Examining the effects of green supply chain

management practices and their mediations

on performance improvements
Qinghua Zhu
,
Joseph Sarkis
&
Kee-hung Lai
Pages 1377-1394 | Accepted 01 Feb 2011, Published online: 06 Sep 2011

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 https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2011.571937

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Abstract

Environmental pressures have caused green supply chain management (GSCM) to

emerge as an important corporate environmental strategy for manufacturing
enterprises. For manufacturers to fully realise the performance potentials of GSCM,
they need to integrate internal GSCM practices emphasising functional coordination
with external GSCM practices such as cooperation with suppliers and customers in the
 implementation. Using coordination theory, this article examines three models used to
evaluate the mediation relationships between the external and internal practices of
GSCM with respect to environmental, economic, and operational performance. We posit
that the strategic stance of manufacturing enterprises in improving their overall
performance and competitive position requires a joint coordination of internal and
external GSCM practices. Survey data collected from 396 Chinese manufacturing
enterprises are used to validate our arguments by testing the mediation effects of two
categories of GSCM practices. Our empirical results show support for the mediation
effects, which indicates the importance for manufacturers to coordinate between the
internal and external aspects of implementing GSCM practices to reap the performance
benefits. Coordinating internal and external GSCM practices to seek performance
improvements is an important aspect of the manufacturing operations strategy. The
dynamics of implementing GSCM practices and the performance contingencies are
worthwhile topics to pursue in future research.
Keywords:

 environmental management
 supply chain management
 coordination theory
 mediation
 organisational performance
 operations strategy

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Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers on an earlier
version of this paper. This work is supported by a grant from the National Science Fund
for Distinguished Young Scholars (71025002), the National Natural Science Foundation
of China Project (projects 71033004 and 70772085), the Program for New Century
Excellent Talents in University in China (NCET-09-0082) and NSFC-JSPS
(70911140101). Lai is fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (GRF PolyU 5440/09H).