Practices Analysis And Performance Improvement Of Manufacturers’ Proactive Green Supply Chain Management

Green supply chain management(GSCM)has attracted wide attention from the government and manufacturers,which is a systematic environmental management method integrating supply chain thinking.The initial motivation for manufacturers to implement GSCM is to satisfy the mandatory requirements on environment from the regulations and customers.A few leading companies began to implement proactive GSCM when they have been motivated to stratify these mandatory requirements(e.g.,Huawei’s green supplier partnership programs).Proactive GSCM,based on manufacturers’ own development needs,aim to achieve environmental and economic targets(value creation).It is different from the activities that manufacturers have to implement due to mandatory requirements.Besides,the central government has continuously issued documents to encourage manufacturers to implement GSCM for influencing more manufacturers and greening their supply chains.Now more and more Chinese manufacturers began to implement proactive GSCM,but there are still some problems.Among them,how to implement and drive GSCM practices effectively and then achieve performance improvement are the critical problems widely faced by manufacturers.Although the existing studies have discussed them,the literature review and future direction of GSCM field still reveal the necessity of more in-depth studies.Firstly,the major efforts for GSCM practices are from the technical aspect,which include eco-design,green production,and reverse logistics.Most manufacturers rely solely on cleaning equipment or technology to solve pollution problems to satisfy the mandatory requirements.The importance of behavioral or non-technical aspects of GSCM practices is overlooked.The implementation of proactive GSCM needs both technical practices and behavioral practices.However,it is still less clear what behavioral practices are and how they affect technical practices and performance.Secondly,a few environmental incidents(e.g.,Xiaomi suppliers that were accused of environmental failings)indicate the importance of proactive GSCM(green supplier relationship management).Some leading manufacturers have proactively adopted green supplier governance approaches(e.g.,from the supervision relationship to the cooperative relationship)and strengthened the interaction with suppliers on environmental issues to reduce risks.Moreover,a few of them began to consider GSCM at the strategic level(strategic green orientation and strategic partnership with suppliers).Whether the strategic orientation drives the implementation of green supplier relationship management practices and then achieves an improvement of economic and environmental performance is a major concern for manufacturers and the academia.Although existing studies have done preliminary work on the above topics,further studies on how strategic orientation drives different relationship management practices are needed.Finally,manufacturers expect to reduce environmental risks from the supply-side by implementing GSCM practices and there is a relatively limited focus on customers.How to implement value-oriented GSCM(e.g.,green value chain)is a hot topic in practice and the academia.A few related publications are case studies.Based on the above practical problems faced by manufacturers and research questions in existing GSCM studies,this thesis focuses on the practices analysis and performance improvement in the implementation of proactive GSCM for manufacturers.Both the empirical methods(e.g.,structural equation model,regression analysis,cluster analysis)and game modeling are used in this study.Firstly,based on previous studies,this thesis defines the behavioral and technical GSCM practices: behavioral GSCM practices refer to soft practices related to human being and organizations,including internal management support,green supplier relationship management,and cooperation with customers;technical practices refer to technology-oriented,methodology-driven and hard practices,including product design,process techniques,environmental management systems,and information technology.A theoretical model is developed based on the socio-technical systems theory for analyzing how behavioral and technical practices function together on performance improvement.The assumptions among relationships between two types of GSCM practices and performance are hypothesized and tested using a sample of 200 manufacturers.The results show that behavioral practices can effectively promote the implementation of technical practices,and the two types of practices jointly improve organizational performance.Chinese manufactures should enhance the implementation level of behavioral practices to facilitate the implementation of technical practices.Secondly,this thesis further focuses on ‘how to drive green supplier relationship management’ from a strategic perspective.It further develops the third practice(strategic partnership with suppliers)of supplier relationship management besides supplier assessment and collaboration,and develops measurement items for strategic partnership with suppliers.Moreover,assumptions on the sequential effect of strategic green orientation,supplier relationship management practices,economic and environmental performance are hypothesized and examined using the sample of 200 manufacturers.The statistical results show that:(1)green strategic orientation has a positive influence on the three practices;(2)both supplier assessment and strategic partnership with suppliers have the positive influence on environmental performance,and two practices(supplier collaboration and strategic partnership with suppliers)are positively associated with economic performance;Besides,manufacturers with a higher implementation level of three practices have more improvement of economic and environmental performance.The results indicate that green supplier relationship management practices are effectively driven by strategic green orientation,and have a positive impact on the improvement of economic and environmental performance.Finally,this thesis has a discussion on how manufacturers proactively cooperate with customers on environmental management to realize value creation.Based on the actual scenario,a product production-oriented ecodesign value creation mode,including a manufacturer and a manufacturing customer,is developed.It is a common phenomenon in practice but draws little attention from GSCM studies.A Stackelberg game model consisting of the two is developed for depicting the mode’s characteristics(a manufacturer’s effort benefits the customer rather than itself).The impact of three decision-making conditions(no eco-design,decentralized decision making with eco-design,centralized decision making with eco-design)on retail price,sales volume,eco-design effort level and benefits of manufacturer and customer is analyzed.The results show that under certain conditions,eco-design of the manufacturer is beneficial to improve the overall economic benefits of the supply chain.Under the condition of decentralized decision making,the manufacturer has a higher willingness to implement eco-design.By the revenue-sharing and cost-sharing contract,the whole supply chain in the decentralized decision-making can achieve the same economic benefit as that in the centralized decision-making condition.It is a multi-win situation among the manufacturer,the manufacturing customer and consumers.The results provide insightful implications for proactive GSCM and value creation.