Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Omega
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/omega
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Business Division, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
a r t i c l e i n f o
abstract
Article history:
Received 3 August 2010
Accepted 6 July 2011
Available online 21 July 2011
The value chain of many business enterprises is increasingly required to demonstrate the protability
of their primary activities, starting from inbound logistics to operations, outbound logistics, marketing
sales, and nally to services. The adoption of green logistics management (GLM) presents an
opportunity for Chinese manufacturing exporters to competently respond to the escalating expectation
of the international community for resources conservation and to achieve environmental performance
protably. This study makes several important contributions to the literature on managing logistics
with environmental considerations. First, the authors identify the components of GLM: (i) procedurebased practices, (ii) evaluation-based practices, (iii) partner-based practices, and (iv) general environmental management practices. Second, they relate GLM to environmental and operational performance
in a developing country context. Third, they identify the institutional and operational antecedents that
prompt the adoption of GLM by export-oriented manufacturing enterprises in China. Fourth, they
examine the moderating effect of environmental regulatory pressure on the GLM-performance linkage.
The results are based on a survey of manufacturing exporters in China. The commonly held view that
economic motivation is related to the adoption of GLM is not supported. However, GLM positively
affects both environmental and operational performance, and regulatory pressure enhances the GLMperformance relationship.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Environmental protection
Logistics management
China
Regulatory pressure
Firm performance
1. Introduction
Business enterprises in newly industrialized countries such as
the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are increasingly
expected to comply with environmental standards such as the
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), the End of Life
Vehicle (ELV) Directive, and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) if their merchandises are to reach international
markets successfully. Such environmental-based trade barriers
have also aroused the awareness of customers, rms, and government bodies for protecting the environment. Meanwhile, there
are growing international concerns on the environmental
damages associated with the accelerated industrial activities in
the BRICs and China in particular [1,2]. As global suppliers of
manufactured products, manufacturing enterprises in China need
to seek sustainable solutions such as green logistics management
(GLM) in pursuit of protable growth without inicting environmental damages to other countries through managing the
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: 852 2766 7920; fax: 852 2330 2704.
E-mail addresses: lgtmlai@polyu.edu.hk (K.-h. Lai),
tcchris@polyu.edu.hk (C.W.Y. Wong).
1
Tel.: 852 2766 6415.
0305-0483/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.omega.2011.07.002
268
269
270
product and process changes which in turn will add costs and erode
protability. Nevertheless, the eco-efciency perspective argues
that pollution is a form of economic inefciency, whereby pollution
reduction is benecial to productivity [34]. GLM is oriented towards
eco-efciency that proactively manages the same level or more of
product ows, but reduces environmental degradation, resource
consumption, and costs. It involves preventive approaches on
environmental protection spanning from materials sourcing to
end-of life product acquisition and processing. The collection and
use of reusable parts and components can lessen environmental
damages due to disposal in addition to reducing costs in materials
sourcing. Investigating end-of-life products also enables manufacturers to discern customer usage patterns and identify areas for
product quality improvements. In pursuit of pollution prevention,
complementary networks of suppliers and customers can be leveraged for productivity enhancement. For example, customers support for products acquisition facilitates product return for recycling
processes of manufacturers, improving the success of environmental initiative by manufacturers to reduce disposal. Chinese manufacturers advanced in supply chain cooperation perform better in
economic performance with regard to the cost for materials
purchasing, energy consumption, and waste treatment than their
laggard counterparts [5]. The procedure-, evaluation- and partnerbased focus of GLM necessitates the engagement of different functions and participation of related parties to continuously improve
the logistics chain through reduction of task redundancy and waste.
GLM therefore offers a management structure to support environmental-based logistics management coordinating the logistics chain
activities to reap operational performance gains.
Hypothesis 4. The implementation of GLM by a Chinese manufacturing exporter is positively related to its operational performance.
5. The moderating role of environmental regulations
Manufacturers need adaptation to the changing business environments [35,36], particularly environmental regulatory requirements, if their products are to compete in regulated markets.
Environmental regulatory pressure is concerned with regulations
that are enacted by local or oversea regulatory bodies to control
environmental damages caused by organizational activities ranging from production, transportation, to product disposal. In many
cases, these environmental regulatory pressures are mandatory for
enterprises to produce, distribute, and sell their products under
the legal requirements. There are many such environmental regulatory pressures encountered by Chinese manufacturing exporters
in their operations. The regulations directed at the manufacturing
sector can bring operations and performance implications. For
instance, a comprehensive set of environmental regulations for
developing a circular economy such as Clean Production Law and
Environmental Impact Assessment Law relevant to the manufacturing industry have been enacted in China. External regulatory
pressures from the European Union (EU) have led many Chinese
manufacturing exporters to reconsider the environmental impact
engendered throughout their logistics chain. Exporting products
destined for the EU market must be free from hazardous substances (e.g., RoHS and REACH) and the original manufacturers are
mandated to undertake the responsibility for the collection,
treatment, and recycling of end-of-life products, for all electrical
and electronics equipment in the case of WEEE. Since the EU
constitutes a major market for manufacturing export, it is important for manufacturers, especially those highly dependent on
export in China, to comply with these regulations or otherwise
suffer from massive export declines.
These regulatory pressures are reective of the environmental concerns by the local community and regulatory bodies
271
H6
H3
Customer pressure H1
Environmental
performance
GLM
H2
H4
Economic pressure
Operational
performance
6. Methodology
6.1. Sample characteristics and data collection
This study uses Chinese manufacturing exporters as an empirical setting to test the hypotheses due to the following reasons.
First, China is a global production base, exporting a wide variety of
merchandises ranging from 4% to 40% of the worlds manufacturing outputs of different products [39]. Second, the scale and speed
of Chinas recent rise of industrialization has engendered many
environmental problems that have aroused international concerns
relating to its pollution impact not only on the environment, but
also on health issues such as birth defects and premature death
both locally and internationally [40]. What do we know about the
institutional and operational forces triggering the environmental
initiatives of Chinese manufacturing exporters is seriously lacking.
Third, environmental management has been observed as a critical
factor affecting the prosperity of Chinese manufacturing enterprises [6]. Fourth, the environmental management issues arising
from product distribution by Chinese manufacturing exporters
provide a rich research setting appropriate for examining GLM
pertaining to its antecedents, measurement properties, and performance outcomes. In particular, given the global importance of
made in china merchandises, the environmental protection
pressures exerted by the international community, and the institutional reform for ecological modernization desired by the
Chinese government can be scrutinized to gain insights on the
effect of regulatory pressure as a contextual condition affecting
the extent of implementing GLM and its performance outcomes.
The respondents in this study were senior executives of
Chinese manufacturing enterprises. We did not constrain the
sample organizations to specic manufacturing industries with
the aim to improve the generalizability of our study ndings, but
we controlled the product type in our analysis to take account of
different environmental issues that may arise from the manufacturing processes and logistics activities [41]. We randomly drew a
sample of Chinese manufacturing exporters from the database
Dun & Bradstreet. These Chinese manufacturing exporters locate
in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in China, which is a major industrial
zone that accounts for one third of Chinas export trade value.
Located in the worlds manufacturing center with support of
well-developed logistics infrastructure for international trade
activities, majority of these manufacturers are export-oriented,
servicing foreign customers with a wide variety of manufactured
products ranging from electronics and toys to garments and
textiles. These manufacturers in the PRD region encounter similar
272
Respondents
(percentage)
Number of employees
110
1150
51100
101500
4500
Unknown
17.8
35.5
31.7
4.1
7.4
3.5
14.8
33.6
35.9
6.3
2.3
7.0
16.4
53.7
12.0
9.6
5.9
2.4
13.3
31.3
35.2
10.9
2.3
7.0
Company characteristics
Product type
Tobacco products
8.3
Petroleum rening and related industries 7.8
Rubber and miscellaneous plastic
6.5
products
Leather and leather products
4.6
Stone, clay, glass, and concrete products
9.3
Apparel and other nished products
11.8
made from fabrics and similar products
Lumber and wood products
4.5
Fabricated and metal products
5.6
Paper and allied products
4.9
Industrial, commercial, machinery, and
3.7
computer equipment
Printing, publishing, and allied industries 9.2
Electronic and other electrical equipment 3.2
and components
Chemicals and allied products
4.6
Measuring, analyzing, and controlling
10.2
instruments; photographic
Miscellaneous manufacturing industries
4.3
Others
2.9
Unknown
3.6
4.7
1.6
7.0
1.6
25
7.8
2.3
6.3
3.1
1.6
1.6
3.1
3.1
9.4
7.0
12.5
2.3
calls or sent emails to urge their response. Our data collection was
concluded three weeks after the nal mailing, with 134 completed questionnaires received for data analysis, representing a
response rate of 16.75%. We eliminated six returns due to
signicant missing data and the resulting effective response rate
of 16%is comparable to other survey-based environmental management studies, e.g. [42]. Table 1 summarizes the prole of the
respondent manufacturers.
6.2. Common method variance
We took two steps to determine whether common method
variance (CMV) posed a serious threat to the study. First, Harmons
one-factor test was applied to assess whether a single latent factor
would account for all the constructs. The single-factor model yielded
a w2 value of 2090.71 (df376). A w2 difference test was conducted
against the hypothesized six-factor model to assess CMV. A signicant difference between the w2 values of the two models
(Dw2 1502.74; Ddf21, po0.001) indicated that the t in the
one-dimensional model was signicantly worse than it was in the
measurement model. Such result provided preliminary evidence
that CMV was not a problem in this study. In addition, we followed
the procedures recommended by Lindell and Whitney [43] to examine CMV. We used the type of ownership of rm (i.e., publiclyowned vs. privately-owned) as the marker variable to perform the
CMV analysis because the marker variable is theoretically unrelated
to the dependent variables (i.e., operational and environmental
performance). The type of organizational ownership is not signicantly correlated to operational performance with p0.21 and
environmental performance with p0.97. The correlations between
all constructs in the measurement model and the type of organizational ownership are summarized in Table 4. In addition, the partial
correlations between the constructs are signicant after partialing
out the effect of CMV, and the partial correlations are reported in
Table 3. We concluded that the measurement model possessed
reasonable t with the data, the constructs exhibited both convergent and divergent validity, and CMV did not pose serious threat
to the interpretation of our study results.
6.3. Measurement development
We developed a structured survey instrument to measure the
practicing managers perception. Based on the conceptualization
of GLM according to the interviews results, we developed new
scales to operationalize the four attributes of GLM for evaluating
the extent of these environmental management practices implementation on managers perception. In addition, we included
measurement items on environmental protection for economic
pressure [44], customer pressure [45], operational and environmental improvement [46], and regulatory pressure [45] after
suitably adopting existing scales.
We generated a pool of measurement items from the literature
on environmental and logistics management. These measurement
items were systematically amended to better reect the manufacturing context. In the next step, we pretested these items with
six executives and ve academics in the eld for assessing the
comprehensiveness, logic, and relevancy of the measurement
items. On the basis of their feedback, we rened the items and
administrated the revised measurement items to 30 executives for
a pilot test. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis to purify
our scales. Based on the analysis results, we deleted two items
because of their lower corrected item-to-total correlation than the
threshold of 0.30, which left us 49 items for further analysis. The
number of indicators employed in this study are similar to those
other studies in the management literature examining latent
constructs with organizational key informants, e.g. [36].
273
Table 2
Results of CFA for GLM.
Indicator
Direction
PMP2
PMP3
PMP4
PMP5
PMP6
EMP1
EMP2
EMP3
EMP4
PAMP1
PAMP2
PAMP3
PAMP4
CMP1
CMP2
CMP3
CMP4
PMPa
EMPa
PAMPa
CMPa
Construct
of GLM
PMP
PMP
PMP
PMP
PMP
PMP
EMP
EMP
EMP
EMP
PAMP
PAMP
PAMP
PAMP
CMP
CMP
CMP
CMP
GLMb
GLMb
GLMb
GLMb
Standardized
loading
Unstandardized
loading
0.83
0.91
0.89
0.65
0.81
0.73
0.78
0.92
0.97
0.90
0.57
0.63
0.93
0.81
0.75
0.79
0.77
0.83
0.88
0.85
1.02
0.97
1.00
1.05
1.07
0.84
0.94
0.93
1.00
1.22
1.20
1.17
1.00
1.06
1.47
1.31
1.00
1.08
1.06
1.24
1.00
1.08
0.98
0.89
Panel B: Using average scores for measuring the four dimensions of GLM
GLMb
0.81
PMPa
EMPa
GLMb
0.89
PAMPa
GLMb
0.96
CMPa
GLMb
0.84
a
b
1.00
1.13
1.05
1.00
S.E.
t-Value
0.08
0.09
0.10
0.09
0.10
13.18
12.54
8.20
10.78
9.32
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.10
0.09
0.10
12.15
12.89
11.79
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.12
0.20
0.19
8.61
7.36
6.80
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.12
0.12
0.13
9.22
8.98
9.74
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.13
0.12
0.14
8.12
8.34
6.21
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.09
0.08
0.09
12.32
12.90
10.95
0.00
0.00
0.00
As discussed previously, GLM is conceptualized as a secondorder construct comprising four attributes: (1) procedure-based
practices, (2) evaluation-based practices, (3) partner-based practices, and (4) general environmental management practices. The
six procedure-based items reect the extent to which manufacturers formally document, manage, and report on how their
GLM practices are conducted by the responsible organizational
functions. The four evaluation-based items record the extent
to which manufacturers monitor, report, and assess their GLM
practices. The partner-based scale consists of ve items assessing how well manufacturers communicate with their internal
staff and external partners on their implementation of GLM. The
general environmental management scale evaluates the extent to
which manufacturers comply with environmental standards and
record their activities for formal reporting via publication of
annual report, etc. With reference to Russo and Fouts [44], we
developed a four-item scale to measure the increasing economic
costs of landll and potential economic gains of product return
compliance programs.
We adopted an existing scale [45] to provide a four-item
measure for evaluating the extent of customer pressure for
environmental protection engendered from customer requirements and expectations. We operationalized regulatory pressure
using a ve-item scale based on Zhu et al. [45] to evaluate the
environmental regulatory pressures experienced by manufacturers. A ve-item scale and another six-item scale were developed with reference to Sroufe [46] for evaluating environmental
and operational performance, respectively. The nal scales are
summarized in Appendix A.
w2(second-order model).
274
ERP
CP
EP
EPerf
ERP
0.18
0.15
CP
0.39
0.35
0.43
0.39
EP
0.33
0.29
0.48
0.45
0.59
0.56
EPerf
0.27
0.25
0.24
0.22
0.19
0.17
0.27
0.23
OPerf
0.33
0.28
0.18
0.16
0.25
0.24
0.37
0.35
0.35
0.33
0.06
2.85
(0.71)
0.09
3.20
(1.06)
0.20
2.05
(0.99)
0.05
2.35
(0.89)
0.01
3.51
(0.85)
OPerf
0.12
3.24
(0.76)
MV marker variable. The rst value in each cell is the correlation between the
constructs, and the second value is the correlation corrected for method bias.All
correlations are signicant at p o 0.05, except for values in italics.
Table 3
Measurement model.
Panel A: Scale properties of the latent factors
Construct
Cronbachs a
Composite reliability
GLM
ERP
CP
EP
EPerf
OPerf
0.92
0.90
0.89
0.91
0.92
0.93
0.87
0.64
0.62
0.56
0.70
0.64
0.91
0.90
0.89
0.90
0.92
0.91
GLM
GLM
GLM
GLM
ERP
ERP
ERP
ERP
ERP
CP
CP
CP
CP
EP
EP
EP
EP
EP
EPerf
EPerf
EPerf
EPerf
EPerf
OPerf
OPerf
OPerf
OPerf
OPerf
OPerf
Estimate
Standardized estimate
1.00
1.13
1.06
1.01
1.00
0.99
0.98
0.76
0.94
1.00
0.87
0.74
1.09
1.00
1.49
1.56
1.33
1.25
1.00
1.05
0.62
0.90
0.84
1.00
1.03
1.23
1.12
1.07
1.09
0.81
0.88
0.96
0.84
0.84
0.83
0.82
0.63
0.81
0.81
0.69
0.59
0.87
0.60
0.85
0.86
0.72
0.73
0.88
0.93
0.67
0.87
0.78
0.70
0.73
0.89
0.81
0.77
0.81
S.E.
t-Value
0.09
0.08
0.09
12.14
13.53
11.23
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.09
0.09
0.10
0.09
10.85
10.67
7.66
10.60
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.10
0.11
0.11
8.13
10.66
10.05
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.23
0.24
0.23
0.21
6.37
6.40
5.85
5.89
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.07
0.07
0.06
0.08
15.44
8.71
13.58
11.08
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.09
0.14
0.11
0.14
0.13
11.01
9.01
9.81
7.98
8.40
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
7. Hypothesis testing
7.1. The structural model testing
The structural model used to test the hypotheses consisted
of the six factors validated in the measurement model, excluding
the moderating variable (i.e., environmental regulatory pressure).
The model t measures indicated acceptable agreement with
the covariance in the data (w2 484.83, df287; CFI 0.91;
RMR 0.07; IFI 0.91; TLI 0.90; RMSEA0.07). The hypothesis
test results for H1H4 are summarized in Table 5.
We found that GLM was positively associated with operational
(b 0.35, p o0.01) and environmental (b 0.36, p o0.01) performance, providing support for H3 and H4. In support of H1,
customer pressure was positively associated with GLM (b 0.21,
p o0.05). The prediction in H2 that economic pressure encountered by manufacturing enterprises is positively associated with
275
Table 5
Results of hypothesis testing.
Panel A: Structural model: H1-H4
Construct
Direction
Construct
GLM
GLM
EPerf
OPerf
CP
EP
GLM
GLM
Estimate
Standardized estimate
SE
t-Value
Hypothesis
Conclusion
0.21
0.29
0.35
0.35
0.33
0.17
0.25
0.36
0.09
0.24
0.13
0.10
2.30
1.16
2.70
3.53
0.02
0.25
0.00
0.01
1
2
3
4
Supported
Not supported
Supported
Supported
Panel B: Multigroup analysis: H5H6 (high vs. low environmental regulatory pressure)
Models
w2
df
w2/df
IFI
TLI
1. Baseline model
2. Constrained model
3. Constrained paths
3a. CP-GLM
3b. EP-GLM
3c. GLM-EPerf
3d. GLM-OPerf
Path coefcients
Paths
CP-GLM
EP-GLM
GLM-EPerf
GLM-OPerf
CFI
RMSEA
w2 Difference test
697.22
901.80
474
537
1.47
1.67
0.91
0.84
0.90
0.83
0.90
0.83
0.07
0.08
701.89
698.77
701.70
701.33
475
475
475
475
1.48
1.47
1.48
1.48
0.92
0.91
0.91
0.90
0.91
0.92
0.90
0.90
0.92
0.92
0.90
0.91
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
Hypothesis
Conclusion
0.39 c
(2.26)n
0.23
(1.28)
0.44
(3.67)nnn
0.40
(3.01) nn
0.18
(0.82)
0.06
(0.28)
0.07
(0.04)
0.22
(1.38)
5a
Supported
5b
Not supported
6a
Supported
6b
Supported
276
.44***
.39*
Environmental
performance
GLM
.23
.40**
Operational
performance
Economic pressure
Low environmental regulatory pressure group
Customer pressure
.07
.18
Environmental
performance
GLM
.06
Economic pressure
.22
Operational
performance
Fig. 2. High versus low environmental regulatory pressure groups and the results.
8. Discussion
There has been growing evidence of organizational willingness
to achieve improvements in the efciency with which resources
277
Fig. 3. A plot on the predicted value of implementing GLM under low and high
environmental regulatory pressure levels when customer pressure (CP) is encountered by manufacturers at low and high levels.
Fig. 5. A plot on the predicted value of environmental performance under low and
high environmental regulatory pressure levels when GLM is implemented by
manufacturers at low and high levels.
Fig. 4. A plot on the predicted value of implementing GLM under low and high
environmental regulatory pressure levels when economic pressure (EP) is encountered by manufacturers at low and high levels.
Fig. 6. A plot on the predicted value of operational performance under low and
high environmental regulatory pressure levels when GLM is implemented by
manufacturers at low and high levels.
important implications for Chinese manufacturers who are considered as the major polluters and resources consumers. Increasingly, there are international and domestic pressures urging
Chinese manufacturers to tackle the environmental issues caused
by their growing industrial activities. As a part of the world
factory, Chinese manufacturing exporters can contribute by
producing, distributing, and packaging merchandises with more
environment-friendly alternatives, increasing the efciency of
materials use through waste minimization and recycling, and
changing the composition of output by using materials that are
less harmful to the environment. Investigation of the antecedents
278
279
structuring their assessment, reporting, and monitoring mechanisms of green logistics activities.
280
data from other countries with larger sample size to validate the
role of environmental regulations.
Successful implementation of GLM requires active involvement
of various parties, e.g., suppliers and customers, in the logistics
chain. The leadership of manufacturing exporters in pioneering
and diffusing GLM at the upstream can determine the implementation success of the downstream partners. Leadership issues in
the logistics chain on the diffusion of environmental management
practices such as GLM are worthy of investigation to extend this
line of research. It is also useful to examine how GLM can be
integrated with total quality management principles to continuously improve quality in all aspects of the product life cycle to
exceed market expectations.
Our study examines only the moderating impact of environmental regulatory pressures on the antecedents and consequences of GLM, and other factors such as market uncertainty
and turbulence could be examined in future studies. On the
regulatory pressure, we did not differentiate such pressure
related to local and international regulations, which can be
considered by future studies to gain deeper insights on the
GLM-performance relationship. While the Chinese government
is supportive of environmental protection through initiating
discussions on global warming in such international arena as
the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, future studies may examine how Chinese government may
inuence the institutionalization of GLM in the manufacturing
sector and in other industrial contexts such as shipping [65],
transport logistics [66], and the service sector [67]. After the
nancial tsunami in 2008, economic arguments of China with the
European Union and the United States on protectionism, trade
balance, and exchange rates become more frequent. There is also
rapidly growing industrial development at different Chinese
regions with varying investment efciency [68]. How the international economic and political situations affect the investment
of Chinese manufacturing exporters on GLM and the coordination
among international logistics chain partners for the implementation are promising topics for investigation.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their
constructive and insightful suggestions on the earlier versions of this
paper. We also thank the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Ben Lev, for providing
us with helpful comments for improvements. This research is
supported in part by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong
Special Administration Region (GRF PolyU5500/10H).
281
Table A1
.
Construct name (scale)
Measurement items
Environmental regulatory
pressure(ERP)
(1not at all 5to a great extent)
ERP1: Our products are sold to countries with specic environmental laws
ERP2: Environmental regulations governing our products are very strict
ERP3: The materials used in our products are controlled by regulations that limit the consumption of hazardous
materials
ERP4:We comply with regulations that limit the disposal of waste
ERP5: Our products comply with environmental regulations of many countries
CP1:
CP2:
CP3:
CP4:
Referring green logistics management (GLM) as the management practice of your rms that takes account of the
environmental impact of the physical ows (from production, distribution, to disposal) throughout the life-cycle of
products.
Procedure-based practices
PMP1: GLM procedures are formally documented
PMP2: Our rm has a formal GLM
PMP3: We have a department responsible for environmental affairs
PMP4: GLM procedures are widely available
PMP5: Formal reporting position between business units and executives
PMP6: GLM performance is formally reported
Evaluation-based management practices
EMP1: GLM information is monitored regularly
EMP2: GLM performance is periodically captured
EMP3: GLM performance is periodically reported
EMP4: We look for improvement in our GLM from time to time
Partner-based management practices
PAMP1: Our customers consider our GLM highly effective
PAMP2: Our suppliers consider our GLM highly effective
PAMP3: Our staff consider GLM highly effective
PAMP4: The results of GLM performance are widely distributed
PAMP5: Green logistics procedures are included in training
General environmental management practices
CMP1: GLM of our rm is given prominent visibility in our annual report
CMP2: Our rm has a well-developed GLM database for tracking GLM performance
CMP3: We purchase from suppliers that are ISO 14000 certied
CMP4: We are ISO 14000 certied
EPerf1:
EPerf2:
EPerf3:
EPerf4:
EPerf5:
OPer1:
OPer2:
OPer3:
OPer4:
OPer5:
OPer6:
Our
Our
Our
Our
customers
customers
customers
customers
consider that it is our responsibility to retrieve reusable products from the markets
require us to be ISO 14000 certied
carry out environmental audits of our rm
take part in our product return program
References
[1] Economy E, Lieberthal K. Scorched earth: will environmental risks in
China overwhelm its opportunities? Harvard Business Review 2007;85(6):
8896.
[2] Kolk A, Pinkse J. A perspective on multinational enterprises and climate
change: learning from an inconvenient truth? Journal of International
Business Studies 2008;38(8):135978.
[3] Knight JG, Holdsworth DK, Mather DW. Country-of-origin and choice of food
imports: an in-depth study of European distribution channel gatekeepers.
Journal of International Business Studies 2007;38(2):10725.
[4] Schuler DA, Cording M. A corporate social performancecorporate nancial
performance behavioral model for consumers. Academy of Management
Review 2006;31(3):54058.
[5] Zhu QH, Geng Y, Lai K-H. Circular economy practices among Chinese
manufacturers varying in environmental-oriented supply chain cooperation
and the performance implications. Journal of Environmental Management
2010;91(6):132431.
[6] Zhu QH, Sarkis J, Lai K-H. Green supply chain management implications for
closing the loop. Transportation Research Part E 2008;44(1):118.
[7] Rogers D, Tibben-Lembke R. An examination of reverse logistics practices.
Journal of Business Logistics 2001;22(2):12948.
[8] Krikke H, Blanc Il, v.d. Velde S. Product modularity and the design of closedloop supply chains. California Management Review 2004;46(2):2339.
[9] Sharma S, Henriques I. Stakeholder inuences on sustainability practices in
the Canadian forest products industry. Strategic Management Journal
2005;26(2):15980.
[10] Hitchens DMWN. The implications for competitiveness of environmental
regulations for peripheral regions in the EU. Omega 1999;27(1):10114.
[11] Lai K-H, Cheng TCE, Tang A. Green retailing and its success factors. California
Management Review 2010;52(2):631.
[12] Guide VDR, Harrison TP, Van Wassenhove LN. The challenge of closed-loop
supply chains. Interfaces 2003;33(6):36.
[13] Ramanathan R, Yunfeng J. Incorporating cost and environmental factors in
quality function deployment using data development analysis. Omega
2009;37(3):71123.
282
[44] Russo MV, Fouts PA. A resource-based perspective on corporate environmental performance and protability. Academy of Management Journal
1997;40(3):53459.
[45] Zhu QH, Sarkis J, Lai K-H. Green supply chain management: pressures,
practices, and performance within the Chinese automobile industry. Journal
of Cleaner Production 2007;15(11):104152.
[46] Sroufe R. Effects of environmental management systems on environmental
management practices and operations. Production and Operations Management 2003;12(3):41631.
[47] Gerbing DW, Anderson JC. An updated paradigm for scale development
incorporating unidimensionality and its assessment. Journal of Marketing
Research 1988;25(2):18692.
[48] Marsh HW, Hocevar D. Application of conrmatory factor analysis to the
study of self-concept: rst and higher order factor models and their
invariance across groups. Psychological Bulletin 1984;97(3):56282.
[49] Marsh H, Hocevar D. A new, more powerful approach to multitrait-multimethod analysis: application of second-order conrmatory factory analysis.
Journal of Applied Psychology 1985;73(1):10717.
[50] Hu LT, Bentler PM. Cutoff criteria for t indices in covariance structure
analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation
Modeling 1999;6(1):155.
[51] Tanriverdi H, Venkatraman N. Knowledge relatedness and the performance
of multibusiness rms. Strategic Management Journal 2005;26(2):97119.
[52] Fornell C, Larcker DF. Evaluating structural equation models with unobserved
variables and measurement errors. Journal of Marketing Research 1981;18(1):
3950.
[53] Koufteros XA, Cheng TCE, Lai K-H. Black-box and grey-box supplier
integration in product development: antecedents, consequences, and the
moderating role of rm size. Journal of Operations Management 2007;25(4):
84770.
[54] Anderson JD, Gerbing DW. Structural equation modeling in practice. A review
and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin 1988;103(3):
41123.
[55] Bentler PM, Bonett DG. Psychological bulletin. Psychological Bulletin
1980;88(3):588606.
[56] Byrne BM. Testing for multigroup invariance using AMOS graphics: a road
less traveled. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal
2004;11(2):272300.
[57] Das A, et al. A contingent view of quality managementthe impact of
international competition on quality. Decision Sciences 2000;31(3):64990.
[58] Corbett CJ, Klassen RD. Extending the horizons: environmental excellence as
key to improving operations. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 2006;8(1):522.
[59] Corbett CJ, Kirsch DA. International diffusion of ISO 14000 certication.
Production and Operations Management 2001;10(3):32742.
[60] Zhang B, et al. Why do rms engage in environmental management? An
empirical study in China Journal of Cleaner Production 2008;16(10):
103645.
[61] Mayers CK. Strategic, nancial, and design implications of extended producer
responsbility in Europe: a producer case study. Journal of Industrial Ecology
2007;11(3):11331.
[62] Yu J, Williams E, Ju M. Analysis of material and energy consumption of
mobile phones in China. Energy Policy 2010;38(8):413541.
[63] Kim KK, Ryoo SY, Jung MD. Inter-organizational information systems visibility in buyersupplier relationships: the case of telecommunication equipment component manufacturing industry. Omega-International Journal of
Management Science 2011;39(6):66776.
[64] Wong CWY, Lai KH, Cheng TCE. Complementarities and alignment of
information systems management and supply chain management. International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics 2009;1(2):15671.
[65] Lai KH, et al. Green shipping practices in the shipping industry: conceputualization, adoption and implications. Resources Conservation and Recycling
2011;55(6):55966.
[66] Lun YHV, et al. Research in shipping and transport logistics. International
Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics 2011;3(1):15.
[67] Lee PKC, et al. An empirical study of transformational leadership, team
performance and service quality in retail banks. Omega-International Journal
of Management Science 2011;39(6):690701.
[68] Zhong W, et al. The performance evaluation of regional R&D investments in
China: an application of DEA based on the rst ofcial China economic census
data. Omega-International Journal of Management Science 2011;39(4):
44755.
[69] Glaser B, Strauss A. The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for
qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine; 1967.
[70] Yin RK. Case study research: design and methods.4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications; 2009.