improvement. All of these aspects reinforce prior literature that has shown that external integration may lead to better internal results. Therefore, companies certified by ISO 14001 should keep other advanced management practices like supply chain integration in order to improve their environmental results. It is worth it to mention that all the results found indicate caution. Only six industries were analyzed, therefore any generalization is limited. We only used data from one country and some regional aspects may be present in the results found. We did not evaluate companies that use other types of EMS, although that is an idea for future studies. We suggest further research on this kind of management systems. In addition, we did not evaluate plants that are not in supply chains of multinational companies. Further studies may focus on this type of company in order to complete the proposed scale and measure more properly the phenomenon. Also we suggest future studies that evaluate if different levels of pressures from the society and the media may affect the environment strategy adopted.