Research Proposal For Incorporating Green Supply Chain Management Practices In Organizations

Abstract

Question:

The purpose of this assessment is to enable students to develop an effective research plan considering context, research questions, sources, timeline, and larger implications for writing a formal research report; Also to  practice  working  with  the  Research  Proposal  as  an  academic  genre and to  provide  an  opportunity  for  working  on  stylistics  and  effective  academic discourse.

Abstract

The Organizations of the modern age are adopting newer management practices in an attempt to stay competitive in their Business. Amongst these practices, are several efficient supply chain management practices that are helping these organizations to perform better in terms of delivering their respective supply chain performances. The Green Supply chain Management has recently gained popularity between industry practitioners as well as researchers. The aim of this research proposal is to identify and propose a conceptual model for incorporating green supply chain management practices in an organization that would eventually help organizations in improvising their economical, operational and environmental performance. This model is being suggested after a careful analysis and literature review of various researches conduced in this field. Thus, the purpose of this research would be rightly directed in adaptation and implementation of green supply chain management practices in organizations, and the measurement of the several benefits derived from these.

1. Introduction to the Proposal

The sustained economic growth across the global economy has eventually increased the level of non-renewable resources and energy consumption. The supply chain operations of the several organizations across varied industries across the globe are directly contributing towards resource depletion problems. Several of the organizations are also breaching their environmental responsibilities towards their surroundings by creating environmental hazards through its supply chain activities and operational practices. As a result, the concept of green supply chain management has emerged as a new systematic environmental approach in the industry. This approach has already been accepted by several of the forward thinking and prominent organizations in the manufacturing and service industry. In fact several or the organizations have experienced positive operational outcomes by balancing economic and environmental performances of their supply chain operations.

Thus, the impact of implementation of the Green techniques in the Supply chain management of the manufacturing and service organizations are intended to study in this research proposal. This study conducted in this proposal is highly restricted to more usage of qualitative research tools over quantitative research tools of measuring the periodic financial performance of these organizations selected for study. The responses obtained from the samples selected for the study would be converted in to qualitative information that would be further analyzed and researched. Several of the existing literature pertaining to adoption of green supply chain management practices, would also be compared with the research data obtained.

2. Research Question and Purpose

The Purpose of this research proposal is to rightly identify and propose a conceptual model for incorporating green supply chain management practices in organizations that would eventually help organizations in improvising their economical, operational and environmental performance. The industry experts working closely with supply chain activities for at least eight years would be identified across several industries and several locations across the world. Either email communication or video conferencing would be used to capture the responses of these experts. The Positive hypothesis for the study conducted on adoption of green supply chain management practices, would be a positive operational performance of an organization after adoption of the environmental friendly changes in the supply chain activities. A negative impact shown by the implementation of green supply chain practices on the organization’s operational performance, even in the long run, would be termed as a negative hypothesis for this study. Making hardly any difference in terms of both economic and operational efficiency, would be termed as neutral hypothesis for the study.

Introduction to the Proposal

3. Literature Review

The review of the previous literatures that have been closely associated with the study and adoption of green supply chain management techniques across several industries, across several regions. These studies would further assist us in our research activity of investigating the benefits of adoption of green supply chain management practices. The following table summarizes the reviewed literature:

4. Methodology

Firstly our research is indented to measure the impact of adaptation of the Green techniques in the Supply chain management of the organizations using a qualitative research tools. Initially a primary research would be conducted to derive the latest first hand information from the industry practitioners. The practitioners who have at least 8 years of industry experience and those who are practically well versed with the implications of the several supply chain management techniques on operational performance of an organization would be selected as samples for the research. This investigation would be made through interviewing the selected industry practitioners across several industries via either email communication or video conferencing, for at least ten samples in the product manufacturing industries and ten samples from the service industry. The reasoning and responses received from these practitioners would be fed in the data tables designed to measure the significance and benefits of green practices in supply chain management of product and service organizations.  The data extracted would then be further analyzed in to meaningful information to arrive at a considerable reasoning from the study. The various secondary sources of information would also be utilized to compare the responses from the samples against the prominent well accepted researches in this field.

The study on the adoption and the benefits of the concept of the green supply chain management practices on the overall performance of the organizations and the benefits derived by the organization from this practice, is strictly restricted to the responses from the senior personnel from the respective industries. The reasoning for carefully choosing the experienced staff members belonging to the supply chain management practices background as samples is to obtain more practical, accurate and reliable first hand data from these samples. The improvement in the Operational, Economic and Environmental Performance of an Organization after incorporating Green measures in the supply chain process, would be the key measurable in the research. The threats of reliability and validity of the data would be significantly low as data would be captured from reliable sources.

5. Planning, Analysis and Organization

The adoption and success of green supply chain management practices is a prominent and critical research area that is also popular among the industry patrons and students of this subject. The adoption and implementation of this concept in the medium sized organizations is still a challenging transformation. The Management of the several of these midsized organizations still foresees adoption of green supply chain practices as unnecessary expenditure to the organizations. Many of the organizations based in the developing countries still fear the adoption of green supply chain practices, in the fear of hampering their sustained operational and economic progress. 

This study envisages identifying the gaps between the adoption and non adoption of the green supply chain practices. Our research also tries to obtain considerable reasons as why these green supply chain practices are sought useful or harmful to the operational performance of the businesses. The implementation of the green supply chain management objectives can be efficiently achieved through several of the stakeholders working closely with the operational activities of the organization. Working closely with the raw material manufactures and other suppliers actively involved in the supply chain, would enable in gradual reduction and elimination of the product environmental impacts. Also reduction and control over the wastage of materials employed in the product manufacturing process in the organization would also have a significant positive impact on the operations of the Supply chain management activities.

This research will be very much resourceful for the industry practitioners as well as students of the supply chain management practices. The practical applications of the green techniques implemented by the successful practitioners would be shared through this research. This research would not cease with the measure of success or failure of incorporating green supply chain techniques across several organizations belonging to several industries; but will further analyze the specific reasons or implementation techniques that made the implementation successful.

Conclusion:

This research would thus enable effective networking with the several industry practitioners. The industry patrons selected as samples would be rich source of practical information on effective green management of supply chain activities in the organization, as they would be actively involved in the various practical aspects of implementation of green supply chain management activities. This research accordingly attempts to collect study and measure the responses obtained from the primary sources of information. A careful analysis and literature review of the various researches conduced in this field would further strengthen the research purpose, of study of the rightly directed adaptation and implementation of green supply chain management practices in organizations and the measurement of the several benefits derived from them.

References:

• Holt, and A. Ghobadian, (2009) “An empirical study of green supply chain management practices amongst UK manufacturers,” Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, vol. 20(7), pp. 933-956.
• Eltayeb, T. K., Zailani, S. & Ramayah, T., (2011) “Green supply chain initiatives among certified companies in Malaysia and environmental sustainability: Investigating the outcomes”, Resource, Conservation and Recycling, 55, pp 495-506.
• E. Bowen, P. D. Cousine, R. C. Lamming, and A.C. Faruk, (2001) “Horse for courses: Explaining the gap between the theory and practice of green supply,” Greener Management International, (Autumn), pp. 41-59.
• Hervani, Helms, and M. Sarkis, (2005) “Performance measurement for green supply chain management,” Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. 12(4), pp. 330-353.
• Hugo, and E. Pistikopoulos, (2005) “Environmentally conscious long-range planning and design of supply chain networks,” Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 13(15), pp. 1471-1491.
• Zhu, J. Sarkis, and Y. Geng, (2005) “Green supply chain management in China: pressures, practices and performance,” International Journal of Operations and Production Management, vol. 25(5), pp. 449-468.
• Zhu, Q., Geng, Y., Sarkis, J., & Lai, K.H., (2011) “Evaluating Green Supply Chain Management among Chinese Manufacturers from the Ecological Modernization Perspective”, Transportation Research Part E, 47, pp 808-821.