Greening the supply chain for Advantage

Greening the Supply Chain for Advantage: The case of the rock hammer, coffee drinker and the graduate
Dr. Miles Weaver,
Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management,
Leicester Business School, UK.
mweaver@dmu.ac.uk

Outline
Research interests and motivation
Context of the ‘state of play’ in general attitudes towards developing ‘environmental’ strategies
Discussion on ‘competing’ through a supply chain view, rather than a company
Core themes:
Managing and ‘adding value’ through the supply chain
‘Ownership’ and ‘control’
Setting the ‘boundary’ to measure performance gains
Why those three illustrations?
Rock hammer in ‘Shawshank Redemption’; ‘coffee’ and the ‘graduate’!

My areas of interest …
Weaver and Nunes (2007)
Taylor et al., (2008)
Niranjan and Weaver (2010)
3

The ‘socially responsible’ and/or ‘source’ of competitive advantage?
Banerjee (2001) provide evidence that increasing number of firms now accept that environmental protection is normal part of doing business
Employee focus
Manufacturing focus
Corporate focus
Marketing focus
But is it necessarily a ‘source’ of competitive advantage?

State of play ... (1)
Cross-sector/industry study assessed managerial attitudes (250 firms) towards environmental strategies. Findings suggested:
recycling was most commonly performed activity
most actions focused around manufacturing ( especially where cost advantage possible)
evidence of focus at other levels including corporate strategy level (e.g. R&D)
variations in environmental activity according to industry (e.g. chemical, pharmaceutical, and utilities firms had wider range of environmental activities - higher impact businesses - and greater corporate focus)
regulatory forces appeared to be major factor influencing company environmental strategy
evidence of perception that link existed between environmental action and competitive gains - (especially in high environmental impact industries)

With regard to the latter point, study points to 3 emergent themes amongst managers:
environmental issues were a source of business opportunity and could lead to competitive advantage
both market and non-market forces important in shaping environmental strategies (e.g. customers, regulatory agencies)
link between concepts of ‘quality’ and environmental action
Study by Ghobadian et al (1995) of environmental strategy among top UK corporations suggests that key influences on adoption of corporate environmental policies were:
legal compliance
public perception of organisation

Authors argue that motivations tend to be largely reactive and dependent on expected development of environmental legislation. Not much evidence of seeking environmental leadership positions
Moreover while competitive advantage was a concern, primacy given to questions of waste reduction and resource utilisation

Ah, all good, but, not enough?
"supply chains compete, not companies" (Christopher, 2002)
Supply strategies significantlyimpactupon a firms performance
(Christopher and Ryals, 1999, Keah-Choon et al., 1999)
Companies have far too often attempted to optimisetheir own value chains, without considering the effect of these decisions on their suppliers or customers
(Chopra and Meindl, 2004)

Some considerations for future competitive gains ....
What is the ‘boundary’ of a supply chain? Can/Should it be defined?
Who ‘controls’ a supply chain? Is there a need?
How can value be created through managing the ‘total’supply chain for advantage?
Discussion and illustration?
Bean to cup?
‘Adding value’ in HE for employability?

‘Green’ supply chains compete, not companies
Any questions ….?
Feedback and ideas @DrMilesWeaver

Greening the supply chain for Advantage

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