Knowledge that Transforms

AbstractGlobalization results in both pressure and drivers for Chinese enterprises to improve their environmental performance. As a developing country, China has to balance economic and environmental performance. Green supply chain management (GSCM) is emerging to be an important approach for Chinese enterprises to improve performance, possibly on both these dimensions. Using empirical results from 186 respondents on GSCM practice in Chinese manufacturing enterprises, we examine the relationships between GSCM practice and environmental and economic performance. Using moderated hierarchical regression analysis, we evaluate the general relationships between specific GSCM practices and performance. We then investigate how two primary types of management operations philosophies, quality management and just‐in‐time (or lean) manufacturing principles, influence the relationship between GSCM practices and performance. Significant findings were determined for a number of relationships. Managerial implications are also identified.

AbstractThis study develops the need for formal conceptual definitions (sometimes called nominal definitions) and how to develop better measurement instruments for theory‐building. It develops the underlying theory for ‘good’ formal conceptual definitions by defining terms, demonstrating that formal conceptual definitions are needed for all theory‐building empirical research, explains how and why ‘good’ formal conceptual definitions are used to develop properties and their measures, and last, it logically explains that good formal conceptual definitions are necessary conditions for construct validity (content validity, criterion validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity) while statistical tests are sufficient conditions for validity. This theory development explains why formal conceptual definitions are necessary before any traditional statistical empirical validity tests are performed. This study suggests that any statistical validity tests are not meaningful if the concept is not formally defined.In short, the theory of formal conceptual definitions provides a structure to develop ‘good’ measures of the formal theory that leads to ‘good’ empirical theory‐building.

AbstractTo improve demand chain performance, is it better for parties in a supply chain to focus first on lead time reduction, or instead concentrate on improving the transfer of demand information upstream in the chain? Even though the theory of supply and demand chain management suggests that lead time reduction is an antecedent to the use of market mediation (i.e., adjusting production to fit actual customer demand as it materializes) [Harvard Business Rev. 75 (2) (1997) 105] to reduce transaction uncertainty in the chain, which can be conceptualized as the primary goal of supply chain management [J. Operat. Manage. 11 (3) (1993) 289], demand chain parties often are observed in practice to begin with information transfer improvement, ignoring the problem of long lead times. In this paper, we propose a framework for prioritizing lead time reduction in a demand chain improvement project, using a typology of demand chains to identify and recommend trajectories to achieve desirable levels of market mediation performance.

AbstractThe main argument in this paper is that in order to understand the phenomenon of how innovative manufacturing practices diffuse we need to invoke theoretical arguments other than the ones that are conventionally used. In particular, neo‐institutional arguments can shed light on the determinants of manufacturing practice adoption and implementation. We juxtapose both theoretically and empirically three different theoretical perspectives that can be used to address the phenomenon: strategic contingency, structural contingency and neo‐institutional arguments. A preliminary empirical test of the three competing perspectives is tested in a sample of 164 manufacturing plants. We find that the institutional perspective explains much more of the variance in the practices adopted and implemented by the plants than either the structural contingency or the strategic contingency theories. This motivates future research using some of the less familiar theoretical approaches.