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This study aims to explore papers and assess how they have been addressing TAN features to understand better and explore a structure for the effectiveness of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) for environmental sustainability. Based on data collected, papers on the thematic of transnational advocacy networks for the environment were selected and explored to understand better what features are shown and under what light. Transnational advocacy networks for environmental issues are common in the literature, as the topic draws the attention of nongovernmental organizations. Many of the papers explore at least one of three pillars among the results, and frequently more than one is brought up into theoretical and empirical discussion. These results highlight specific features among each of the characteristics, building a framework so that TANs may have a path to structure their activities to achieve their goals more effectively. Further studies may advance this knowledge in practice. This study seeks to contribute to the existing literature from a theoretical perspective, integrating and exploring the dimensions of transnational advocacy networks and considering a possible structure to improve their results.

Purpose Conventional wisdom posits that firms in slow clockspeed industries usually favor exploitation over exploration, prioritizing the need to increase efficiency, reduce costs and invest in process improvements. However, what happens when such firms face structural changes in the long run? The authors claim that even firms in slow clockspeed industries should be ambidextrous, that is, they should develop both exploration and exploitation capabilities. Supply chain (SC) managers are key players in enabling organizational ambidexterity. This paper aims to identify the abilities that characterize the ambidextrous SC managers. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data from an in-depth case study through ethnographic research, non-participant observation and interviews with SC managers at a Brazilian chemical firm embedded in a slow clockspeed network of clients. These longitudinal data were used to demonstrate the process of implementing new projects in an SC department. Findings The authors propose a set of key abilities that enable ambidexterity in SC managers for them to contribute effectively to the SC exploration and exploitation practices: a holistic yet focused view; prior experience in multiple functional areas; technical knowledge; openness towards network connectivity; openness to sharing ideas with other managers; empathy; and entrepreneurial capabilities. Research limitations/implications This paper contributes to the SCM ambidexterity literature by bringing to light the abilities of successful ambidextrous SC managers. The seven abilities identified are discussed. The authors formulate theoretical propositions on how these abilities enable SC managers’ ambidexterity. Practical implications This study provides SC managers with the knowledge of a set of individual abilities they should develop among their SC personnel to offer a more suitable environment in their departments for ambidexterity to take place. In addition, these abilities can be used as screening criteria in personnel selection processes to increase the proportion of ambidextrous employees within the firm. The identified characteristics could also be used as recruitment criteria for managerial positions in SCM. Originality/value This research advances SC literature by studying SC managers through the lens of the organizational ambidexterity literature. Using a combination of case study, non-participant observation and ethnographic research, the authors derive a set of propositions for the characteristics of ambidextrous SC managers.

Despite all quality management and integration literature prescriptions to implement strategies for a better organizational performance, healthcare organizations support a model that is inefficient, expensive, and unsustainable over time. This work aims to examine the interpersonal relationships in three large hospitals located in Southern Brazil and its relation with organizational efficiency. Through a qualitative and explanatory research, semi-structured interviews were applied to 32 professionals, in addition to a document analysis. The data analysis shows that integration occurs at the formal leadership level only in one of the organizations and does not involve the medical and operational professionals. Quality management seems not to be fully incorporated into care routines, and are related to efficiency losses. This scenario is probably related to the lack of integration among the professionals and the consolidation of trust, leadership, and communication. Resumo Apesar das prescrições da literatura sobre gestão da qualidade e integração para implementar estratégias que melhorem o desempenho organizacional, as organizações de saúde sustentam um modelo que é ineficiente, caro e insustentável ao longo do tempo. Este estudo objetiva examinar os relacionamentos interpessoais em três hospitais de grande porte localizados no sul do Brasil e sua relação com a eficiência organizacional. Através de uma pesquisa qualitativa e explicativa, entrevistas semiestruturadas foram aplicadas em 32 profissionais em adição à análise documental. Os dados analisados sugerem que a integração ocorre ao nível das lideranças formais em apenas um dos hospitais e não envolve os profissionais médicos e os operacionais. A gestão da qualidade não parece estar completamente incorporada às rotinas assistenciais e estão relacionadas com perdas de eficiência. Este cenário está provavelmente relacionado com a falta de integração entre os profissionais e da consolidação da confiança, da liderança e da comunicação.

Sustainable Human Resource Management aims to aggregate and assist in implementing sustainable strategies and improving engagement and relationships with all stakeholders. This systematic literature review aims to understand the concepts and the association of Sustainable Human Resource Management with Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability from the Stakeholder Theory perspective, using the Scopus database. We found an increase in research for Sustainable Human Resource Management, which is the evolution of Green Human Resource Management. SHRM is relevant to management approaches aimed at sustainability. It has a broad view of dimensions, being focused on its employees and the socio-environmental and economic impact of the organization, considering the organization’s relationship with all stakeholders.

This paper presents a literature review that searches to understand how the environmental strategy must be diffused throughout the structure of the multinational enterprise (MNE), within the scope of the studies on enterprises’ internationalization. Literature has contributed to the understanding of the relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries of MNEs, identifying contingencies where the headquarters should grant greater autonomy to certain subsidiaries. After analyzing the literature, we propose a research agenda seeking to expand the field of knowledge on the adoption of sustainability strategies in subsidiaries.

A dinâmica do mercado e a competição entre as empresas fazem com que estas desenvolvam ações e adotem estratégias para manterem uma posição almejada no mercado. Esta pesquisa teve por objetivo identificar como a inovação aberta foi relacionada à vantagem competitiva para as pequenas e médias empresas nos estudos existentes, como, também, prover uma agenda para futuras pesquisas. Assim, através de um levantamento teórico bibliográfico em jornal internacionais e revistas relevantes para esta área do conhecimento foram apresentados os seguintes tópicos: vantagem competitiva nas organizações; pequenas e médias empresas no ambiente dos negócios; inovação aberta; e a inovação aberta: uma vantagem competitiva para pequenas e médias empresas. Nessa perspectiva, percebe-se existir um novo modelo de competição nas pequenas e médias empresas, além de trazer benefícios e vantagens excepcionais para a gestão, dentre eles destacam-se a uma grande variedade de ideias e conhecimento gerado, descoberta de soluções radicais, legitimidade no ambiente externo, além do mais, os parceiros externos podem ser mais bem equipados para fins de comercializar invenções para interesses mútuos, além do aproveitamento de complementos de terceiros, acesso a recursos e conhecimentos. Outros benefícios são a perspectiva de custos mais baixos na inovação, as empresas têm chances de reduzir os riscos com as outras empresas, explorar os recursos de outras empresas fazem com que essas reduzem o risco de entrada no mercado e o tempo de desenvolvimento de um novo produto.

The purpose of this study is evaluate the relationship between sustainability and the export performance of beef exporters. It is used panel data analysis from the collection of secondary data of exports of in natura fresh or chilled beef with regard to Italy, Netherlands, French, Mexico, Japan, German and UK between the years 2002 and 2012, resulting in a database with 959 observations. The sustainability of exporters was evaluated through its social performance, using as proxy the Human Development Index (HDI), and environmental performance, evaluated from the Net Adjusted Savings (ANS). The results obtained by econometric analysis show that the social dimension of sustainability has a positive influence on the export performance of beef exporters, while the environmental dimension of sustainability is associated with capacity of these companies access and maintenance in the international beef market. Keywords: Export performance. Sustainability. Social performance. Environmental performance.

Unethical practices are widespread in firms. In the purchasing activity can occur frauds such as bribery, and inflated expense reimbursements. Thus, firms try to protect themselves with the code of...

O presente ensaio objetiva oferecer aos gestores hospitalares subsidios para melhoria operacional de suas organizacoes atraves da proposicao de um framework teorico suportado por uma revisao sistematica de literatura, a fim de realizar o levantamento dos artigos internacionais que tratam da relacao entre a integracao, a gestao da qualidade e a eficiencia de organizacoes hospitalares. Como a atividade assistencial e fragmentada e dependente de profissionais diversos, e atraves do seu trabalho integrado e colaborativo que os melhores resultados podem ser obtidos. Alem disso, o foco nos processos possibilita eliminar as contingencias apontadas por diversos estudos que impedem a implementacao da integracao organizacional. Este estudo propoe que a eficiencia das organizacoes hospitalares ocorre atraves da integracao organizacional a nivel de processos, juntamente com a gestao da qualidade e que e da uniao desses constructos que e possivel obter o constructo eficiencia. Para que isto ocorra, e necessario que a alta gestao perceba a importância estrategica dos diversos profissionais do setor operacional na producao da atividade assistencial.

Organizations are faced with increasing pressure to engage in sustainable development and to integrate environmental and social dimensions into their traditional performance metrics. Prior research suggests that lean management and supply management are potentially important determinants of environmental performance and can be seen as capabilities that ease the adoption of environmental practices. To help understand the roles of lean and supply management in regards to improving the firm’s environmental performance, a conceptual model proposes that the magnitude of environmental practices mediates the relationship between lean and supply management with environmental performance. To test the model, plant-level survey data from a sample of Canadian manufacturing plants is used. The results indicate that supply management and lean activities provide means by which resources are invested in environmental practices. The empirical analysis also confirms that the impact of lean management, and to a lesser extent supply management, on environmental performance is mediated by environmental practices.

Organizations are faced with increasing pressure to engage in sustainable development and to integrate environmental and social dimensions into their traditional performance metrics. Prior research suggests that lean management and supply management are potentially important determinants of environmental performance and can be seen as capabilities that ease the adoption of environmental practices. To help understand the roles of lean and supply management in regards to improving the firm’s environmental performance, a conceptual model proposes that the magnitude of environmental practices mediates the relationship between lean and supply management with environmental performance. To test the model, plant-level survey data from a sample of Canadian manufacturing plants is used. The results indicate that supply management and lean activities provide means by which resources are invested in environmental practices. The empirical analysis also confirms that the impact of lean management, and to a lesser extent supply management, on environmental performance is mediated by environmental practices.

Research on taxonomies has helped in shedding light on similarities between firms in a particular group and differences between each group. However, few studies have analyzed how operations managers of manufacturing firms in emerging countries adopt diverse strategies of environmental management, with diverse operational practices and results. This study fills this gap by proposing a taxonomy for ISO 14001-certified plants, describing the differences for each group for a set of key variables related to internal and external perspectives. For this purpose, we conducted a survey of ISO 14001-certified manufacturing plants in Brazil, in a restricted set of industries including chemical, manufactured metal products, and electronics. A sample of 99 plants was analyzed using multivariate data analysis techniques, such as principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). We have identified three clusters, according to their motivations to certification: internal focus, external focus, and holistic group. Internal focus companies are characterized by their emphasis on internal operations and resources. External focus companies deal with social pressure and institutions that regulate the environment. Holistic companies place high value on all motivation dimensions regardless if they are internal or external. We present an illustrative example related to the Holistic group. Companies in this group present a more efficient use of raw materials and inputs as well a higher integration with suppliers and external research and development (R&D) centers. This group combines external actions with internal results regarding environmental management. Thus, the results suggest that external integration and the improvement of internal processes efficiency allow a more integrated approach in environmental practices, resulting in better environmental performance. On the other hand, companies with the external focus strategy tend to have lower environmental performance and lower levels of operational practices linked to the environmental management.

Manufacturing's choice of environmental technologies is expected to be partly driven by the organizational context and receptivity to new ideas and innovation. More specifically, we hypothesize that the organizational learning and knowledge system of a manufacturing plant tends to favor the adoption of pollution prevention technologies and environmental management systems over pollution control technologies of that plant. The organizational learning and knowledge system is hypothesized to be split in two different stages, organizational learning antecedents and organizational learning processes. The choice of environmental technologies is hypothesized to be partially related to the organizational learning antecedents, and mediated by the organizational learning processes. Survey data exploring these relationships are presented from a sample of manufacturing plants in Canada. We found that the actual trade-off is not only between pollution prevention and pollution control, but also between pollution prevention and environmental management systems. The plant's social climate and external knowledge exchange are positively related to pollution control, while the stock of knowledge of managers, stock of knowledge of workers, and internal knowledge exchange are negatively related to pollution control. Environmental management systems had the opposite results. These results are counterintuitive, since we expected that all constructs from organizational learning culture would contribute to the choice of pollution prevention and environmental management systems. We found, however, no empirical support for the mediated model, and the organizational learning and knowledge system explained very little variance in the choice for pollution control. Our study makes three significant contributions. First, it explains, at least in part, the linkages between the stock of employee knowledge, knowledge exchange and managerial choices of environmental technologies in manufacturing. Second, it refined and validated scales that capture organizational knowledge within operations. Finally, this research highlighted the important role that plant-level social climate has on fostering a greater emphasis on pollution prevention. The managerial implications of this research are twofold. Managers, in order to promote pollution prevention and creating long term value with this kind of technology, should promote both the social climate and the external knowledge exchange in the plant. Managers also should craft their environmental management systems not as a bureaucratic process of documentation and regulatory compliance, or just to fulfill clients’ or parent company requirements, but as a source of process improvement and innovation.

Companies are being increasingly pressured to consider environmental concerns in their manufacturing activities and, more recently, with regard to their supply bases. Despite the broad range of literature that links performance to both green manufacturing capabilities such as pollution prevention and green supply management (GSM), managers are having difficulties developing a greener supply chain. The objective of this paper is to provide a model for development of GSM capabilities. Using the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) as the theoretical background, we postulate that plant resources are positively related to green manufacturing capabilities, which in turn are positively related to GSM capabilities. The data from a survey of a sample of manufacturing plants indicates that a managerial philosophy that includes external knowledge exchange directly supports both greener process management and environmental collaboration with suppliers. However, this managerial philosophy is only indirectly related to supplier selection and monitoring. The managerial implications of these findings are twofold: managers seeking to implement GSM need to view internal investment in green process management as a step toward environmental management of their external supply chains. They also must realize that green process management requires the support of other resources, such as environmental investments and top management commitment.

Manufacturing integration with other functional areas and suppliers is a key aspect for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The objective of this study is to analyze manufacturing integration from an activity-based perspective. We hypothesize that manufacturing integration with suppliers, marketing, and R&D is positively related to profit and sales growth when it occurs simultaneously in key internal activities. We surveyed 366 companies located in the southern region of Brazil, chosen from the SEBRAE(1) database. We used structural equations modeling to address validity and reliability issues. We evaluated common method variance (CMV) with the MTMM model and used path analysis to test the structural relations. We found that all manufacturing integration aspects are positively related to sales growth, but only manufacturing-R&D integration is positively related to profitability. Therefore, managers interested in improving the performance of their plants should favor the integration between manufacturing and R&D teams, at all hierarchical levels. We did not find any evidence, however, that direct interaction between manufacturing and marketing improves performance.

Time (or the lack thereof) is a pervasive concern and challenge for operations managers. Time is implicitly embedded in multiple operational or strategic decisions, and management choices attract m...

This paper takes a triple bottom line perspective to analyze how the international operations literature integrates economic, social, and environmental issues. Additionally, it shows the main drivers of and barriers to the adoption of triple bottom line practices by companies in an international context. We conducted a literature review in English language journals which publish research of production and operations management and sustainability, resulting in a final sample of 29 papers. Results show that social and legal pressure for companies to adopt a responsible behavior prompts an isomorphic process that leads them to conduct their operations on behalf of triple bottom line goals. Behavioral differences between spin-offs in various countries caused institutions to create mechanisms that can press and change private standards through regulation and enforcement. There is room for progress in studies that seek to analyze the company’s relationships in its international experience and its multi-institutional relations.

Recent literature has proposed that institutions play a pivotal role in corporate and business strategies. We argue that this role holds for manufacturing strategy as well. Despite extensive literature regarding international operations management (OM), few studies verify how important variables in OM vary across different institutional contexts. This scarcity of comparative crosscountry research reveals an important gap both for research and practice. In this paper we address this gap by providing a data analysis of a recent survey collected in Canada and Brazil. We replicate and extend previous research by comparing important variables of manufacturing strategy in these two institutional contexts such as knowledge exchange, green process management, environmental supplier management and the traditional manufacturing performance dimensions. DOI: 10.12660/joscmv6n1p106-121 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.12660/joscmv6n1p106-121

We shed light on the relationship between environmental investments and cost performance by adding two moderators: host country and technological capabilities. We combined data from a global survey and the World Economic Forum (WEF). We analyzed 1045 observations gathered from plants in 22 countries and 22 industries. We assessed the validity and reliability of the measures using confirmatory factor analysis, and we tested our hypothesis with hierarchical multiple regression. We found that environmental investments and cost performance were positively related only in innovation-driven economies. Moreover, in plants located in such countries, the stock of technological capabilities in the plant positively moderates the environmental investment- cost performance relationship. In other words, plants located in innovation-based economies leverage their environmental investments by better deploying their technological capabilities. This paper extends the knowledge on the environmental investments- cost perform...

O suprimento global de serviços de conhecimento e inovação (GSKSI) tem sido objeto de vários estudos em uma ampla gama de áreas, incluindo a estratégia e gestão internacional, geografia econômica, comportamento organizacional, gestão de operações, entre outros. Os objetivos deste trabalho são dois: a) produzir um resumo de estudos GSKSI e b) fornecer uma agenda de pesquisa para GSKSI. Foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura acadêmica e descobriu que, além de ensaios, relatórios e trabalhos teóricos, estudos empíricos sobre GSKSI são distribuídos em quatro categorias principais: gestão estratégica e internacional; tecnologia e gestão da inovação; trabalho, comportamento organizacional e recursos humanos; e gestão de operações. Nosso artigo contribui de duas maneiras únicas: ao fornecer uma análise quantitativa da literatura e uma avaliação qualitativa dos resultados de estudos anteriores., Global sourcing of knowledge services and innovation (GSKSI) has been subject of several studies in an array of areas, which include strategy and international management, economic geography, organizational behavior, operation management, among others. The objectives of this paper are twofold: a) to produce a summary of GSKSI studies and b) provide a research agenda for GSKSI. We conducted a systematic review of academic literature and found that, besides essays, reports and theoretical papers, the empirical studies on GSKSI can be distributed in four major categories: strategic and international management; technology and innovation management; labor, organizational behavior and human resources; and operations management. We also found that GSKSI analysis oscillate between an approach that connects this phenomenon to previous or existing practices, and another view that considers GSKSI a transformational phenomenon challenging extant theories and practices.

Pension funds (PF) are important institutional investors that hold a large amount of resources from the pension savings of their participants. In order to fulfill their main purpose (pay future ben...