Green Supply Chain Management Innovation Strategy- Exploring the Relation of Strategic Alliance Learning Mechanisms and Institutional Theory

• Main Authors: Chu, Kuo-Ming, 朱國明
• Other Authors: Yuan, Benjamin J. C.
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/w69na5

博士 === 國立交通大學 === 科技管理研究所 === 103 === The environmental problems the world is facing today, with their growing severity and increasingly global nature, are often called the most serious challenge that humanity has to face in the coming years. Therefore, successful green development and the implementation of green innovation in an organizational system can produce a significant savings in regard to the use of business and environmental resources and therefore will result in a smaller environmental impact. However, organizational learning is a cyclical process through which knowledge that has been learned at the firm level is continuously institutionalized at the organizational level. Thus, this study is aimed at developing an innovation strategy for alliance green knowledge learning mechanisms and institutional processes that encourage companies to implement a green supply chain and green innovation in order to improve their environmental performance and to enhance their competitive advantage in the global market. Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, this dissertation explores the antecedents, processes and consequences of green supply chain management (SCM) innovation strategies from a strategic alliance perspective in order to build a comprehensive conceptual framework that fills the gaps in previous research. In addition, the resource-based view and institutional theory are used to explore the behavior of organizations in alliance partnerships because through data sharing cooperation, organizations may face similar environmental influences, thus pushing them to adopt similar strategies or practices to achieve their goals. A research model is developed, and fourteen hypotheses are proposed for further empirical validation. The hypotheses are tested based on the major survey data from 342 Taiwanese firms listed on the stock market. A combination of survey methodology and structural equation modeling is employed to collect and analyze the data drawing from a sample of supply chains and logistics managers. The results indicate that alliance green knowledge acquisition and institutionalization processes play prominent roles in firm alliance performance when implemented in a green SCM context. Moreover, this study not only demonstrates that both the internal supply chain and external environmental orientations exert a positive and significant influence on green SCM and alliance performance, but also, more importantly, they delineate how green SCM is practiced. In addition, this study shows that similarity between alliances and company markets and products is not a prerequisite for great learning benefits and also indicates that legitimatizing the role of strategic alliances may be a critical source of competitive advantage, especially in the institutional process. This study also extends recent efforts to synthesize strategic and institutional perspectives by suggesting that strategic and operational explanations of alliances complement a legitimate explanation of the strategic alliance phenomenon. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest that the concepts of isomorphism and institutionalization are related and that both external and internal forces may assume that same role in the green SCM adoption decision. Similarly, it is shown that the effects of institutional voids are not only dependent on the institutional process, but that alliance performance is also dependent on the context in which it occurs. Without such institutions, contracting and information problems are more likely to arise, resulting in higher uncertainty and higher transaction costs. Therefore, this study suggests that strategic alliance benefits are based on a need to overcome institutional voids i.e. the need to reduce the costs and risks associated with weak institutions. Finally, to justify our research objectives, the role of institutional isomorphism and voids in creating business groups and networks are outlined and emphasized, and their possible role in illuminating corporate governance mechanisms regarding Asian firms is accentuated. The study also demonstrates that collaboration can be used as an alternative means to not only bridge institutional gaps in the green market, but also to achieve competitive advantages. This study also provides empirical evidence of the potential impact of green SCM innovation strategies and opens the doors for new and intriguing questions and fruitful future research, while at the same time serving as a catalyst for further conceptualization and subsequent theory testing.