Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management

An exploratory survey of green supply chain management in Chinese

manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises: Pressures and drivers
Xiangmeng Huang Boon Leing Tan Xiaoming Ding
Article information:
To cite this document:
Xiangmeng Huang Boon Leing Tan Xiaoming Ding , (2015),"An exploratory survey of green supply
chain management in Chinese manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises", Journal of
Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 26 Iss 1 pp. 80 - 103
Permanent link to this document:
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JMTM-05-2012-0053
Downloaded on: 05 February 2015, At: 12:59 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 83 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 91 times since 2015*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
Dimitrios Kafetzopoulos, Evangelos Psomas, (2015),"The impact of innovation capability on the
performance of manufacturing companies: The Greek case", Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management, Vol. 26 Iss 1 pp. 104-130 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JMTM-12-2012-0117
Kenneth W. Green, Pamela J. Zelbst, Jeramy Meacham, Vikram S. Bhadauria, (2012),"Green supply
chain management practices: impact on performance", Supply Chain Management: An International
Journal, Vol. 17 Iss 3 pp. 290-305 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13598541211227126
Su-Yol Lee, (2015),"The effects of green supply chain management on the supplier’s performance
through social capital accumulation", Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 20 Iss
1 pp. 42-55 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SCM-01-2014-0009

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by 540409 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald
for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission
guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as
well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and
services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for
digital archive preservation.
 *Related content and download information correct at time of
download.
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)
 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1741-038X.htm

JMTM
26,1
An exploratory survey of green
supply chain management in
Chinese manufacturing small
80 and medium-sized enterprises
Received 9 May 2012
Revised 25 December 2012 Pressures and drivers
14 March 2013
13 August 2013
6 November 2013
Xiangmeng Huang
Accepted 7 November 2013 Business School, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou, China
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

Boon Leing Tan

School of Business and Communications, PSB Academy, Singapore, and
Xiaoming Ding
Business School, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou, China

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the pressures and drivers that have
been experienced by Chinese manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in terms of green
supply chain management (GSCM).
Design/methodology/approach – The research framework and hypotheses are examined by
a questionnaire survey through e-mails conducted in China in 2011. The empirical analysis is based on
the data from 202 SME manufacturers in China. Validity and reliability of the items employed in the
research is assessed through Cronbach’s α test. Hypotheses for the identification of GSCM pressures
and drivers to SMEs as well as the differences that exist among different industrial sectors are tested
by adopting descriptive statistics analysis and analysis of variance test.
Findings – This study finds that Chinese manufacturing SMEs have been under pressures from
a variety of sources, including regulations, customers, suppliers and public awareness in terms of
GSCM. Besides, internal drivers are also an important encouragement for SMEs to consider GSCM.
Moreover, Chinese manufacturing SMEs from different industrial sectors show some differences in
experiencing pressures or being motivated by drivers.
Research limitations/implications – The main limitations to this paper are the relatively small
sample of SMEs and the potentially overlooked variables.
Practical implications – Chinese manufacturing SMEs and their larger customers, as well as
governments, are likely to obtain some implications from this study if they are willing to consider any
GSCM initiatives throughout the supply chain.
Originality/value – The paper clearly explores the GSCM pressures and drivers faced by the Chinese
manufacturing SMEs where the results may differ from the findings through the studies on large
enterprises or SMEs in other national context.
Keywords Supply chain management, Small- and medium-sized enterprises
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The term “supply chain management” (SCM) is first introduced by Oliver and Webber
Journal of Manufacturing
Technology Management in the early 1980s (Delfmann and Albers, 2000) and it has traditionally been regarded as
Vol. 26 No. 1, 2015
pp. 80-103
a process of converting raw materials into final products which will then be transferred
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1741-038X
to the end users. Besides the tangible product flow, some also stressed the intangible
DOI 10.1108/JMTM-05-2012-0053 value of the SCM which includes putting emphasis on market needs exchange, trust
 building, product development, supplier base reduction, strategic positioning leverage Green supply
and operating efficiency improvement (Berry et al., 1994; Bowersox et al., 2002). chain
Furthermore, Welford (2002) proposed that supply chain relationship has definitely
become more critical in today’s globalized world with the growing notion of
management
environmental responsibility from all over the world. Actually, it is significant to notice
that we are entering into an era where green issues and sustainability have become an
important element to business practices. 81
The larger businesses have been the pioneers in embracing the concept of GSCM
and the focus of numerous studies (Henriques and Sadorsky, 1996; Wycherley, 1999;
Zhu and Sarkis, 2004). Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have attracted the
attention of many researchers worldwide in terms of their GSCM development
(Greenan et al., 1997; Hemel and Cramer, 2002; Burke and Gaughran, 2006; Rao, 2007;
Coˆte ́ et al., 2008; Lee, 2008a, b). However, due to their various constraints, SMEs
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

have found that it is significantly difficult to adopt GSCM strategies effectively.

Crals and Vereeck (2005) agreed in many respects with Hilton (2000), pointing
out that SMEs face a variety of difficulties in taking environmental concerns into
consideration in their productions, including the lack of resources, time, money,
capabilities, skills and knowledge, flexibility and so on. This therefore underlies the
importance of this research. This is probably why there is such a lack of literature
internationally on GSCM among SMEs, and also provides an opportunity for the
study to contribute to the GSCM knowledge cap with empirical evidences.
With regards to China, joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) has exerted more
environmental pressures on Chinese enterprises, which have led their supply chains to
become more complex and diverse. For Chinese manufacturing exporters who have
become a link within the supply chains of their overseas customers as suppliers, they
have to green their businesses to meet the environmentally challenging requirements.
For example, Fortune 500 enterprises like IBM and Xerox have urged on their Chinese
suppliers the need for environmental management systems for ISO14001 while Ford,
GM and Toyota require their Chinese suppliers to have ISO14001 certifications (Global
Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI), 2001). As a result, an increasing number
of Chinese enterprises are continually looking at the majority of prevalent strategies
to improve their supply chain systems for the purpose of cutting costs, increasing
productivity and improving environmental image.
It is encouraging to see that large Chinese enterprises, like Guitang Group and
Shuanghui Group, have been the pioneers in embracing the concept of GSCM
and also the focused of a number of surveys (Zhu and Sarkis, 2004, 2006; Zhu et al.,
2007). However, the situations within the Chinese SMEs are unclear. With the
integration of the global economy, the formation and development of industry chain
and industry integration, GSCM of Chinese SMEs had become a very important
weight in the market competition. It is the goal of this paper to review and analyze
the pressures and practices of GSCM among Chinese manufacturing SMEs from
different sectors.
To help achieve the goal, this paper begins with an overview defining SMEs in the
context of Chinese market. The paper then provides a brief review of GSCM
development in the academic perspective. The research hypotheses proposed after
the literature review of GSCM pressures and drivers set the focus of the survey.
Next, the research methodology will be discussed, followed by a presentation of
key findings and analysis. Finally, the conclusion with directions for future research
is presented.
 JMTM 2. Background
26,1 2.1 SMEs in China
SMEs has played a significant part in the prosperity of economy for many countries
(Kailer and Scheff, 1999; Barry and Milner, 2002; Rao et al., 2003; Palmer, 2005).
Although the importance of SMEs and their developments are obvious to a country’s
economy, the definitions of SMEs vary from country to country (Do et al., 2006;
82 Eikebrokk and Olsen, 2007; Mohibul and Alejandra, 2008). With regards to China, 99.7
per cent of all the operating companies were SMEs by the end of 2007, making up over
66 per cent of the total industrial income (ERIA, 2008). In addition, according to Hall
(2007), the definition of SMEs in China is fairly complicated because it is developed
depending on several factors, such as industry category, number of employees, sales
and assets; and it has been changed several times during the past 60 years. Moreover,
Chinese SMEs has experienced a series of radical and thorough reform to restructure
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

their ownership in the last decade of last century (Sun, 2000). Later on, the Chinese
government released the standardized definition of Chinese SMEs in the year of 2003 to
set up the official criteria and those standards have been applied till recently. On 4th
July 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance and the State Statistics Bureau of
the Chinese government formally introduced “The Provision of Small and Medium
Sized Enterprises Standard” and the standard definition of Chinese SMEs as shown
in Table I.
Therefore, the sample selected for this research will be those enterprises which have
less than 2,000 employees with an annual sale less than 300 million RMB and a total
assets less than 400 million RMB from manufacturing SMEs in China.

2.2 GSCM development

As far back as early 1990s, the increasing intensity of global competition pressured
a number of large multinational enterprises to begin to appreciate the need to work
collaboratively with their suppliers and customers throughout the supply chain
(Roy and Whelan, 1992). Frankel et al. (2008) also believe that a growing number of
enterprises even attempted to adopt more proactive initiatives in their supply chains
for environmental sustainability. Simultaneously, the relationship between SCM
and the environmental concern has been attracting the attention of more scholars and
businessmen and considerable research have been conducted to find out the relationship
between green issues and SCM (Schaper, 2002).
Early GSCM studies are more industrially ecological (Common and Perrings, 1992;
Jelinski et al., 1992). Later investigations are managerial and conception concerned with
different perspectives through the supply chain, including socially responsible purchasing
(Drumwright, 1994), reverse logistics (Barnes, 1982; Pohlen and Farris, 1992) and green/
environmental logistics (Szymankiewicz, 1993; Murphy et al., 1994). Unlike the narrative
and conceptual build-up on GSCM, recent research have shown increasing interests from
scholars and practitioners in more empirical cases around the world (Zhu et al., 2005, 2010;
Holt and Ghobadian, 2009; Tseng et al., 2009; Luthra et al., 2011).
With the growing popularity of investigations on GSCM, many scholars started to
propose their own definitions. According to Gilbert (2001), supply chain greening
is a series of actions to integrate environmental elements into purchasing decisions and
long-term relationships with suppliers of enterprises. Zsidisin and Siferd (2001) also
emphasized the environmental concerns in greening a supply chain, defining it as a set
 Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

Small Medium
Annual sales Total assets Annual sales Total assets
Type Employees (million RMB) (million RMB) Employees (million RMB) (million RMB)

Manufacturing ⩽300 ⩽30 ⩽40 300-2,000 30-300 40-400

Building ⩽600 ⩽30 ⩽40 600-3,000 30-300 40-400
Wholesale ⩽100 ⩽10 100-500 10-150
Retail ⩽100 ⩽30 100-200 30-300
Transportation ⩽500 ⩽30 500-3,000 30-300
Mail ⩽400 ⩽30 400-3,000 30-300
Lodging and catering ⩽400 ⩽30 400-800 30-150
Source: Based on: State Economic and Trade Commission (2011)
management

The standard

SMEs from different

Green supply

sectors
definition of Chinese
Table I.
83
chain
 JMTM of SCM policies, activities and relationships which are taken close consideration
26,1 with natural environment when an enterprise distribute its resources. In addition,
Srivastava (2007) addressed that the environmental awareness should be integrated
into SCM through the whole process, from the design and material selection stage of
the product up till delivery to the end user, or even to the end-of-life management of the
product. Recently, Testa and Iraldo (2010) also claimed that GSCM is an increasingly
84 expanded strategy to gain a better environmental performance. The term GSCM will be
used in this paper and is defined as the integration of environmental concerns into the
SCM activities of an enterprise with the purpose of achieving economic, environmental
and social improvements.

3. Literature review and research hypotheses

Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

A number of authors have studied the drivers, determinants, barriers or pressures of

GSCM to decipher the difficulties enterprises face when adopting GSCM practices.
For example, Henriques and Sadorsky (1996) declared that an environmental plan
of an enterprise is positively influenced by customer pressure, shareholder pressure,
government regulatory pressure and neighbourhood and community group pressure
but negatively related with other lobby group pressures and its sales-to-asset ratio.
Moreover, from a transaction cost economics perspective as well as based on an
institutional theory, Tate et al. (2011) pointed out that suppliers are more willing to
adopt environmental practices with minimized cost of information seeking, bargaining
and enforcement. Additionally, institutional theory suggests that suppliers are more
likely for environmental practices if coercive, normative and mimetic institutional
forces are in play. Furthermore, Zailani et al. (2012) empirically tested that external
drivers including government regulations and incentives and customer pressures can
put effect on the environmental performance through its internal environmental
strategy of eco-design.
However, Zhu and Sarkis (2006) insisted that not all enterprises are exposed to the
same source of pressure or to the same extent. They pointed out that there are
differences in drivers and pressures, including regulations, marketing, suppliers and
competitors as well as internal factors, for GSCM adoption, and the adoption rates
differ in automobile industry, power plants and electronic/electrical industry in the
Chinese context. But over 80 per cent of the total 118 participants in their research were
large enterprises (LEs), which cannot lead to the universality to those SMEs.
According to Lee (2008b), few studies have specially investigated the relationships
between SMEs and the pressures of GSCM initiatives which are employed by those
LEs. Therefore, it gave the researcher a motivation to investigate into SME suppliers in
South Korea is to find out the drivers behind SMEs adoption of green supply chain
practices. The study identified three possible drivers including buyer SCM practices,
government involvement and internal readiness of the suppliers and it confirmed that
all of the three factors positively facilitate the adoptions of GSCM initiatives among
South Korean SMEs.
Furthermore, Rao (2007) also emphasized the government intervention of GSCM
development into SMEs in the Philippine context. The participants of SMEs for the
research were selected from the six sectors undergone the green supply chain training
organized by governmental agencies. In addition, pressures from customers, especially
for their importers, are the most important driving force which has led the Philippine
SMEs to consider GSCM.
 But those studies have not differentiated the “pressures” or “drivers” from different Green supply
sources of power. When examining the barriers and stimuli for eco-design which can be chain
viewed as one the most important GSCM strategies among SMEs, Hemel and Cramer
(2002) classified the power sources into external and internal ones; and identified three
management
most influential external stimuli, including customer demands, government regulation
and industrial sector initiatives and three most influential internal stimuli, including
innovational opportunities, increase of product quality and new market opportunities 85
for SMEs to improve their eco-design strategy.
In this paper, the external burdens, labelled as pressures, on GSCM practices and the
internal impacts, viewed as drivers, are distinguished and investigated among Chinese
manufacturing SMEs. The pressures which are from the external forces can be
classified into four categories based on the discussion above; they are: first, pressures
from regulations, which are self-disciplined and set by governments or accepted
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

organizations; second, pressures from the customers in the supply chain, which are the
increasing requirements from the downstream industries nationally and
internationally, including the requisite to imports and exports; third pressures from
general public, which are from the growing consciousness of consumers and the rising
perception of society; and fourth pressures from suppliers, which are the push from the
integration and collaboration with the suppliers. The drivers are the internal factors
come from the internal recognitions, support, cooperation and initial achievements of
GSCM within the enterprise.

3.1 Regulatory pressures

Klassen (1993) claimed that environmental management was first taken into account
in business and management field as early as 1990s, even with reference to SMEs
(Hutchison and Chaston, 1994). Businesses with high pollution potentials are those who
had to face the legal and public pressures in Europe and these pressures on production
are gradually increasing. Konar and Cohen (1997) pointed out that the penalties or fines
for non-compliance with environmental rules and regulations are viewed as regulatory
pressures to the industrial organizations. Zhu and Sarkis (2006) also maintained that
there is the increasing clout of Kyoto Protocol requirements for more and more
enterprises worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
By investigating into 314 manufacturing enterprises, Zhu et al. (2005) found that
Chinese manufacturers have been under clear pressures from a variety of sources,
including supply chain pressure, cost-related pressure, marketing and regulations.
The research undertaken here does not have the same results as them and the reason
for the difference might result from the size of the enterprises from which the
respondents are. Medium-sized and large enterprises consist of 78.4 per cent of their
respondents while the focused of this project are on SMEs. It is probably because those
SMEs pay less attention to environmental regulations due to their limitations on
professional staff and knowledge to meet the requirements. Moreover, as SMEs always
obtain some preferential policies from governments for development, the legal
restraints in terms of environmental issues to them might be overlooked by both
lawmakers and legal receptors.
According to Zhu et al. (2010), the Japanese government promulgates some of the
most rigid laws with regards to environmental issues around the world. Besides
the general regulations provided by the Fundamental Law for Establishing a Sound
Material-Cycle Society, another two Japanese Laws were enacted in 2000 to cover
 JMTM specific “links” in the supply chain. The Law for Promotion of Effective Utilization of
26,1 Resources regulates the collection and recycling process for specific products and
goods and the Law on Promoting Green Purchasing covers the procurement of green
purchase as its name suggests. In addition to the cases above, Green et al. (1996),
Walton et al. (1998), Beamon (1999), Hall (2001), Min and Galle (2001), Walker et al.
(2008) and Diabat and Govindan (2011) all consider government regulations and
86 legislations as regulatory pressures of GSCM to enterprises. Furthermore, these
external forces from regulations relating to environmental issues have exerted mounting
impacts on SMEs. For instance, European regulations have strict requirements on the use
and recovery of particular poisonous substances, which bear on the enterprises, including
SMEs, to consider environmental management (Lee, 2008a). Therefore, the following
hypothesis is suggested:
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

H1. Chinese manufacturing SMEs have been under the regulatory pressures from
government in terms of GSCM.

3.2 Customer pressures

In 2001, Sony suffered a great loss related to parts replacement, storage and
repackaging of its famous PlayStation with a large number of 1.3 million when the
consoles were banned at the Dutch border due to alarming levels of cadmium detected
in the cables of the consoles, which were produced by Sony’s SME suppliers (Business
Week, 2005). As a result, Sony undoubtedly exert pressures onto its suppliers in the
supply chain as a “link” of the customer. Rao (2007) agrees in this respect, proposing
that businesses in the Southeast Asia whose customers are usually from Europe
and the USA have to put extra efforts to their environmental management for the
overall supply chain when exporting or marketing in their global customers, in order
to meet up with the environmental standards from their importer countries or
regions. Actually, their global customers often prefer an international accreditation
or licence, such as ISO 14001, when selecting their suppliers to ensure the appropriate
environmental production.
Zhu and Geng (2001) also recognized the same requirements for Chinese
manufacturers, pointing out that an increasing number of Chinese enterprises have
to acquire ISO14001 certification to meet the environmental requirements from their
foreign customers. According to Zhu et al. (2005), Chinese enterprises have been under
such pressures from their overseas customers or trading partners since early this
century, when a number of countries including Japan, the USA, the Netherland,
Norway, France and Sweden introduced various environmental requirements for the
importation of fabrics and clothes dyes from China. Furthermore, some business giants
even put their environmental requirements forward not only to the direct suppliers but
also to the second-tier suppliers. For example, among the top-ten supplier evaluation
criteria which identified by Walton et al. (1998), environmentally friendly practice
evaluation of second tier was listed as the second most important criterion.
With regard to SMEs, Lee (2008b) assumed that although previous studies have
focused on finding out the contributing factors to GSCM among SMEs like regulations,
support or pressures from external stakeholder and organization internal capabilities,
little has confirmed the pressures from the customers as buying power to the SME
suppliers’ green initiatives. Walker et al. (2008), however, argued that small companies
are under significant pressures from their customers. With seven cases, the researchers
pointed that SMEs are more likely to be urged by their customers, usually LEs, to
 employ GSCM practices, especially in the industrial sectors like food, furniture, Green supply
automobiles and electronic devices. Besides, they also verify that end consumers are chain
a strong power in forcing enterprises to improve their environmental performance.
Thus, the hypothesis is proposed based on the arguments:
management

H2. Chinese manufacturing SMEs have been under the customer pressures from the
purchasers at home and abroad as well as the end users in terms of GSCM. 87
3.3 Pubic pressures
According to Min and Galle (1997), the past few decades have seen a significant
increase of consumer environmental consciousness due to rapid environmental
degradation. So the consumers’ awareness of environmental protection and energy
saving which can further improve the entire social perception of green issues has
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

become one of the most influential pressures for businesses to initiate GSCM.
In response to this demand, enterprises should provide more environmentally friendly
products to those consumers who are more green conscious. For example, Chan and
Lau (2001) compared the green purchasing behaviours between American and Chinese
consumers. The differences were found in the translation of green purchasing intention
to the related behaviour between them and American consumers are more effective in
terms of green purchasing adoptions. However, Skrentny (1993) pointed out that the
purchasing behaviour are changing with the penetration of environmental perceptions
to wider society by conducting an empirical study. As a result, more Chinese
consumers with younger ones as the main force are becoming more environmentally
conscious and starting to favour greener products, with less packaging, less pollution
and less energy consumption (Greenan et al., 1997; Lo and Leung, 2000). Actually, the
increasing environmental awareness can be regarded as an opportunity for enterprises
to win new consumers, the “Greens”, by offering them more environmentally friendly
products or services (Walker et al., 2008). Rao (2007) also argued that environmental
considerations from the Southeast Asian enterprises are not only due to the
requirements from global criteria but also from the consumer pressures in the social
sense. Therefore, the study aimed to figure out whether the consumer pressures bear on
the GSCM among Chinese manufacturing SMEs; it is hereby proposed:

H3. Chinese manufacturing SMEs have been under the public pressures from the
consumers and the society in terms of GSCM.

3.4 Supplier pressures

IAs pointed out by Carter and Dresner (2001), suppliers are not the direct external forces to
green the supply chain, though they are able to play an influencing role in injecting their
ideas and resources into the environmental management development. Similarly, according
to Walker et al. (2008), suppliers could not really be viewed or defined as a pressure source
and they are more like the collaboration or the integration with the upper-stream suppliers
such as the product designers and raw material suppliers, to achieve more effective
environmental management. Moreover, many (Theyel, 2001; Klassen and Vachon, 2003;
Vachon and Klassen, 2006) have come to the conclusion that the appropriate cooperation
with the suppliers can help with positive environmental improvement. These collaborative
activities include joint planning work with regard to the environment protection,
knowledge sharing collaborations concerning greener product design or process
modification and energy conservation or waste reduction in the logistics process.
 JMTM However, Vachon and Klassen (2006) and Walker et al. (2008) recognized that this
26,1 paradigm has not drawn much attention as an empirical research topic. Two possible
reasons are also proposed for this lack of literature. One is that the item of supplier has
not been studied; the other is that suppliers have not put impact on enterprises’
environmental performance. Walker et al. (2008) investigated the factor of supplier as a
force in the implementation of GSCM among their samples but the findings are not
88 desirable. No one of the participants identified suppliers as an external pressure for
environmental SCM and thus researchers define it as poor supplier commitment.
Nevertheless, it is still defined as a pressure in this study as it comes from the external
power in terms of pushing GSCM progress and thus the fourth hypotheses is as
followed:

H4. Chinese manufacturing SMEs have been under the supplier pressures from the
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

upper stream partners in terms of GSCM.

3.5 Internal drivers

There are several internal drivers in terms of GSCM development for enterprises.
Walker et al. (2008) emphasized the importance of personal commitment of
individuals as a useful impetus to GSCM. Furthermore, the personal commitment can
be from top to down – from senior management to middle management and then to
the employees. For example, New et al. (2000) pointed out that the commitment
from top management like founder and owner are positively related to GSCM for an
enterprise. In addition, the support from the middle management also contributes to
the green purchasing strategies of a business (Carter et al., 1998). Further, according
to, employee involvement in terms of GSCM within an enterprise can lead to the
operational and environmental improvements (Hanna et al., 2000). Drumwright (1994)
provided the explication of proficient policy entrepreneurs, who have intrinsic
impetus to make their businesses environmentally friendly often apply motivation
tools to the employees, such as rewards and promotions, to promote the green
activities throughout the enterprises.
Second, the aspiration to build up a positive environmental-friendly image is also an
internal impetus for enterprises to consider GSCM. Taking Japanese enterprises as
an example, the corporate social responsibility and environmentally friendly image are
viewed as the two important stimuli for Japanese enterprises, especially for those large
ones, to put forward GSCM (Zhu et al., 2010). Enterprises with a high social reputation
resulted from their good environmental image could help to gain a strong market
competitiveness even in the global market.
Third, the desire to reduce cost and save energy within an enterprise is also
a popular driver for environmental management through a supply chain.
As analyzed and discussed by Porter and van der Linde (1995), the so-called
hidden costs lie in the pollution in form of waste resource, energy and labour based
on the lifecycle model of a product. Therefore, pollution prevention is a useful
strategy to prevent pollution and cost during the production process. Moreover,
the positive outcomes from such pollution prevention efforts can help improve the
quality of the product (Pil and Rothenberg, 2003). Handfield et al. (1997) agreed in this
respect, finding that the aspiration to reduce cost, eliminate waste and improve
quality are the main impetus for an enterprise’s GSCM initiatives rather than
customer pressures or enterprise compliance by conducting case study.
However, none of the research discussed above clearly identifies whether the
 Green supply
enterprise scale make sense to the promotion of these internal drivers, it is thus
hereby proposed: chain
H5. Chinese manufacturing SMEs have been encouraged by the internal drivers in
management
terms of GSCM.

3.6 Pressures for different sectors 89

Zhu and Sarkis (2006) conduct an investigation among Chinese enterprises with the
purpose to compare the GSCM drivers and practices among different sectors.
The majority of their research samples are medium and large-sized enterprises from
three industries, automobile, power generating, electrical and electronic. The obtained
findings show that the pressures from “marketing” have significantly different impacts
on the different industries. Besides, they also find out that the automobile industry
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

has the highest marketing pressures, highly stronger than power plants and slightly
stronger than the electronic industry. However, Huang et al. (2012) obtained different
findings from Chinese manufacturing SMEs in the Food and Drink sector, Clothing,
Textile and Tannery sector, Electronics facility sector and Wood processing and
Furniture sector are not significantly different in facing GSCM pressures though they may
be different during production to meet environmental requirements. Following the
principles of the previous research, this study aims to figure out whether such differences
exist among our research samples. Therefore, the final hypothesis is suggested:

H6. Different sectors from Chinese manufacturing SMEs are different in terms of
experiencing pressures and drivers in adoptions of GSCM.

From all the reasoning and the subsequent hypotheses, a research framework can be
suggested for this study on the pressures and drivers for SMEs to adopt GSCM.
As seen in Figure 1, GSCM adoptions among Chinese manufacturing SMEs mainly
relies on the pressures and drivers, including regulatory pressures, customer pressures,
public pressures, supplier pressures and internal management drivers. In addition,
different sectors among those SMEs may differ in experiencing pressures and drivers
to adopt GSCM.

H1
Regulatory Pressures
External Factors

H2
Customer Pressures

H3
Public Pressures
SMEs GSCM
H6
H4
Supplier Pressures
Internal Factors

Figure 1.
H5 Pressures and drivers
Internal Drivers
for SMEs to adopt
GSCM
 JMTM 4. Research methodology
26,1 4.1 Strategy
The quantitative questionnaire survey method is used in this study. Surveys are
a fairly popular research strategy within business and management research (Saunders
et al., 2009), and there are several possible reasons for this. First, survey is quite helpful
to obtain straightforward information from the respondents (McIntyre, 2005).
90 They enable the respondents to directly clarify their answers to the researchers.
Second, this method provides a cost-efficient way to the researchers to obtain data from
a large number of samples (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002). In addition, it is highly
economical to sample rather than to target on the whole population as the findings from
a survey sample can stand and examine the whole population (Saunders et al., 2009).
Another interesting point is that surveys are always regarded as authoritative, as they
are relatively easier to explain and to understand in comparison to other data collection
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

techniques. For this study, an online questionnaire with 35 questions is used for
the survey and the measurements and data collection process will be introduced in the
following sections.

4.2 Measurements and analysis plan

All of the 29 items are measured on a five-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree”
( ¼ 1) to “strongly agree” ( ¼ 5) except for the first six questions which are listed to
obtain the basic information of these enterprises, including “how old” the enterprises
are, which sectors they operate in, as well as their location. The aim for asking the
number of their employees, the total assets and the annual turnover is to ensure that
the respondents belong to the scope of SMEs.
To test the hypotheses, descriptives and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are used by
employing the statistical software Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS).
The descriptive statistics can help to easily summarize up the samples and measures,
while the means tell the significance of the pressures for the enterprises (Swift and
Piff, 2010). On the other hand, ANOVA can test whether all the sectors are different in
facing GSCM pressures (Saunders et al., 2009). Moreover, analysis on Cronbach’s α will
help to confirm the reliability of these five factors.

4.3 Data collection

The questionnaire was targeted at proprietors, general managers, supply chain
managers or production managers in selected SMEs that participated in the Chinese
e-marketplace (e.g. Alibaba.com), where the contact information of these SMEs are
easily found. The rationale for choosing the online marketplaces like Alibaba.com for
this study is based on their large and transparent Chinese SMEs databases.
The sampling frame of this study comprise of Chinese SMEs randomly selected from
the e-marketplace who are in manufacturing industry that covers 12 sectors, including
Food and Beverage sector, Clothing, Textile and Tannery sector, Electronics facility
sector, Wood processing and Furniture sector and so on. The sectoral categories are listed
as options for the questionnaire respondents to choose and this category is designed based
on the classifications of industries and sectors from both Shanghai Stock Exchange and
New York Stock Exchange. Besides, the authors’ personal networking and connections
with SMEs were also used for data collection. The questionnaires attached with
a covering letter are sent to the targets sample. From January of 2011, 1,000 copies of
questionnaire are e-mailed or posted to the SMEs successively and during the January
 to the February of 2012, 229 responses were returned among which 202 were valid with Green supply
all the questions answered while the rest questionnaires which were invalid had chain
responses that with some of the questions unanswered. When using SPSS to analyze
the data, all the variables should be coded. Therefore, the 12 sectors were labelled by
management
1-12, respectively (see Table II); in addition, the kind of pressures and drivers were also
given abbreviations like CP1, PP2 and ID10 as coding for ANOVA.
91
5. Findings
The summary of the results are shown in Table III.

5.1 Cronbach’s α for validity and reliability

The reliability analysis confirms the reliability of these five factors with Cronbach’s α
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

values equal to 0.88, 0.73, 0.88, 0.88 and 0.94, respectively. These are all well above 0.70,
which ensures the constructs’ internal consistency and validity (Nunnally, 1978).
Therefore, it can be concluded that all the items listed in the questionnaires for
the respondents contribute to the validity and relevance of all the questions of the
questionnaire and to the study.

5.2 Descriptive statistics

The summative presentation of the means and standard deviations (SDs) from Table III
provides a general comparison of the pressures and drivers that our SMEs may face in
relation to GSCM and the SDs help show the significance of the differences among the
SMEs within the same sector in terms of each of the items.
Taking regulatory pressures for example, data shows that the mean of the
regulatory pressures is 3.34, which is between the range 3-4 (in our five-point scale,
3 ¼ neither agree nor disagree and 4 ¼ agree). Only two means from sector 4 and 5 are
towards 3 (2.68 and 2.84, respectively) and the means from the other ten sectors are all
above 3, among which four are deflecting to 4. Thus, H1 is somewhat supported with
the regulatory pressures from the binding laws and regulations on environment at
home and abroad.
With regard to different items of regulatory pressures, differences exist among the
SMEs from the 12 sectors. For example, the mean of pressures from importers’
environmental regulations is 4.29 for the SMEs from sector 1 while the mean for sector
4 is only 3. The corresponding SDs are 0.756 for sector 1 and 1.69 for sector 4, which
suggests that SMEs from sector 1 feel relatively same or similar intensity of regulatory
pressures while there are fairly different intensity of pressures among SMEs from
sector 4. The similar situation occurs between sectors 1 and 4 in terms of pressures
from national laws and regulations on environmental protection, with the means of

Code Sectors Code Sectors

1 Food and Beverage 7 Plastic and Rubber

2 Clothing, Textile and Tannery 8 Metal
3 Wood Processing and Furniture 9 Instrumentation
4 Paper Making and Printing 10 Vehicles Table II.
5 Pharmaceutical and Biological Products 11 Machine and Machinery 12 Sectors involved
6 Chemistry and Chemical 12 Electronic Telecommunications Facilities in this study
 Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

92
26,1
JMTM

Table III.

the findings
Summary of
Sector 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
n 7 44 8 8 11 13 15 17 11 10 25 33
Items Mean Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD ANOVA

Regulatory Pressures
(α ¼ 0.88) 3.34 3.77 0.973 3.23 1.117 3.7 1.067 2.68 1.207 2.84 1.050 3.51 1.017 3.69 1.039 3.25 1.045 3.47 0.858 3.26 0.944 3.38 1.046 3.28 0.949 0.140
National laws and
regulations on
environmental protection RP1 4 1 3.2 1.091 4.13 0.641 2.63 1.408 2.73 1.104 3.92 0.954 3.67 1.047 3.24 1.033 3.64 0.809 3.3 0.949 3.32 1.108 3.33 0.957 0.026
National laws and
regulations on resource
conservation RP2 3.29 0.951 3.25 1.164 4.13 0.991 2.38 0.916 2.82 0.982 3.38 0.768 3.6 0.986 3.41 1.064 3.73 0.905 2.9 1.101 3.32 1.03 3.21 0.857 0.051
Local laws and regulations
on environmental
protection RP3 3.71 1.113 3.14 1.173 3.38 0.744 2.5 0.926 2.82 0.874 3.38 1.044 3.8 1.014 3.06 1.144 3.45 1.128 3.2 0.919 3.4 1 3.06 1.059 0.217
Local laws and regulations
on resource conservation RP4 3.57 0.976 3.23 1.159 3.38 1.188 2.88 1.126 2.64 1.286 3.23 1.092 3.73 0.961 3.24 1.033 3.18 0.603 3.3 0.949 3.32 0.988 3.3 0.847 0.590
Environmental regulations
from the import countries RP5 4.29 0.756 3.34 1.033 3.5 1.512 3 1.69 3.18 1.079 3.62 1.193 3.67 1.291 3.29 1.047 3.36 0.809 3.6 0.843 3.56 1.158 3.52 1.004 0.694
Customer Pressures
(α ¼ 0.73) 3.49 3.81 0.981 3.57 0.934 3.92 1.018 2.71 1.160 3.18 1.130 3.41 0.818 3.82 1.093 3.49 1.027 3.39 0.933 3.67 0.802 3.59 1.054 3.27 0.977 0.062
Overseas enterprises
located in China and joint
venture purchasers CP1 3.57 1.272 3.7 0.93 3.75 1.035 2.63 1.408 3.09 1.136 3.54 0.66 3.6 1.121 3.53 0.943 3.55 0.82 3.5 0.707 3.8 1.041 3.52 1.004 0.345
Environmental protection
demands from domestic
customers CP2 4 0.816 3.57 0.873 3.75 1.282 2.75 1.035 3.09 1.044 3.46 0.776 3.8 1.082 3.41 1.121 3.36 0.924 3.9 0.876 3.44 1.003 3.09 0.947 0.090
Increasing environmental
awareness of the end
consumers CP3 3.86 0.9 3.43 0.998 4.25 0.707 2.75 1.165 3.36 1.286 3.23 1.013 4.07 1.1 3.53 1.068 3.27 1.104 3.6 0.843 3.52 1.122 3.21 0.96 0.091
Pubic Pressures (α ¼ 0.88) 3.55 4.29 0.561 3.47 1.059 4.08 0.830 3.04 1.232 3.15 1.149 3.62 0.990 3.96 0.928 3.16 1.084 3.24 1.119 3.67 0.959 3.68 0.903 3.29 0.918 0.022
Pressures of building green
brand PP1 4.14 0.69 3.52 1.067 4.13 0.991 2.88 1.126 3.18 1.328 3.38 0.961 3.93 1.033 3.12 1.219 3.18 1.079 3.7 1.16 3.56 0.961 3.45 0.905 0.152
Pressures of establishing
green corporate image PP2 4.29 0.488 3.48 1.089 4.13 0.835 3.13 1.356 3 1.095 3.54 1.198 3.8 0.941 3.06 0.966 3.36 1.206 3.7 0.949 3.68 0.852 3.15 0.906 0.043

(continued )
 Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

Sector 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
n 7 44 8 8 11 13 15 17 11 10 25 33
Items Mean Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD ANOVA

Increase of environmental
awareness from the society PP3 4.43 0.535 3.41 1.041 4 0.756 3.13 1.356 3.27 1.104 3.92 0.76 4.13 0.834 3.29 1.105 3.18 1.168 3.6 0.843 3.8 0.913 3.27 0.944 0.013
Supplier Pressures
(α ¼ 0.88) 3.39 3.62 0.987 3.38 0.967 3.33 0.930 2.83 1.173 3.27 0.921 3.44 0.877 3.79 0.906 3.25 1.057 3.35 0.936 3.58 0.869 3.54 0.931 3.27 0.898 0.319
Collaboration in
environment protection
with our suppliers SP1 3.57 0.976 3.41 0.897 3.25 0.886 2.88 1.356 3.18 1.079 3.62 0.768 3.93 0.704 3.18 1.131 3.36 1.027 3.5 0.707 3.4 0.957 3.36 0.859 0.504
Improvements in designing
green products with our
suppliers SP2 3.86 0.69 3.34 0.987 3.63 0.744 2.88 1.246 3.73 0.786 3.46 0.776 3.6 0.986 3.53 1.007 3.27 1.191 3.3 0.823 3.6 0.866 3.24 0.792 0.551
Improvements in products
green packaging with our
suppliers SP3 4.14 0.378 3.39 1.017 3.38 0.916 2.5 1.195 3.27 0.786 3.08 0.862 3.53 1.187 3.06 0.966 3.36 0.674 3.6 0.843 3.48 1.005 3.21 0.96 0.152
Pressures from green
strategy of identical goods
manufacturers SP4 3.71 1.254 3.41 0.972 3.25 0.886 2.63 0.916 3 1 3.38 1.121 3.87 0.64 3.29 1.105 3.18 0.874 3.8 1.229 3.64 0.952 3.33 1.021 0.205
Pressures from green
strategy of substitute
products manufacturers SP5 3.29 1.254 3.39 0.945 3.25 1.165 3.25 1.389 3.27 1.009 3.54 1.05 3.93 0.884 3.06 1.144 3.64 0.924 3.8 0.789 3.6 0.957 3.33 0.89 0.508
Requirements of green
development from the
industry association SP6 3.14 1.069 3.34 1.033 3.25 1.165 2.88 1.126 3.18 0.874 3.54 0.66 3.87 0.99 3.35 1.057 3.27 1.009 3.5 0.85 3.52 0.918 3.12 0.893 0.502
Internal Drivers (α ¼ 0.94) 3.53 3.83 0.942 3.80 0.835 3.54 1.025 2.63 1.267 3.21 0.981 3.56 0.992 3.76 0.893 3.48 0.959 3.73 0.763 3.68 0.676 3.74 0.933 3.35 1.001 0.004
Drivers from enterprise’s
environmental vision ID1 4.29 0.488 4 0.807 3.63 1.061 2.5 1.195 3.45 1.368 3.69 1.032 4 1 3.59 1.278 3.73 0.647 3.6 0.699 3.64 1.075 3.39 0.998 0.019
Support of the green
strategy from the top
management ID2 4.14 0.9 4.07 0.759 3.75 1.282 2.63 1.302 3.36 0.924 3.77 1.092 4.07 0.704 3.35 0.996 3.55 0.82 3.7 0.675 3.6 1 3.39 1.088 0.005
Support of the green
strategy from the middle
management ID3 3.57 1.272 3.75 0.781 3.75 1.282 2.25 0.886 3.36 0.924 3.38 1.121 3.73 0.961 3.29 1.105 3.64 0.924 3.6 0.843 3.72 0.98 3.52 1.064 0.061
Implementation of green
strategy from employees ID4 3.43 1.397 3.8 0.795 3.5 1.195 2.5 1.195 2.73 0.905 3.62 0.87 3.67 1.113 3.59 1.004 3.73 0.905 3.4 0.843 3.64 0.907 3.48 1.004 0.033

(continued )
management

Table III.
Green supply

93
chain
 Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

94
26,1
JMTM

Table III.
Sector 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
n 7 44 8 8 11 13 15 17 11 10 25 33
Items Mean Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD ANOVA

Drivers from specialized

human resource for GSCM ID5 3.86 0.69 3.82 0.815 3.63 1.188 2.5 1.195 3.27 1.272 3.38 0.87 3.67 1.047 3.35 0.862 4 0.632 3.7 0.675 3.76 0.926 3.33 0.957 0.021
Drivers from specialized
budget for green products
development ID6 3.71 0.756 3.66 0.963 3.38 0.916 3 1.512 3.18 0.751 3.23 0.927 3.67 0.976 3.47 1.007 3.82 0.603 3.8 0.632 3.8 0.866 3.24 1.062 0.258
Drivers from specialized
budget for environmental
improvement ID7 3.57 0.976 3.75 0.839 3.25 1.035 2.63 1.408 3.36 1.12 3.54 0.967 3.67 0.976 3.53 0.943 3.82 0.874 3.7 0.675 3.84 0.85 3.27 0.944 0.096
Drivers from specialized
budget for pollution
preventive budget ID8 3.86 0.9 3.7 0.878 3.63 0.744 2.88 1.356 3.27 0.905 3.69 1.251 3.73 0.884 3.71 0.849 3.55 0.82 3.7 0.675 3.76 0.879 3.3 1.075 0.390
Drivers from specialized
budget for pollution
disposal budget ID9 4 1 3.61 0.813 3.25 0.886 2.38 1.302 3.27 0.905 3.85 0.899 3.53 0.743 3.41 1.064 3.45 0.82 3.7 0.675 3.76 1.012 3.15 0.972 0.013
Drivers from specialized
budget for by-products
disposal budget ID10 3.57 1.134 3.75 0.781 3.38 0.744 2.75 1.488 3.09 0.831 3.46 0.967 3.6 0.91 3.35 0.862 3.82 0.751 3.8 0.632 3.68 0.9 3.15 1.093 0.061
Drivers from corporate
green marks ID11 3.71 1.113 3.89 0.895 3.63 1.188 2.63 1.408 2.91 0.944 3.54 1.05 3.73 0.799 3.47 0.874 3.73 0.786 3.7 0.675 3.88 0.927 3.48 0.906 0.025
Drivers from corporate
green trademarks ID12 4.29 0.488 3.84 0.861 3.75 1.165 2.88 1.553 3.27 1.009 3.54 1.05 4.07 0.594 3.59 0.795 3.91 0.701 3.7 0.675 3.76 1.012 3.45 0.905 0.069
 4 and 2.63, respectively; it indicates that Chinese SMEs from sector 1 have been under Green supply
clear regulatory pressures regarding to employing GSCM strategy but this kind of chain
pressure for SMEs from sector 4 is not supported with a mean below 3.
Similarly and generally, with the means of customer pressures, public pressures,
management
supplier pressures and internal drivers are all over 3 - 3.49, 3.55, 3. 39 and 3.53,
respectively, H2, H3, H4 and H5 can also be partly supported. Explicitly, Chinese
manufacturing SMEs have been under the customer pressures, public pressures and 95
supplier pressures to a certain degree and also to some extent have been encouraged by
the internal drivers in terms of GSCM. However, specific circumstances need specific
analysis. As analyzed above, different sectors among those manufacturing SMEs have
different feelings or experiences in terms of pressures or drivers from a variety of
sources in adopting GSCM. It is also verified by ANOVA which will be discussed in the
following section.
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

5.3 ANOVA
ANOVA results in Table III show that the public pressures from the consumers and the
society in terms of GSCM and the internal impulse for applying GSCM have significant
differences among Chinese manufacturing SMEs with the p-values (Sig.) of 0.022 and
0.004, respectively; while the other three p-values are more than 0.05, implying that
there is no significant difference among SMEs from different industrial sectors in terms
of feeling pressures to adopt GSCM. Therefore, the prime conclusion is that H6 is only
partly supported by our data; more specifically, different sectors from Chinese
manufacturing SMEs have differences with regard to public pressures and internal
drivers in adoptions of GSCM but no difference shown in regulatory pressures,
customer pressures and supplier pressures among them.

6. Discussion
With the data collected from the SME respondents, all the hypotheses proposed for our
study are partly proved and supported.

6.1 Regulatory pressures

The findings verified that Chinese manufacturing SMEs have been under the
regulatory pressures from the government in terms of GSCM to a certain degree and
generally all the SME respondents from the 12 sectors show no significant difference in
facing the pressures. However, by looking at the detailed means and SDs in Table III,
differences in terms of different characteristics for manufacturing SMEs from different
sectors in GSCM can still be identified. For instance, SMEs from Food and Beverage
sectors have felt intense pressures from their import countries’ environmental laws
or regulations when considering GSCM; while SMEs from Paper Making and Printing
sector have been under little pressures from National laws and regulations on resource
conservation. The results here complement those presented by Zhu et al. (2005).

6.2 Customer pressures

Customer pressures among Chinese manufacturing SMEs regarding GSCM are partly
supported by this study; that is, those SMEs from the 12 sectors in Chinese manufacturing
industry have been under the pressures from their purchasers at home and abroad, as well
as the end users in terms of GSCM. These pressures are, however, not as significant as for
the enterprises investigated by Zhu and Sarkis (2006). This difference could be due to the
 JMTM different sizes and industrial characteristics of the two samples. In addition, this study
26,1 showed the similar findings with Walker et al. (2008) that SMEs from the Food and
Beverage sector, Furniture sector, and Vehicle sector are more significantly pressed by
their customers to implement GSCM. It is notable that Chinese SME manufacturers
from Plastic and Robber sector also feel clear pressures from their customers and end
consumers in particular.
96
6.3 Public pressures
The high degree of public pressures that the respondents showed for GSCM in this
study was unexpected. Environmental awareness is increasing rapidly with both
purchasing and selling parties. On one hand, the concerns of environmental or green
from the public have drastically increased due to the deterioration of environment and
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

the shortage of resources. On the other hand, the increased in environmental concerns
leading to a desire among the public when making purchasing decisions, prefers
a business with higher reputation in terms of environmentally friendly or green
(Drumwright, 1994). Data from the study found that Chinese SME manufacturers from
the sectors of Food and Beverage and Wood Processing and Furniture are currently
experiencing heavy pressures from the increasing public awareness of GSCM.
However, drawing much attention from the public with regard to the environmentally
friendly policies from the enterprises might be tricky in some circumstances. According to
Greer and Bruno (1996), the green or environmental strategies of an enterprise can easily
be falsified as corporate “greenwash” because all the actions of a business are more likely
to be magnified to increase publicity.

6.4 Supplier pressures

The results from this study also suggest that there have been some collaborative effects of
suppliers on their SME customers in terms of GSCM. For example, Chinese manufacturing
SMEs from Food and Beverage sector have experienced the pressures from their suppliers
with regard to the cooperation with each other to provide products with greener
packaging. It is in contrast to the work carried out by Walker et al. (2008), although the
findings of our study complement those presented by Carter and Dresner (2001).

6.5 Internal drivers

It is relatively obvious to draw a conclusion from the results of the study that Chinese
manufacturing SMEs have been encouraged by the internal drivers in terms of GSCM
to some extent. For instance, SMEs from Food and Beverage sector, Clothing, Textile
and Tannery sector, and Plastic and Robber sector have been positively swayed by the
support of their green strategy from the top and middle management. Moreover, SMEs
from both Food and Beverage sector and Plastic and Robber sector also view their
corporate green trademarks as an encouragement for their GSCM implementation.
The findings of this study are consistent with the results released from the one
carried out by Zhu et al. (2005). Commitment of GSCM from senior managers, support
for GSCM from mid-level managers, and the execution and cross-functional cooperation
from the employees within the organization are all encouragements and contributions
to the GSCM initiatives for the enterprises. Besides, the study with 314 participants also
suggested the idea that enterprises are encouraged by the reserved costs for disposal of
hazardous materials and green products research and development, including green
packaging for the products; which is also verified in our study.
 7. Conclusion Green supply
7.1 Research summary chain
Much attention has been paid to the importance of GSCM development, which is expected
to effectively create a win-win relationship between environmental performance and
management
economic efficiency throughout the supply chain. Academic research on GSCM for SMEs
are still in the development stage and more studies, analyses and discussions are
necessary for the development of theoretical framework of GSCM. This research provided 97
an attempt to investigate the pressures and drivers of GSCM for Chinese manufacturing
SMEs. It is exploratory and contributes to the building up of the body of theory on GSCM
within Chinese manufacturing SME, as little research has been launched among Chinese
SMEs previously.
The hypotheses were partly verified with the findings of the study. First, Chinese
manufacturing SMEs had been under the regulatory pressures from governments in
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

terms of GSCM; in addition, the customer pressures from the purchasers at home and
abroad as well as the end users also put effect on the GSCM for those SMEs. The third
source of pressures is the public pressures from the consumers and the society. Fourth,
Chinese SMEs had been under the supplier pressures from the upper stream partners in
their GSCM. Finally, those SMEs had been encouraged by the internal drivers, such as
the commitments from top management and middle-level management, execution and
cooperation among employees, reserved cost and human resource, etc. in terms of
GSCM. Moreover, Chinese manufacturing SMEs from different industrial sectors
showed some differences in experiencing pressures or being motivated by drivers.
These differences may be explained by their different pollutional characteristics and
levels to the environment, different needs to compete in a global context, different
production process to cooperation with their suppliers and different desires to establish
a green corporate image.

7.2 Empirical implications

Not only examining the drivers of environmental practices for suppliers and the
institutional forces as Tate et al. (2011), this study but also includes the regulatory
pressures, customer pressures like Zailani et al. (2012) as well as public pressures like
Henriques and Sadorsky (1996). Thus, this study contributes to the GSCM theory
with empirical evidences to examine all the regulatory, customer, supplier, public and
internal pressures from SMEs in an emerging economic of China. The existing
literature assumes that supplier pressure, customer pressure, government regulatory
pressure and community group pressure are positively related to GSCM of an
enterprise from developed economics, like Canada (Henriques and Sadorsky, 1996)
and South Korea (Lee, 2008a). This study confirms with the theoretical base with
more findings from SMEs of China as a developing country. Moreover, this study
also contributes to the GSCM theory development in terms of comparison of GSCM
pressures among different industries or sectors like Zhu and Sarkis’s (2006) research.
But this study enriches the theoretical base by providing the empirical evidences
from SMEs in China.

7.3 Managerial implications

Chinese manufacturing SMEs and their large customers, as well as governments, are
likely to obtain some implications from this study if they are willing to consider some
GSCM initiatives throughout the supply chain. First, it is consistent with previous
 JMTM research (Green et al., 1996; Walton et al., 1998; Beamon, 1999; Hall, 2001; Walker et al.,
26,1 2008; Diabat and Govindan, 2011) that enterprises have been under regulatory
pressures from governments. Thus, government should clearly notify the importance
of SMEs for both their economical and environmental contribution to the society, trying
to transform those regulatory pressures to proactive encouragements or effective
assistance to those SMEs in order to keep their interests in GSCM and further be
98 benefited from their GSCM initiatives. For example, tax reduction and finance reward
will be good stimuli for those SMEs to comply with environmental regulations.
Second, the research identifies clear pressures through the supply chain, including
pressures to collaborate with suppliers, pressures to meet requirements from both large
customers and individual end consumers, as well as the increasing pressures from the
public awareness of environmental conservation and energy saving to SMEs. Together
with the pressures identified from a variety of sources, large customers who possess more
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

capabilities regarding to sufficient financial reserves, professional human resources and

strong desire to be a greener, are expected to provide some support to their SME suppliers
in terms of technical and human cooperation to obtain the efficiency and synergy for both.
Third, the study found that SMEs are more likely to be encouraged in terms of
GSCM with support from the management, cooperation among employees, appropriate
budgets for GSCM practices and even the ownership of corporate green marks
or trademarks can inspire the confidence within the enterprises to improve their
environmental performance. Therefore, clear and effective communications and
well-managed cooperation throughout the organizations are significant in helping
organizations to achieve the objectives of their GSCM. Increasing the environmental
awareness by training and education for both management and employees, investing
more into pollution preventive solutions, integrating environmental strategies into the
whole production process are all recommended as effective tactics by which SMEs can
improve their environmental performance.
Fourth, only a few GSCM studies focus on SMEs from the developing economics as Rao
(2007) and this research. Thus other developing countries, such as those from Asia, may
consider the results of this research to develop their GSCM; especially for those similar
findings from both studies as they may be more generalized to developing economics.

7.4 Limitations and future research

Some suggestions for future research include providing for future studies by clarifying
the limitations of this research. First, the response rate is relatively low at 20.2 per cent,
which might resulted with the potential issue of biasness of data collected. In addition,
the questionnaire employed in this research is close-ended; thus, some other pressures
and drivers experienced by SMEs might have been overlooked. Besides, the wording of
questions may result in socially desirable responses from the participants. Thus,
further refined studies are expected to take these limitations into considerations and
multi-method research strategy may help to alleviate the consequences. As only
manufacturing SMEs were selected as the participants of this research, the
generalizability of the findings for the non-manufacturing SMEs is undefined. Future
research will be conducted to include participants from more sectors, such as service
and transportation sector. In addition, whether or not the pressures and drivers of
GSCM would be similar for ISO14001 certified SMEs and non-certified ones can also be
considered by future researchers. Moreover, the relationships between GSCM pressures
among SMEs and their GSCM implementations should be developed.
 References Green supply
Barnes, J.H. (1982), “Recycling: a problem in reverse logistics”, Journal of Macro-Marketing, Vol. 2 chain
No. 2, pp. 31-37. management
Barry, H. and Milner, B. (2002), “SMEs and electronic commerce: a departure from the traditional
prioritization of training?”, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 26 No. 7,
pp. 316-326.
Beamon, B.M. (1999), “Designing the green supply chain”, Logistics Information Management, 99
Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 332-342.
Berry, D., Towill D.R. and Wadsley, N. (1994), “Supply chain management in the electronics
products industry”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management,
Vol. 24 No. 10, pp. 20-32.
Bowersox, D.J., David, J.C. and Bixby, M.C. (2002), Supply Chain Logistics Management,
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

Burke, S. and Gaughran, W.F. (2006), “Intelligent environmental management for SMEs in
manufacturing”, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 22 Nos 5/6,
pp. 566-575.
Business Week (2005), “Europe’s push for less-toxic tech”, Business Week, August 9, available at:
www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc2005089_9729_tc_215.html
(accessed 10 October 2010).
Carter, C.R. and Dresner, M. (2001), “Purchasing’s role in environmental management:
cross-functional development of grounded theory”, Supply Chain Management, Vol. 37
No. 3, pp. 12-26.
Carter, C.R., Ellram, L.M. and Kathryn, L.M. (1998), “Environmental purchasing: benchmarking
our German counterparts”, International Journal of Purchasing and Materials
Management, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 28-38.
Chan, R.Y.K. and Lau, L.B.Y. (2001), “Explaining green purchasing behavior: a cross-cultural
study on American and Chinese consumers”, Journal of International Consumer Marketing,
Vol. 14 Nos 2/3, pp. 9-41.
Coˆte ,́ R.P., Lopez, J., Marche, S., Perron, G.M. and Wright, R. (2008), “Influences, practices and
opportunities for environmental supply chain management in Nova Scotia SMEs”,
Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol.16 No. 15, pp. 1561-1570.
Common, M. and Perrings, C. (1992), “Towards an ecological economics of sustainability”,
Ecological Economics, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 7-34.
Crals, E. and Vereeck, L. (2005), “The affordability of sustainable entrepreneurship certification
for SMEs”, International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, Vol. 12
No. 2, pp. 173-183.
Delfmann, W. and Albers, S. (2000), “Supply chain management in the global context”, working
paper, University of Cologne, Cologne, available at: www.uni-koeln.de/wiso-fak/planung/
Diabat, A. and Govindan, K. (2011), “An analysis of drivers affecting the implementation of green
supply chain management”, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol. 55 No. 6, pp. 659-667.
Do, D., Svedberg, C. and Karlsson. J. (2006), “Characteristics of SME outsourcing: a quantitative
study of manufacturing SMEs in Småland”, available at: www.diva-portal.org (accessed 23
March 2009).
Drumwright, M.E. (1994), “Socially responsible organizational buying: environmental concern as
a non-economic buying criterion”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58 No. 3, pp. 1-19.
Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Lowe, A. (2002), Management Research: An Introduction,
Sage Publications, London.
 JMTM Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) (2008), “SME development in
China: a policy perspective on SME industrial clustering”, Economic Research Institute for
26,1 ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), Jakarta, available at: www.eria.org/research/images/pdf/
PDF%20No.5/No,5-2-China.pdf (accessed 3 October 2011).
Eikebrokk, R.T. and Olsen, H.D. (2007), “An empirical investigation of competency factors
affecting e-business success in European SMEs”, Information & Management, Vol. 44
100 No. 4, pp. 364-383.
Frankel, R., Bolumole, Y.A., Eltantawy, R.A., Paulraj, A. and Gundlach, G.T. (2008), “The domain
and scope of SCM’s foundational disciplines insights and issues to advance research”,
Journal of Business Logistics, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 1-30.
Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) (2001), New Paths to Business Value, GEMI,
Washington, DC.
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

Gilbert, S. (2001), Greening Supply Chain: Enhancing Competitiveness Through Green Productivity,
Asian Productivity Organization, Taiwan, pp. 1-6.
Green, K., Morton, B. and New, S. (1996), “Purchasing and environmental management:
interaction, policies and opportunities”, Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 5
No. 3, pp. 89-95.
Greenan, K., Humphrey, P. and McIvor, R. (1997), “The green initiative: improving quality
and competitiveness for European SMEs”, European Business Review, Vol. 97 No. 5,
pp. 208-214.
Greer, J. and Bruno, K. (1996), Greenwash: The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism, Apex
Press, Penang, Third World Network and New York, NY.
Hall, C. (2007), “When the dragon awakes: Internationalization of SMEs in China and Implications
for Europe”, available at: www.cesifo-group.de/pls/guestci/download/CESifo%20Forum%
202007/CESifo%20Forum%202/2007/forum2-07-focus5.pdf (accessed 21 September 2009).
Hall, J. (2001), “Environmental supply chain innovation”, Greener Management International,
Vol. 35, pp. 105-119.
Handfield, R., Walton, S.V., Seegers, L.K. and Melnyk, S.A. (1997), “Green value chain practices in
the furniture industry”, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 293-315.
Hanna, M.D., Newman, W.R. and Johnson, P. (2000), “Linking operational and environmental
improvement through employee involvement”, International Journal of Operations and
Production Management, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 148-165.
Hemel, C. and Cramer, J. (2002), “Barriers and stimuli for ecodesign in SMEs”, Journal of Cleaner
Production, Vol. 10 No. 5, pp. 439-453.
Henriques, I. and Sadorsky, P. (1996), “The determinants of an environmentally responsive firm:
an empirical approach”, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 30
No. 3, pp. 381-395.
Hilton, M. (2000), “SME support for sustainable development: principles and practice”, in Bodin, R.P.
and Verborgh, E. (Eds), European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working
Conditions, Sustainable Development, SMEs and New Enterprises (Conference Report), Office
for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, pp. 25-27.
Holt, D. and Ghobadian, A. (2009), “An empirical study of green supply chain management
practices amongst UK manufacturers”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management, Vol. 20 No. 7, pp. 933-956.
Huang, X.M., Tan, L.B. and Li, D. (2012), “Pressures on green supply chain management: a study
on manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises in China”, International Business
and Management, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 76-82.
 Hutchison, A. and Chaston, I. (1994), “Environmental management in Devon and Cornwall’s small Green supply
and medium-sized enterprise sector”, Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 3 No. 2,
pp. 15-22.
chain
Jelinski, L.W., Graedel, T.E., Laudise, R.A., McCall, D.W. and Patel, C.K.N. (1992), “Industrial
management
ecology: concepts and approaches”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
Vol. 89 No. 3, pp. 793-797.
Kailer, N. and Scheff, J. (1999), “Knowledge management as a service: cooperation between small 101
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and training, consulting and research institutions”,
Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 23 No. 7, pp. 319-328.
Klassen, R. (1993), “The integration of environmental issues into manufacturing: toward an
interactive open-system model”, Production and Inventory Management, Vol. 34 No. 1,
pp. 82-88.
Klassen, R.D. and Vachon, S. (2003), “Evaluation and collaboration in the supply chain: their
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

impact on plant-level environmental investments”, Production and Operations

Management, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 336-352.
Konar, S. and Cohen, M.A. (1997), “Information as regulation: the effect of community right to
know laws on toxic emissions”, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management,
Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 109-124.
Lee, K.-H. (2008a), “Corporate environmental management and practices of SMEs: the case of
Korean manufacturing industry”, Journal of Sustainable Management, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 73-86.
Lee, S.-Y. (2008b), “Drivers for the participation of small and medium-sized suppliers in green
supply chain initiatives”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 13
No. 3, pp. 185-198.
Lo, C.W. and Leung, S.W. (2000), “Environmental agency and public opinion in Guangzhou: the
limits of a popular approach to environmental governance”, The China Quarterly, Vol. 163,
June, pp. 677-704.
Luthra, S., Kumar, V., Kumar, S. and Haleem, A. (2011), “Barriers to implement green supply
chain management in automobile industry using interpretive structural modelling
technique: an Indian perspective”, Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management,
Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 231-157.
McIntyre, L.J. (2005), Need to Know: Social Science Research Methods, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Min, H. and Galle, W.P. (1997), “Green purchasing strategies: trends and implications”,
International Journal of Purchasing and Materials, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 410-417.
Min, H. and Galle, W.P. (2001), “Green purchasing practices of US firms”, International Journal of
Operations and Production Management, Vol. 21 No. 9, pp. 1222-1238.
Mohibul, I.M. and Alejandra, F. (2008), “Internationalization process of SMEs: strategies and
methods”, available at: www.eki.mdh.se/uppsatser/foretagsekonomi/VT2008-FEK-D-1964.
pdf (accessed 18 June 2010).
Murphy, P.R., Poist, R.F. and Braunschwieg, C.D. (1994), “Management of environmental issues
in logistics: current status and future potential”, Transportation Journal, Vol. 34 No. 1,
pp. 48-56.
New, S., Green, K. and Morton, B. (2000), “Buying the environment: the multiple meanings of green
supply”, in Fineman, S. (Ed.), The Business of Greening, Routledge, London, pp. 33-53.
Nunnally, J.C. (1978), Psychometric Theory, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Palmer, A. (2005), Principles of Services Marketing, McGraw-Hill Education, New York, NY.
Pil, F.K. and Rothenberg, S. (2003), “Environmental performance as a driver of superior quality”,
Production and Operations Management, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 404-415.
 JMTM Pohlen, T.L. and Farris, T.M. (1992), “Reverse logistics in plastic recycling”, International Journal
of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, Vol. 22 No. 7, pp. 35-47.
26,1
Porter, M. and van der Linde, C. (1995), “Green and competitive: ending the stalemate”, Harvard
Business Review, Vol. 73 No. 5, pp. 120-133.
Rao, P. (2007), “Greening of the supply chain: an empirical study for SMEs in the Philippine
context”, Journal of Asia Business Studies, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 55-66.
102 Rao, S.S., Metts, G. and Mora Monge, C.A. (2003), “Electronic commerce development in small and
medium-sized enterprise: a stage model and its implications”, Business Process
Management Journal, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 11-32.
Roy, R. and Whelan, R.C. (1992), “Successful recycling through value-chain collaboration”,
Long Range Planning, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 62-71.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2009), Research Methods for Business Students, 5th ed.,
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

Prentice Hall, London.

Schaper, M. (2002), “The challenge of environmental responsibility and sustainable development:
implications for SME and entrepreneurship academics”, in Füglistaller, U., Pleitner, H.,
Voleryand, T. and Webwe, W. (Eds), Radical Changes in the World: Will SMEs Soar or
Crash? Recountres de St Gallen, pp. 525-35, available at: www.kmu.unisg.ch/rencontres/
band2002/F_09_Schaper.pdf (accessed 18 September 2010)
Skrentny, J. (1993), “Concern for the environment: a cross-national perspective”, International
Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 335-361.
Srivastava, S. (2007), “Green supply-chain management: a state-of-the-art literature review”,
International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 53-80.
Sun, L. (2000), “Anticipatory ownership reform driven by competition: China’s township-village and
private enterprises in the 1990s”, Comparative Economic Studies, Vol. 42 No. 3, pp. 49-75.
Swift, L. and Piff, S. (2010), Quantitative Methods: for Business, Management and Finance,
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Szymankiewicz, J. (1993), “Going green: the logistic dilemma”, Logistics Information Management,
Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 36-43.
Tate, W.L., Dooley, K.L. and Ellram, L.M. (2011), “Transaction cost and institutional drivers of supplier
adoption of environmental practice”, Journal of Business Logistics, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 6-16.
Testa, F. and Iraldo, F. (2010), “Shadows and lights of GSCM (green supply chain management):
determinants and effects of these practices based on a multi-national study”, Journal of
Cleaner Production, Vol. 18 Nos 10-11, pp. 9533-9962.
Theyel, G. (2001), “Customer and supplier relations for environmental performance”, Greener
Management International Autumn, Vol. 35, pp. 166-186.
Tseng, M.L., Divinagracia, L. and Divinagracia, R. (2009), “Evaluating firm’s sustainable
production indicators in uncertainty”, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Vol. 57
No. 4, pp. 1393-1403.
Vachon, S. and Klassen, R.D. (2006), “Extending green practices across the supply chain: the
impacts of upstream and downstream integration”, International Journal of Operations and
Production Management, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 795-821.
Walker, H., Di Sisto, L. and McBain, D. (2008), “Drivers and barriers to environmental supply
chain management practices: lessons from the public and private sectors”, Journal of
Purchasing and Supply Management, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 69-85.
Walton, S.V., Handfield, R.B. and Melnyk, S.A. (1998), “The green supply chain: integrating
suppliers into environmental management processes”, Journal of Supply Chain
Management, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 2-11.
 Welford, R. (2002), “Globalisation, corporate social responsibility and human rights”, Corporate Green supply
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 1-8.
chain
Wycherley, I. (1999), “Greening supply chains: the case of the body shop international”, Business
Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 120-127.
management
Zailani, S.H.M., Eltayeb, T.K., Hsu, C. and Tan, K.C. (2012), “The impact of external institutional
drivers and internal strategy on environmental performance”, International Journal of
Operations and Production Management, Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 721-745. 103
Zhu, Q and Geng, Y. (2001), “Integrating environmental issues into supplier selection and
management: a study of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises in China”,
Greener Management International, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 27-40.
Zhu, Q. and Sarkis, J. (2004), “Relationships between operational practices and performance
among early adopters of green supply chain management practices in Chinese
manufacturing enterprises”, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 22 No. 6, pp. 265-289.
Downloaded by MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY At 12:59 05 February 2015 (PT)

Zhu, Q. and Sarkis, J. (2006), “An inter-sectoral comparison of green supply chain management in
China: drivers and practices”, Journal of Clean Production, Vol. 14 No. 5, pp. 472-486.
Zhu, Q., Sarkis, J. and Geng, Y. (2005), “Green supply chain management in China: pressures,
practices, and performance”, International Journal of Operations and Production
Management, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 449-468.
Zhu, Q., Sarkis, J. and Lai, K. (2007), “Initiatives and outcomes of green supply chain management
implementation by Chinese manufacturers”, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 85
No. 1, pp. 179-189.
Zhu, Q., Geng, Y., Fujita, T. and Hashimoto, S. (2010), “Green supply chain management in
leading manufacturers: case studies in Japanese large companies”, Management Research
Review, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 380-392.
Zsidisin, G.A. and Siferd, S.P. (2001), “Environmental purchasing: a framework for theory
development”, European Journal of Purchasing & Supplying Management, Vol. 7 No. 1,
pp. 1-73.

Corresponding author
Dr Xiangmeng Huang can be contacted at: xiangmeng.huang@hotmail.com

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com