Contribution of the administrative function of the HR department Essay

Introduction: Business organizations are made up of people. These often termed ‘human resources’ and they are the most important resources in the production of goods and services. Managers and the owners of organization need to understand the nature of the labour market in the areas where they operate, and how they work together in groups so that they can achieve maximum output. They also need to understand what motivates employees do that the goals of the organization can be achieved. Many tasks that are undertaken in business are complex and therefore need the combined skills of different people. The human resources functions have been modified into four (4) main sections these are Human Resources planning, Recruitment and selection, Training and Development and performance management. In an organization without these four main departments the company can’t stand as one this is the reason why the have stated above. I will be looking at each department and how effective they are to the Human resource management. Human Resources planning; this is the adding up of the internal and external staffs in an organization, in other to know the number people to employ to the right department and at the right time. The Human resources don’t just decide that they need to employ new staffs. There are some certain factors they consider before they can employ new staffs. These factors includes; the skills and competences they will need the new employees to have, how many people with these capabilities will it be able to recruit, and also the ways of training and developing people to meet these skill requirements. The Human resource planning department has various ways of forecasting the demand for employees in future. The process are as follows; forecasting demands for members and skills of employees, analyzing current employee, and account for internal employees and lastly taking actins e.g. recruiting, transfer etc. The human resources planning are very important in an organization they help the business with its long term planning and objectives setting of the business. Recruitment and selection; the objectives of recruitment is to attract the ‘best candidates’ for a job and then select the most suitable. It is an extremely important process because organization depends upon their human resources to survive and be successful. If the wrong person is recruited, a business can be severely damaged. In large organization the human resources will be in charge of the process. The first stage is to analyse what sort of person is required. The second stage is to decide how the vacancy is to be advertised or announced. Finally, the selection process needs to be planned and conducted in such a way as to ensure that the best candidates are successful this can be done internally and externally. The first stage of recruitment procedure is to carryout a job analysis. This enables the tasks and activities to be carried out by a new employee. The process is more difficult if the post is new, i.e. where no one has experience of the tasks to be performed. In other for the tasks and activities to be performed, a job analysis will specify the skills required and the role and responsibilities to be held. Thereafter a ‘job description’ is produced this contains what the job is; it gives candidates details of what the job entitles. Once the job description has been completed, the next stage is to specify the skills, knowledge and qualification necessary to perform the job. This is therefore known as a ‘person specification’. This is used to form the selection process and is used to ‘short list’ applicants. This specification may include; level of education, length of experience, special skills knowledge or aptitude. Once the job description and person specification has been drawn, the next stage in the process is to decide how a vacancy is to be filled this may be done internally i.e. from within the organization Training and development; this is the process of systematically guiding or teaching employees to do something by subjecting them to various exercises or experiences, so that they improve job-related skills and knowledge. Lack of tanning may lead to a reduction in the possible production level, to errors and waste. Training is key part of working life. It adds to the skills abilities of the labour force and thus increases its supply; it is also a great motivators. This helps to give employees a sense of purpose, also helps to improve performance this also helps to facilitate secondment, transfer or promotion Training for future needs is long-term investment. Performances management; this is a process of monitoring the performance and managing a particular activity going on in a business. This is commonly done for the employees. This helps to know how well employee is managing and performing in their different departments. This process can be done in various ways these includes appraisal scheme, reviews, self-evaluation, peer evaluation. All this helps to know how well each employee is doing. The processes stated above helps to motivates staffs therefore this signifies that if all this process of managing employees are meet there is likely to be improvement in the business. At the end of this portfolio I’ll be giving information about a large business, each specializes in beverages. Shayo Bright HUMAN RESOURCES PLANNING Human resources function The human resources management covers a variety of activities. Some responsibilities covered by the human resources function are policy-making role, welfare role supporting role, bargaining and negotiating role educational and development role and administrative role. The type of work covered by Administrative role; this is concerned with the payment of staff’s wages at Kudirat Enterprises UK (payroll) and implementation of health and safety rules, sex discrimination act . Also at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) this includes human resources record keeping. The administrative role is important to the business because the work performed under this role act as incentive to staffs. This role is important as payment of staffs salary determines the quality of work a staff perform and the labour turnover. Managers use the HR record keeping during promotion to be able to know who is doing well. Welfare role; this role is concerned with looking after people working at Kudirat Enterprises Ltd UK and their need. At Kudirat Enterprises staffs compliance, communication and employees relation are under the welfare role. This role is important to Kudirat Enterprises Ltd UK as it determines the extent of staff motivation. If at Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) their welfare role were poor, then staffs would not feel motivated, as their needs are not satisfied. Lack of motivation also leads to low productivity therefore affecting the business in general. Educational and development role; this role is concerned with the training and development of the workforce at Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) responsibilities covered under this role is recruitment, training and development. This is important because employees are thought modern trends in the business and updated about changes during training. This helps Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) to be more modernized and updated and this enables them to compete effectively among competitors. Supporting role; this role is concerned with helping other functional managers to develop their work. In Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) the HR department does some work of the finance department. E.g. payroll. Also at Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) other functional areas such as production and marketing are supported by the HR department in the training and recruitment of staffs. This is important as cooperation among different functional department bring about the growth of the business. It also enables them perform their jobs effectively. Contribution of the administrative function of the HR department of Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) to the activities of the business. The main contribution of the administrative role to the department of Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) is to maintain an effective workforce. This is done by paying salaries to workforce and giving them adequate and right benefit. This makes staffs feel more valued. Therefore they are motivated and their productivity increases. This therefore helps them perform the activities if the business amore effectively. Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) main activity is production done by producing shoes. Also if the department of Kudirat Enterprises can maintain an effective workforce it means the labour turnover will be lower and the organization will be filled with competent people who have a fair knowledge of the business. In addition the administrative function of the human resource department at Kudirat Enterprises helps to ensure that the organisation is a safe place to work in, thereby eliminating direct or indirect discrimination and victimization. Internal staffing information These are internal factors with the business that enables them to carry out an effective human resource planning. Factor considered at Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK). Labour turnover; this is used in Kudirat Enterprises to determine the type of people leaving i.e. experienced or inexperienced people and section of the organisation with a high turnover. Also determine if there is need for a check in the reason for a high turnover. Labour turnover could be calculated in 2 ways: Labour stability rate (this is not the most accurate way of measuring turnover as it does not really give the exact). Wastage rate: this is used at Kudirat Enterprises. It is calculated: Wastage rate = Number of staff leaving in time period X 100 Number of staff leaving in time period Due to the fact that the HR department of Kudirat Enterprises (UK) ltd is young the labour turnover just started last year (but will continue to be done yearly). The labour turnover was recorded as 14%. This means that out of 240 employees 34 left i.e. 1 in 7 employees left the organisation. This is a very high turnover, which means productivity will be reduced. Also after the labour turnover was done at Kudirat Enterprises result showed that 19 out of the 34 employees who left were from production department. An ‘exist interview ‘was conducted in attempt to reduce this high turnover. Through this they found out that people felt the job was strenuous and boring. On the order hand, compared to the industry turnover of 20%, the turnover for Kudirat Enterprises was quite low. Age, skills and training; this information received last year as regard the age of employees working at Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) . Age as to do with the length of services. The above information shows a most of employees at Kudirat Enterprises are aged between 25-50. This is good as it reduces the number of employees leaving as a result of retirement and old age sickness. It also shows that most employees are female staffs thereby increasing the leave vacation e.g. maternity leave and sickness leave (this is because women are prone to sickness than men).this might have a negative effect on Kudirat Enterprises Ltd. The skills and training is important to Kudirat Enterprises as it helps determine skills they need in future and identify the skills the work force posses a minimum of G.C.S.E. certificate and behavioral skills. Other internal staffing information are not used at Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) because department is still young. This internal staffing information not used by Kudirat Enterprises Ltd (UK) is succession, sickness and accident rates. As the department is young statistics such as these as not taken in this regard formally but will soon be done. External Labour Market Information These are external factors that affect human resources planning. This factor includes; Government policies, Employment trends, Skills shortages, Competition from employers, Availability of labour. Not all external factors listed above affects Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd. factors that affect human resource planning at Kudirat Enterprises includes the following: Competition from employees Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is interested in knowing whether it competitor such as E Map, IPC, Natmags are contracting or expanding. This is because if they are expanding labour wages will be increased and supply will be less. This usually have a negative impact on Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd. On the hand if they are contracting will have a positive effect on Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd as supply of labour increase and it is easier to recruit right sort of staffs. Availability of labour This will depends on such factors as age distribution of the population, attitude of working women and the extent to which young people stay at school. In the publishing industry there is always labour available, as it one of the best industries. Employment trends and Government policies As at April 16 2004, employment continues at record level.28.330 million people in work, in December to February according to the labour force survey -up to 183 thousand in the last 3 month and 318 thousand over the last year -a rate 74.9%. This is up 0.4% on the last quarter. This is gotten from the labour market statistic website. Human resource planning at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is relevant to the labour market information as a fair knowledge of it helps in the planning of the human resources Labour market information relates to the HR planning because if these factors are not considered before planning then the plan is irrelevant as it is not updated. This helps Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd in the following ways to plan their Human resources: This therefore has to do with the amount of money to be collected to the areas of human resources. This may be indicated through government policies. Secondly the number of workers to be employees. This indicated through competition from employees and availability of labour. Finally, the types and money to be allocated to training. An evaluation of the use of external labour information to plan human resources Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is affected by skills shortage because in this industry there are high level of skilled employee shortages a lot of unskilled and semi-skilled labour in the market as the skilled labour has employed. This has affected Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd human resource planning as recruitment is planned mostly to be done internally. Also employment trends have little impact on Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd. This is because recruitment is done internally. Government polices such as incentives given to organizations that employees train people affect Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd HR planning in the sense that it determines the amount of money that want to allocate to recruitment and training The most essential external factor that affects Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is competition from employers. As Kudirat Company is a small business and therefore more likely to be impacted by action than macro changes in labour market. Popular sector never find difficult to find staff, but getting the BEST people requires engagement with competition. E.g. a competitor recently announced the closure of teen shoe, so they are now actively pursuing their people to join their teen shoe production titles. From the above it is clear that Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is using their external labour market information effectively to plan their Human resources. Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is not affected by availability of labour. This is because there is always adequate labour in the market. There is just question of is the labour well skilled or not. RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION This is the process whereby an organization selects the appropriate applicant or staffs fill the vacancies in the organization. Different organization use different recruitment documents e.g. application letters, application forms, curricula vitae, bio data, resumes etc. External Document At Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd the following recruitment documents are used: Curricula Vitae This is a brief summary of your career to date and a little about yourself. This is used for initial application. Features of CV: * Name * Date of birth * Address * Telephone * Education and training * Qualification * Achievements * Interest and hobbies * Work experiences * Reference Some organization requires photographs at this stage, but at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd they are concerned about the equal opportunity implication and discourage this practice. The CV presents Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd adequate information about application but Kudirat Enterprises does not rely on the CV only because: applicants omit negative statement about themselves thereby not presenting their true self, at times the applicant themselves might not prepare the CV, and also most times applicants are almost identical in terms of qualifications. Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd uses this recruitment document because as it present adequate information at this stage of selection and enables them determines if the applicant is capable of performing the work through the work experience and qualification. The purpose of the CV is to determine how capable the applicant is of performing this job and it contains adequate information in this regard. Application letters and biographical data Due to the fact that Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is a manufacturing house they use letters of applications and bio data. This is used to check how interesting the applications are. This is necessary to Kudirat Enterprises because the need staffs with good fashion and designing skills. Application letters have no basis features but it must contain your: i. Name ii. Address iii. Contribution you can make towards the organization. iv. Skills and knowledge you have acquired. Bio data consist of systematic information about hobbies, interest and life history. It helps HF to reduce staff turnover as candidates are matched with existing staff with similar interest can be found. This recruitment document doesn’t provide enough information enough information as nothing is known about the applicant’s disability or criminal distinguishes them from others. It purposes is to find out how interesting the application is it contains adequate information for this purpose. Application forms These are the best recruitment document as it contains every detail of the applicants but Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd does not use it. This is because the HR of Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is just a little over 2 year old. An application form would develop later in future. Internal recruitment documents The internal recruitment documents at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd are not formally developed yet. They are currently developing recruitment standards and the important thing for us is to develop a range of templates and guide lines that will enable managers to manage their own recruitment legally and effectively. Managers must complete an authority to recruit form to get permission to start the recruitment process. This is the only formal paperwork they have at present. Factors to consider in planning filling a vacancy and carrying out interviews Organisation recruit because many reasons. At Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd recruitment is done if there is a dismissal, resignation or retirement and changing job roles within the business. Different factors are considered when planning to a fill vacancy by different organisation. Some of the factors considered at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd are; whether there will be need for a role (spread work between others, special project)? Can it be filled internally (internally means the employees at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd), could it be filled via referrals/word of mouth (this is when employees at Kudirat Enterprises recommends people for the job). Can it also be filled via ‘free to use’ channels; advertising (this is mostly used when looking for managers)? Also at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd following procedures are carried out; Advertisement: When it is discovered that the vacancy can’t be filled internally Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd advertise for the job. Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd advertisement is carried out in Media Guardian, press Gazette mainly and also some website for specific jobs. Advertisement done by Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd contains the following information such as job titles, duties and responsibilities, salary expectation, Address and contact, qualification and experience needed, closing date of qualification. Short listing: After the advertisement has been places different application letters and CVs are dropped at the head office of Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd. After all these has been received i.e. a week after the closing date, the short listing process is carried out at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd. Short listing is the process of ejecting application letters and CVs that does not meet the set or required standard. Factors considered at Kudirat Enterprises during short would include Qualification; people with higher qualification are selected, as qualification is an ingredient in person specifications. Also this helps prepare you for the job. Experience and competencies; it has a greater advantage as people with higher experience perform their work in the most effective way. Applicants with higher experience have an advantage as they are selected. Competence is the ability of someone to perform a particular job. At Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd competence is measured or checked through what is stated in the application and contribution the applicant can make towards the organization. Hobbies and interest; this is also considered by Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd because it is a production factory. This is mostly considered by them to give them a competitive edge in there designing of shoe. This also considered when recruiting people in the marketing department and journalist. After this process kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd send letter to the list of successful candidates whose name has been short-listed. At Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd for every one job ten people are chose at this stage. The letter inviting them for an interview contains information such as; Venue of the interview, time and date of the interview and letter also indicates that they were successful. Interviews: After the letters have been sent, then the interview process is next. The interview done at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd is an informal interview (i.e. an oral interview). This is because they believe words of mouth applicants are likely to stay longer. The interview is conducted by a penal of 5 people including a member of the board of governor, HR director and a representative of the department, which has the vacancy. The other 2 people are chosen randomly. The panels assess the following: body language, eye contact, ability to give the right answer to the question asked and fluency in English. This form of interview is not the most suitable as it discriminatory as the panel already knows who they want the minute the applicant walks in. It tales them 2 days at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd to comply their interview result and decide the applicant they want. The panel does not only takes the decision but also everyone in the HR department and the department in which the vacancy is to be filled. This enables them to select the most competent and outstanding applicant. Recruitment process at Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd At Kudirat Enterprises (UK) Ltd job vacancies are filled internally. This is done through promotion and spread work. Recruitment is done internally because; it helps in innovating employee,

Assessment for learning Essay

Learning is an innate capability of a person. People perceive things and learn through their experiences while they grow up and develop accordingly with their ages. Aside from the normal people who learn in the normal way, there are off course other people who are above normal, after which learn through special trainings and conditioning. People learn accordingly with their capacity to gain information and store it in their minds. It is not only by sending children to school that they are learning but also through their real life experiences that require not only for their intelligence but also for their emotional skills. In determining the learning rate of a certain group, it is very important that the surveyor is able to gather the information about the specific group such as age range, family background, nutrition of the students and other factors that actually affect the learning activity of a person, be it a cognitive or conditional learning. There are also specific tests that can be given to the students or the target learners to have written and documented results. Suppose I chose the pool of elementary students that includes children ranging from 10-11 years old. These children are already exposed to a large scope of media that portray the different roles and scenarios in the society. If I am to analyze their emotional intelligence, I would give them examinations that can determine how well they interact with other students such that they will be told to work on groups. Through the activity, students with good family background can actually have the bigger possibilities of leading the group thus causing peace whenever other children tend to fight for what they believe. Off course there will be passive kind of children and the best tool to give or offer them are group dynamics that can actually unleash their inner talents. That is also possible if the conductor of the test is encouraging and enthusiastic. In terms of academic assessments, children on this age range can be fed with lectures and practice activities such as solving math problems or subject and verb agreement. In my past experiences as a child, it is very effective for me that children will be given the chance to construct their own sentences and math problems. After that, children will be asked to solve and analyze what they do and have it in group discussions. Group discussions can help the children to gain other ways of solving such problems and understanding different sentences. It is also helpful that the teacher follows up the development of the understanding of a student. Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson is necessary thus providing them devices and strategies that can help them understand more the difficult points. Specific tools that can be used in assessing the ability of a person in Mathematics and English can be flash cards and reading literary pieces (stories, anecdotes) respectively. Both can add up to the expertise of a student to the subject matter. Every child deserves the right for education. For those who can’t afford it, there are still many ways to supply your children with it; either tutoring them every day or enrolling them a school that caters scholarships. It is vital to feed the children with knowledge while they are young and still can acquire and save them to their memories. The value of education is much more priceless than any treasure in this world: not fading but still growing through ages. Reference QCA WEBSITE. Assessment for learning. Retrieved 1 May 2008 from http://www. qca. org. uk/qca_5067. aspx

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Module 2 Case - Assignment Example By contacting its consumers companies and customers across the globe, the company is in a position to create strong brands that are competitive. For example, Philips undertook a survey that involved interviewing 26,000 respondents across the world. In order to ensure that the company brands are effective and meet the customer needs, Philips undertakes qualitative research by the use of small focus groups that included professionals such as hospital surgeons who are regular users of scanning equipments (Eeva, 2014). The research that was undertaken in various countries such as Brazil, UK, Germany, US, AND China among others indicated that Philips makes the lives of its consumers better and that they believe they can rely on Philips brand. Philips relies on developing new brand as well as improving the existing ones. This is one of the aspects that make professionals to have strong positive brand-customer relationship. Phillips branding indicate emotions such as innovation, power to th e customers by means of technology, hope, liberty regained and aspirations. Apple, a US based electronics company believes in the production of state of art and style brands. Being one of the top brands in the world, the company adopts product diversification as way of meeting the diversified needs of its customers (Linzmayer, 1999). Some of the brands produced by Apple include computer parts, mp3, laptops and computers among others. The company state of art brands are made through the use of a digital hub as a strategy. Through innovation and research, Apple has produced quality brands that meet ready demand globally. The use of customer experience as well as unique user interface the company has become some of the core capabilities that have created strong positive customer-brand relationship in the company. Basically, Apple branding involves focusing on their products as well as the

Goals and Intentions Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Goals and Intentions - Research Paper Example While these art genres constitute overarching modes of production, there exists tremendous intention and variability within these genres. This essay compares Edouard Manet’s impressionist work ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergere’ with Jules Bastien-Lepage’s ‘The Haymaker’ and examines both works for the artists’ intentions of creation. Comparative and Contrasting Elements Overarching Elements Edouard Manet was one of the most prominent impressionists working in the 19th century. While his work is seminal as an artifact of impressionism, it also has a number of notable individual elements. In this context of understanding one considers Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergere’. Created in 1882 this was Manet’s last major work. While Edouard Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergere’ is firmly rooted in the impressionist genre, Jules Bastien-Lepage’s ‘The Haymaker’ is understood to rooted in naturalism. This specific work was created in 1878. There are a number of comparative and contrasting elements to these works’ outward intentions. Manet’s outward intention in the creation of the work is to depict the Folies-Bergere nightclub from Paris, France. The work itself contains a great amount of materials that function to situate it as a visual depiction of the Folies. Researchers noted a pair of green feet in the upper right hand corner; these are the depiction of a trapeze artist that is performing at the club. In addition to this visual element, the specific ale featured is also reminiscient of the Folies-Bergere, namely Bass Pale Ale; this is noted by the red triangle on the bottle. Conversely, Bastien-Lepage’s work ostensibly depicts a woman sitting in a field, with a man passed out beside her; the obvious understanding is that they have been making or gathering hay. When considered in contrast to Manet’s work a number of notable elements emerge. Perhaps the most notable consideration outside of genre is the divergent socio-economic depiction. While Manet’s work is concerned with urban Parisian existence, Bastien-Lepage’s painting explores notions of the rural working class. Lombardi notes the woman is a peasant and considers that, â€Å"She is exhausted by hours of work, certainly not dreaming, but bearing all the signs of her human condition† (Lombardi, pg. 28). Ultimately, the most notable difference is this divergent depiction of socioeconomic status. Thematic and Artistic Intentions While there are divergent depictions of socioeconomic class, the two works demonstrate a number of convergent thematic concerns. One connotation as articulated in both works is an underlining sexuality. Referring to his creation of the work Bastien-Lepage wrote a letter to a woman noting, â€Å"You make one feel the scent of the hay and the heat of the meadow† (Bastien-Lepage, pg. 37). This statement carr ies with it a number of interpretive possibilities. For instance, the woman’s exhaustive state, while ostensibly demonstrating her exhaustion from work, could also function as a metaphor from the post-sexual act. Similarly, one considers the woman’s face in the Manet work wherein she contains a contemplative and tired look, perhaps reflecting on her sexual interaction with the man depicted in the mirror. One consideration is the nature of the bar as a marketplace. It’s understood that the Bass Pale Ale is a beer that tourists would drink rather than regular Parisians. When one considers the

The Privatization of Intelligence Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6000 words

The Privatization of Intelligence - Term Paper Example The conventional intelligence cycle is characterized as fragmented and Clark argues for a more conjoined intelligence cycle under what is described as a target-centric approach to intelligence collection and sharing. However, one of the significant post-9/11 changes made to the intelligence cycle was the outsourcing of intelligence to the private sector. The Department of Homeland Security explained that since 9/11 the DHS has enhanced private sector involvement for â€Å"facilitating more effective and rapid communication with key organizations† and as a means of â€Å"bolstering regionally-focused information sharing efforts†. Russell argues however, that the intelligence community remains fragmented in that a number of agencies are responsible for collecting intelligence. For example, the National Security Agency is responsible for intercepting and decoding â€Å"communications†; the National Geospatial-Intelligence is responsible for analysing satellite images; the Defense Intelligence Agency is responsible for running â€Å"military defense attachà © collection abroad;and the Department of State oversees the collection of information from diplomats abroad. Moreover, the CIA has its own collection functions and also recruits spies for the benefit of US security. Complicating matters,the different agencies within the intelligence community have a tendency to jealously guard their information. While putting a tight lid on information can be justified on the grounds that it is too sensitive to risk unauthorised leaks, often times, information â€Å"hoarding† is cultivated by â€Å"petty bureaucratic rivalries†.8 This is problematic since analysts are required to make informed assumptions on the basis of information received from all the various sources of intelligence.9 Intelligence that merely informs decision-makers of what is taking place abroad or at home has less intrinsic value than intelligence that informs of what might be happening.10 The outsourcing of intelligence functions to the private sector can only serve to further fragment the collection and

The Globalization of Health Care Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Globalization of Health Care - Case Study Example The beneficiaries of globalization of health care include the hospital in the host countries, which are mainly countries undergoing development. Patients also benefit from globalization since they can access quality healthcare at low cost. The loser are the mother countries, which are mainly the developed countries such as U.S. that train most of the medical personnel who end up working elsewhere. Moreover, the service is paid for at the place of delivery and countries like U.S. are losing greatly due to the large number of people seeking treatment elsewhere (Deloitte 1-2). There are risks associated with health care globalization. One risk is that professionals are increasingly moving from poorer countries resulting in shortage of care providers in poor countries. Resolving this issue would be hard since the professional cannot be prevented from seeking better payments. Accountability of healthcare providers might be reduced since medical ethics vary across nations. This can be dealt with through introduction of some international ethics to guide health professionals. On balance globalization of healthcare is god since it has enhanced care provision and ensured that the less advantaged can access quality care at a cost they can afford to pay. Moreover, it has reduced the burden of care provision in countries lacking enough

Criminal Justice Budget Essay Example for Free

Criminal Justice Budget Essay Harris County, in Houston Texas, contains a pretty large population, and a large majority of that population classified as home owners. Harris county’s geographic size is considerably large, with a population estimate exceeding 3,935,855 peoples in 2007 (US Census Bureau, 2009). Furthermore, the percentage of Caucasians is around 73. 6%, with the Black population consisting of 18. 9%, Native Americans exceeding . 6%, Asian persons around 5. 5% and lastly the Hispanic population being around 38. 6% (US Census Bureau, 2009). The land area per 200 square miles is 1,728. Harris County’s current federal spending budget for the year of 2007 is around 21, 152, 659. When determining a budget for Harris County, one important aspect to consider is the county’s retail sales, which is around 39,358,036, displaying the current of industry and economic growth. The federal government spent over 19 billion dollars in 2003 on the war on drugs, at a rate of about 600 dollars per second (www. drugsense. org). The total amount of money spent on the war on drugs at the federal level is about 4,258,600,939, while at the state level 6,536,936,825, totaling over 10,800,600,300 dollars (www. drugsense. com). The failed war on drugs has not stopped drug usage, on the contrary, it has made criminal cartels rich by illegalizing drugs, thus giving them a product to sell, and increased not only the availability and potency of drugs, but, also their rate of usage across the country. For example, after the US has spent over 500 billion dollars to fight drugs, cocaine is now as cheap as it was when kingpin Escobar died and more heavily used, furthermore, methamphetamine, which was barley even a problem in the years following 1993, is now used by over 1. 5 million Americans and is proven to be more addictive than crack (Wells, 2007). The war on drugs has put over 500,000 people behind bars for drug crimes with no discernable effect on the drug trafficking industry, if anything; it has grown (Wells, 2007). When preparing a budget for Harris County, the most important thing that could be done is ending the failed war on drugs, which would save tax payers an estimated 12 billion dollars or more a year. Furthermore, instead of focusing a majority of the states federal budget on building more prisons begin building more universities, and residential communities. I find it interesting to note that the annual cost to tax payers in California to keep and maintain their prisons is around 10 billion per year, if this spending trend continues; California will be spending more on prisons than on universities (Abramsky, 2007). In ending the war on drugs, with the billions that would be saved, tax cuts, business incentives, and an overall increase in the standard of living for the community. Furthermore, instead of building prisons, states could build real, industry that produces’ real goods. References Wells, Ben (2007) How America Lost the War on Drugs Rolling Stone retrieved on March 16, 2009 from http://www. rollingstone. com/news/story/17438347/how_america_lost_the_war_on_drugs Abramsky, Sasha (2007) Prison Crisis: Will California Spend more on jails than Universities? Rights and Liberties retrieved on March 16, 2009 from http://www. alternet. org/rights/65868/? page=entire US Census Bureau (2009) State and County quick facts The US Census Bureau on March 16, 2009 from http://quickfacts. census. gov/qfd/states/48/48201. html Unknown Author (2009) Drug War Clock Drug Sense retrieved on March 16, 2009 from http://www. drugsense. org/wodclock. htm

Market Structure And Competition Of Next Plc Economics Essay

Market Structure And Competition Of Next Plc Economics Essay Mission: We plan to supply an complete lofty stage of repair to all our consumers to greeting them to Next, whether they are shopping in our elevated road, shopping centre or trade commons provisions, the Next Index, or online from side to side our website. Though our clientele prefer to supermarket with us, it should be secure, hospitable and simply reachable for all. We aspire to take action to consumers exacting desires from end to end the box up of actions we have in position, which we suppose chains all our consumers as well as individuals with further wants. Values and Objective: The ultimately objective of Next Plc is the delivery of sustainable long term growth in earnings per share. In the current economic environment, it will be very challenging to reverse this years deadline in EPS in the short term and for the year ahead EPS is again expected to reduce. Nevertheless, the board remains convinced that the groups long term objective is best achieved by continuation of the following strategies in its operating business. Improving and developing Next product ranges, success in which is reflected in total sales and like for kike sales performance. Ventura, which provides consumer services organization to regulars wishing to contract out their consumer phone organization and completion activates. Lipsy, which designs and sells its possess recognized younger womens manner goods from first to last extensive, trade and internet channels. Shareholders Influence: Bat always try to keep the commitment that they made with their investors. Under this, share holder can raise any question regarding the operation procedure of Next Plc. And the shareholders can even choose their Board of Director. P2: Shareholders Influence: Bat always try to keep the commitment that they made with their investors. Under this, share holder can raise any question regarding the operation procedure of Bat Plc. And the shareholders can even choose their Board of Director. P3: Used for Next, company liability resources addressing type commerce connected societal, moral and ecological impacts and ensuring we jog our trade in a accountable way. We observe company accountability as a type constituent of how we behavior our commerce as we consider it makes good quality commerce brains. The areas we have recognized as having everyday jobs are: Our Suppliers we will jobs for helpful societal, moral and ecological improvements in our provide sequence Our Consumers we will job to make sure we gather or go above our consumers prospect from side to side the release of brilliant foods and service Our People we will job to offer an situation where our recruits are supported and appreciated, treated rather and in use worry of, listened to and are provoked to realize their full probable Community we will work to deliver value through our community contributions and support for charities and other organizations**** Environment we will work to keenly decrease the impacts of our on the business natural environment P5 In anticipation of ten years ago the term Welfare Work was a expression without meaning in the manufacturing world. In the present day it stands for a specific strategy on the part of employers which may bring about the explanation of many of the irritated problems of labor and resources. The leaven of this rule already has begin to job. A branch of wellbeing work from beginning to end which the business has had a great pressure on the people and the environment of the zone is that of countryside farming. At the time when wellbeing work was on track the environment of the industrial unit were like persons of most manufacturing plant life something but beautiful. Subsequent to the company has made its own goods attractive with lawns, undergrowth and vines, it trained the people of the locality, by lectures and demonstrations, the main beliefs of countryside farming. Consequently of this operation of education the industrial unit locality has been change from a region of stumble -down houses, powder plenty and tin cans to a locality of attractive homes and well set aside yards. P6 The impact of Macro-economic (Monetary and Fisca)l Strategy on the economy There are some differences in the economic effects of financial and economic rule, on the masterpiece of productivity, the helpfulness of the two kinds of rule in assembly the governments macroeconomic objectives, and also the time lags concerned for financial and fiscal rule changes to take effect. We will believe each of these in roll: Effects of Strategy on the Composition of National Output Economic strategy is often seen as incredible of a blunt rule implement upsetting all sectors of the economy even though in unusual ways and with a changeable contact. On the contrary, economic rule can be under attack to involve convinced groups (e.g. increases in resources -tested profit for low earnings households, reductions in the rate of company tax for small- middling sized enterprises, speculation allowances for businesses in sure regions) think as an example the effects of using either fiscal or economic strategy to reach a given raise in national earnings because actual GDP lies below probable GDP (i.e. there is a unnecessary output gap) (i) Pecuniary strategy expansion: Minor awareness rates will lead to an increase in customer and business capital expenses both of which increases national income. Since investment spending results in a larger capital stock, then incomes in the future will also be higher all the way through the impact on LRAS. (ii) Monetary policy extension: An extension in monetary rule adds unswervingly to AD but if financed by advanced government borrowing, this may consequence in advanced interest rates and lower investment. The net result is the same increase in current income. On the other hand, since investment expenses is minor, the investment stock is lower than it would have been, so that future incomes are inferior. In UK lots of multinational organization are operating, Many people from different part of the world also visited in UK for different purposes, if the global economy fall the business of UK based company also fall down. As a result they faces difficulties to earn profit and ultimately the shareholders suffer. P7 Perfect Competition: A market is said to be perfectly competitive when firms perceive that they individually have no noticeable influence on market price. The outcome in such an industry is efficient in the sense that the cost of the last unit of output (marginal cost) would just equal what consumers would be willing to pay for that unit. Perfect competition is a regarded as a benchmark market structure for evaluating other market structures. Market Structure and Competition: The market structures tells us about the environment within which an enterprise functions and the nature of external pressure on the enterprise. The elements of market structure that we look at are concentration ratio, stability of market shares, conditions of entry and exit of firms. FDI Policy Stability of Markets Shares A limitation of the above summary measures of concentration is that they ignore the dynamic changes in the market shares of individual firms. Market shares of dominant firms may increase or decline over time. Greater churning of market shares in given market suggests greater intensity of competition. P8 Market forces and organizational Response: Organizations always responses positively toward market forces. P9 Company Summary: This segment presents the key details statistics, business explanation, and products services unfilled by the corporation. Key Competitors: This section first selects the competitors based on assets, sales, focus of business, or geographic achieve. Then all the competitors are profiled. Key Industry Strategies of Each Competitor: It talks about the present and future strategies of each business. All industry, marketing, monetary and governmental strategies are discussed here. Relative SWOT Psychiatry: Our comparative SWOT analysis is a valuable step in assessing your companys and you competitors strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It offers powerful insight into the critical issues affecting a business. Comparative Financial Analysis: This section compares the recent financials of the company and its competitors. The financial performance of each segment of all the companies is also discussed here. The objective is to appraise the financial health of the company vis-Ã  -vis its competitors. The stock price comparison helps us in evaluating the performance of the company position versus its competitors from an investors standpoint. There is an imperative role for tobacco control advocates in the policy development process in authoritarian agencies. P10 The selling and advertising of goods and services crossways national boundaries is known as worldwide trade. International trade is the spinal column of our modern, commercial world, as producers in various nations try to profit from an extended market, rather than be limited to selling within their own boundaries. There are many reasons that trade across national borders occurs, including lower construction costs in one region versus another, dedicated industries, lack or surplus of natural capital and purchaser tastes. One of the most contentious mechanism of global trade in the present day is the lower construction costs of on the rise nations. Both the United States and the European Union have forced severe limitations on imports from Asian nations to try to stem this tide. Obviously, a business that can pay its staff the equivalent of dollars a day, as compared to dollars an hour, has a discrete selling benefit. P11 Discussion with UK SME commissioner bodies on familial and European matters consistently shows that the main issue for their members is regulation. The 2007 EU Observatory Survey found that 36% of SMEs within Europe reported that regulations acted as a restraint or had presented difficulties in the before two years. At the same time as progress has been at the EU level, for example on the encouragement of the Think Small First standard and the European Commissions promise to reduce organizational burdens by 25%, we think a much more ambitious set of measures should be introduced An additional important issue is access to finance, where we believe action should be focused on improving the demand side, in meticulous investment readiness, and the supply of modest amounts of finance for entrepreneurs who, for various reasons, are deemed to be a higher risk. In order to grow, SME must also have access to new markets. Generally, exporting firms have been found to benefit from greater efficiency growth than non-exporters. P12 The UK has to make a decision on membership of EMU in the next two years. The economic and fiscal regimes in the Euro Area and in the UK do not differ greatly. However, we argue that relationship of EMU will increase the steadiness of the economy and the credibility of the policy framework, and hence will enhance the prediction for growth and higher incomes and service.

The Myth Of Equality In American Society Politics Essay

The Myth Of Equality In American Society Politics Essay The American society is viewed by the global community as the nation of freedom, as the country in which any person is able to experience the greatest degree of equality. Indeed, the United States of America is undoubtedly the most diverse nation in the world with people representing different cultures and ethnicities. The Constitution of the United States guarantee equal protection of all citizens and prohibits discrimination based on gender, age, physical characteristics, or any other factors which make one person different to the others. However, it should be recognized that the American society does not function as the nation of equals as discrimination, stereotyping, and prejudices are still widespread. The American children are taught at schools that the United States of America was founded with the idea that all people are considered equal (Jeynes and Martinez 195). The history books suggest that the founding fathers did not apply this idea to the African American slaves in the South; however, the ratification of the Constitution was the first step to bring the principle of equality into law. Even though the American government grants equal rights and equal protections to all citizens, it would be wrong to state with confidence that the American society is the nation of equals. Jeynes and Martinez emphasize that as long as Darwinism evolution remains the sole teaching about mans origins that children are exposed to in the public schools, racism will be highly institutionalized in the way children are instructed (196). Even though this argument deals mostly with religious aspects of the human evolution, Jeynes and Martinez describe the current situation in American society very clear. Even today, many people are strongly convinced that the Whites are superior to African Americans in their intellectual abilities while African Americans are superior to Whites in terms of physical development and athletic skills. It is possible to assume that African Americans, for example, are more skilful in sports due to their physical characteristics; however, this difference should not become the benchmark for dividing society in groups. Due to the social stratification and the segmentation of the nation into different groups, the concept of equality is present on the paper only. Every person has a number of groups he or she belongs to. For example, a teenager may belong to the African American group by his race, basketball team by his sports participation, Christian group by his religious beliefs, and high school community by his age. From one side, social identification is necessary for the development as well as normal functioning of any person. From the other side, the institutionalized social groups contribute to further division of society and diminishment of the concept of equality. Sidlow and Henschen draw the attention of the American nation to the idea of civil rights which guarantee all citizens equal treatment under the law, as supported with the Fourteenth Amendment (99). From the standpoint of democracy, all people have equal rights as well. However, the idea of equality within American society is an ideal which has not been achieved yet. Numerous groups in American society struggle today to obtain equal treatment. For example, the gay couples try to obtain legal equality in terms of marriage and adoption of children and millions of illegal immigrants strive to achieve legal status of citizens. Thus, the law does not allow discrimination against a particular group of people; however, it does not imply that equality is created. In a sense, the emergence of the independent United States is based on the history of discrimination against minorities. Sidlow and Henschen emphasize that discrimination against women, African Americans, and Native Americans dates back to the early years of the nation, the time when farmers in the South refused to give equal rights to others (99). As more and more diverse people arrived to the United States, it was necessary to bring in the issue of equality into political framework. Nevertheless, it was not enough to ensure equality on the paper; it was necessary to integrate the concept of equality into social relations. Consequently, today millions of people belonging to diverse minority groups have no opportunity to experience equality in their daily lives. It is important to mention that despite of the widespread recognition of the importance of equality and tolerance towards differences among people, the scientific and academic community started to focus on the rights of minority people only a decade or two ago. In particular, the idea of the inclusive classrooms emerged only several years ago, when the educators realized that their classrooms were composed of diverse students with different needs. It does not mean that classrooms became diverse only a decade ago. It means that the issue of equality has not been properly addressed before. Initially, it was expected that the diverse people coming to the United States would be assimilated into the mainstream culture. However, Vera and Feagin argue that today the mere idea of assimilation is no longer effective. Thus, clear distinctions are made between those who believe all people should be given a fair chance to succeed and those who believe that if people dont have equal access to res ources, measures should be take to equalize opportunity (299). Unfortunately, the equality in American nation exists mostly theoretically rather than practically. People are judged by their market value, as Americans are taught to respect the wealthy and despise the poor. The human character has less value than social and physical attributes. Moreover, Vera and Feagin suggest that very few people are willing to support proactive measure to ensure equality because it would mean loss of the privileges for the dominant groups. At the same time, many people believe that equality is the defining feature of the American society, as any person from any part of the world is able to become successful in this country. However, this view is expressed in support of the economic success rather than social equality. In addition to economic measures of success, the American people attribute significant value to individualism as opposed to collectivism. In other words, Americans tend to emphasize the importance of individuals rather than teams, groups, or community. Naylor argues that because of this particular flavor of self-reliance, the American nation can not become equal (56). For many people, equality means nothing more than equal participation in educational and educational systems, for example. Indeed, equality does not mean that all people have equal talents and are able to achieve outstanding success. Equality is not attainable in these aspects. Therefore, equality means equal access to systems and equal opportunities for all people. The global community believes that the American nation grants equal opportunities to all citizens. Nevertheless, until today no significant progress has been achieved to guarantee equal opportunities. Many initiatives have been introduced to tackle the problem of discrimination with the hope to integrate equality into American society. For example, the affirmative action was institutionalized to give minority students a better chance for admission. However, affirmative action initiative failed because of its ineffectiveness. The American society is not a nation of equals, and the removal of the political barriers to equality did not result in the removal of economic and social barriers as well. Naylor suggests that the members of the mainstream culture tend to focus on freedom, the rights of the individual, equality, achievement, and mobility (57). The members of other groups strive to become part of mainstream culture as well. The reason to seek membership in dominant culture is rather obvious for many centuries, the dominating groups have been enjoying more rights and freedoms. Today, the situation is not much different to the time when African Americans were slaves, for example. Even though slavery has been prohibited, members of minority groups do not have equal access to political, economic, and social systems. The reason for the failure to bring equality into society is not related to the weakness of political system or lack of opportunities for all. The key issue behind lack of equality is related to cultural and economic factors. For example, a teenager born to immigrant parents may not have equal opportunity to attend college compared to other students only because his parents are not able to afford education. Consequently, this teenager is not able to take advantage of equal opportunity to have well-paid job because lack of education is projected on career. In the long-run, this teenager is likely to become an adult who does not fit the mainstream group of successful, educated Whites not because of ethnic or racial differences but rather because of the social and economic barriers. In conclusion, the American nation prides itself for its principle of equality, freedoms and rights for all. Nevertheless, the reality is that equality remains nothing more than a concept addressed by the American Constitution. As the nation of immigrants, the American society includes diverse people who strive to take the fullest advantage of their individualism. To ensure equality, the government should remove not only legislative barriers to equal participation but also provide all people with an opportunity to participate in economic and social systems.

No Due Process :: essays research papers

Not long ago the Korea Herald published a letter extolling the virtues of American justice as applied in the case of the two American soldiers who drove a military track vehicle over two Korean middle school girls, killing them. In comparing the American and Korean systems of justice, the writer suggested circumspectly that the American system, being more objective due to its emphasis on process, is superior. The premise of the argument was that if the judicial processes developed over time through planning and trial and error are followed, Americans see justice as having been done, without particular regard to the outcome, whereas Koreans first posit that damage has occurred and base their judgment of whether or not justice has been done on whether or not some reparation has been made. While not stated explicitly, the upshot of this is that Americans presume innocence and Koreans presume guilt. I agreed in many ways with the writer’s take on the American system, since it app eared to emphasize the role of the constitution and the rule of law but, having almost no knowledge the Korean legal system, I was skeptical of his conclusions, especially given the letter’s evident nationalist tinges, so it was with interest that I read another writer’s well-written and thoughtful, though overly emotional response which the paper published not long afterward. Now, a few months later, the original, presumably American writer’s letter seems almost laughable in the face American policy. Where is the supposed regard for process, or, if you like, ‘due process’? I, an American (surprise!), have read some things that scare the Orwell out of me. Using a predator drone, the United States military launched a missile that destroyed a carload of terrorists in Afghanistan. Fine. War on terrorism, etc. Maybe, if we try really hard, we can overlook the fact that we, the general public, have no way of knowing whether the people (PEOPLE) in the car were terrorists or wedding party-goers. It turns out, though, that an American citizen was killed in that very same car. In the same article in which I read of this high-tech car bombing, information cited as coming from the Bush administration stated that there was no constitutional issue surrounding the murder of this American. Why not? Because he was an enemy combatant. Therefore, apparently, he was not eligible for, did not deserve, the constitutional protection, the presumption of innocence, guaranteed by the United States Constitution—the same presumption of innocence afforded the American soldiers who ran over two Korean girls on a country road.

Anger Management and Health Essay -- Health Anger Emotions Essays

Anger Management and Health Everybody feels anger from time to time. People have been documented feeling anger since biblical times when God was considered angry. Babies even exhibit signs that are interpreted as anger, such as crying or screaming. Anger is not in any way unique to people. Animals also have the ability to feel and express anger. In our personal lives we get angry over at least one thing on almost a daily basis, whether it be on the job, with a spouse or loved one, or perhaps with a figure of authority. Many psychologists have written about anger, discussing the relationship between anger and fear. Each of the individuals that comprise humanity possesses at least one phobia, in the same way that each is capable of possessing anger. The negativity that is associated with phobias often spills over into our feelings about anger. We begin to think negatively about anger since we associate it with fear. Plato was the first to suggest that anger was a disbalance. According to Dr. Willard Gaylin, a prominent psychologist, anger is still seen as a disbalance by many of today's psychologists. Since Plato, anger has suffered a bad reputation. We only have to imagine a domestic abuse scene to immediately condemn anger in all of its manifestations. There is a reason why anger is viewed in a negative light. Nobody likes it when someone is angry with them. We tend to avoid the wrath of those around us. This is one reason we see anger as negative. Another reason may lie closer to Plato's concept of imbalance. The negative perception of anger is evident in the American Heritage Dictionary's definitions of the word anger (1): 1. A feeling of extreme displeasure, hostility, indignation, or someone or something; rage; wrath; ire. 2. (Obsolete) Trouble; pain; affliction. To say, "I'm getting angry", is to invoke fear in another, usually, that fear originates from a perception that the utterer of the phrase is about to take some sort of dramatic action. Dr. Gaylin speaks for these emotions, rage is a response to a perceived assault that effects the body in interesting ways. Skeletal muscles are tensed; the autonomic system moves to increase the supply of adrenaline and redistribute the blood flow of the body; certain muscles are contracted and opposing ones relaxed. (2) Apparently, anger is viewed negatively for a reas... ...s easy. But to be angry at the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not so easy.† (4) Chronic anger does lead to health problems. Not everyone suffers from anger, but for those that do, it means a multitude of emotional related illnesses. Anger is often accompanied by an imbalance of hormones, as Plato recognized, and no imbalance is healthy in the long run. With consciousness and relaxation, people may be able to achieve dominance over anger, rather than allowing it to have dominance over them. Works Cited: 1 American Heritage Dictionary Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA 1985 2 Gaylin, Willard, M.D. The Anger Within: Anger in Modern Life. Simon and Schuster, New York, NY 1984 3 Internet Research: Coping with Anger, 1996 4 McKay, Rogers When Anger Hurts: Quieting the Storm Within. New Harbinger, Oakland, CA 1989 5 Bernstein and Rozen Dinosaur Brains: Dealing with all Those Impossible People at Work. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY 1989 6 Weisinger, Hendrie, M.D. Anger at Work: Learning the Art of Anger Management on the Job. William Morrow and Comapny, New York, NY 1995

Sustainable Production Practices and Determinant Factors of Green Supply Chain Management of Chinese Companies

Business Strategy and the Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) Published online 16 February 2011 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary. com) DOI: 10. 1002/bse. 705 Sustainable Production: Practices and Determinant Factors of Green Supply Chain Management of Chinese Companies Xianbing Liu,1* Jie Yang,2 Sixiao Qu,2 Leina Wang,2 Tomohiro Shishime1 and Cunkuan Bao2 1 Kansai Research Centre, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan 2 College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, ChinaABSTRACT This paper explores the green supply chain management (GSCM) of companies based in the Yangtze River Delta, China. The companies’ overall GSCM practice level (LGSCM) is measured by using the data from 165 valid respondents in a questionnaire survey conducted during April and May 2009. The relationships between LGSCM and the classi? ed determinant factors are analyzed. It is indicated that Chinese companies are still at a preliminar y stage of GSCM practices. Their environmental management in cooperation with external members of the supply chain is very marginal.A company’s LGSCM is signi? cantly and positively associated with the external pressures from regulatory, domestic clients and business competitors. As an internal factor, a company’s learning capacity greatly determines LGSCM. We also con? rm that the internal factors function as intermediate variables of external pressures in in? uencing a company’s GSCM. A company’s environmental management capacities will be strongly enhanced by frequent internal training of employees to increase its involvement in GSCM practices.Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 5 July 2010; revised 14 December 2010; accepted 16 December 2010 Keywords: sustainable production; green supply chain management; practices; determinant factors; China Introduction environment, in the forms of pollutant generation, ecosystem disruption and depletion of resources (Fiksel, 1996). The pressures and drivers from abroad accompanying globalization have pushed manufacturers in developing economies like China to improve their environmental performance (Zhu and Sarkis, 2006).Environmental concerns gradually become part of the overall business culture and, in turn, help re? engineer the development strategies of corporations (Madu et al. , 2002). Corporate environmental management (CEM) has been moving from traditional pollution control and risk management towards product life? cycle * Correspondence to: Xianbing Liu, Kansai Research Centre, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Hitomirai Building 4F, 1? 5? 2, Wakinohama Kaigan Dori, Chuo? ku, Hyogo, 651? 0073, Japan. E? mail: [email  protected] or. jp Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment OUT OF ALL BUSINESS OPERATIONS, MANUFACTURING PROCESSES ARE VIEWED TO HAVE THE HIGHEST IMPACTS ON THE 2 Xianbing Liu et al. manageme nt and industrial ecology. Recently, CEM has extended to certain boundary? spanning activities like green procurement, product stewardship, reverse logistics and so on (Zsidisin and Siferd, 2001; Snir, 2001; Prahinski and Kocabasoglu, 2006). These practices are related to supply chain management, which requires various interactions between the core manufacturer and the other entities along the supply chain, either the upstream suppliers or downstream distributors and customers.The concept of supply chain management for environmental protection was ? rst put forward by Drumwright (1994), which identi? ed the characteristics of those companies introducing new manufacturing ideas. Later, green supply chain management (GSCM) was de? ned as a new term by the Manufacturing Research Association at Michigan State University, USA (Hand? eld, 1996). The fast economic growth of China has greatly relied on the extensive expansion of manufacturing industries which produce resource? intensive but cheap goods for foreign markets.The regulatory requirements in developed economies, such as the familiar European Union (EU) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, have forced electronics manufacturers in China to actively practice certain GSCM activities. The relatively high position of Chinese manufacturers in the global supply chain offers the possibility, and an ideal setting, to explore their actual GSCM involvements. Zhu et al. (2008) studied the emerging GSCM practices at company level in a Chinese context, and con? med that GSCM is still a new concept for most Chinese companies as they change their environmental management from internal efforts to the whole supply chain. In terms of determinant factors for GSCM practices, this previous study mainly focused on a company’s internal issues, such as the importance of the company’s learning? oriented programs and support of top manage rs. The pressures from externally related stakeholders bear further study due to their importance to a company’s environmental behavior (Zhu et al. , 2008).Subsequent studies employing both external pressures and internal factors would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationships between GSCM practices and the determinant factors. In addition, Zhu et al. (2008) conducted their survey in the northern cities of China. Surveys of companies based in the other geographical areas of China would be necessary and meaningful. In order to close the research gap described above, this paper identi? es the external pressures which determine the level of a company’s GSCM practices while using internal factors as the intermediate variables.The Yangtze River Delta, including Shanghai and surrounding regions, is selected as the study area mainly due to its relatively developed economy compared with other regions of China. The improved background of CEM provides us wi th the possibility of monitoring a company’s GSCM practices there. Considering the complexity of GSCM practices, which may be attributed to the wide scope of environmental activities at different phases of the supply chain, this paper classi? es four categories of typical GSCM activities by referring to the existing literatures (e. g.Sarkis, 2005). Two topics are mainly discussed in this paper: (1) the current status of GSCM practices of the companies in the study area; and (b) determinant factors, external and internal, predicting the level of a company’s involvement in GSCM practices. Literature Review Although there is no uniform de? nition for GSCM so far, basic and common understandings have been formed theoretically and in practice. GSCM emphasizes the concerns for the environment along the whole supply chain and requires long? term and strategic collaborations between the supply chain members.GSCM covers the management of the life cycle of a product, from its ma nufacture and consumption until the end? of? life (Nagel, 2000). GSCM practices may be separated according to the stages of production, distribution and utilization, and thus can be categorized into internally green manufacturing activities, green procurement, eco? design, green retailing and green consumption by individuals (Walton et al. , 1998; Zsidisin and Hendrick, 1998; Carter et al. , 2000). Research on GSCM has been building gradually, but still remains sparse (Vachon and Klassen, 2008).GSCM studies were previously conducted by addressing the following aspects: general and basic issues like designing the framework for GSCM (Geoffrey et al. , 2002); implementation of GSCM strategies (Sarkis, 2003); environmental assessment of GSCM practices (Vijay et al. , 2003); relationship between a company’s performance and GSCM practices (Klassen and Mclaughin, 1996); and speci? c GSCM activities like green purchasing (Min and Galle, 1997), Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, L td and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bseGreen Supply Chain Management in China 3 total quality and environmental management (Sarkis, 1999), green marketing (Karna and Heiskanen, 1998), and environmental performance evaluation of suppliers (Hines and Johns, 2001). Cooperation among the companies on the supply chain is the key to drive them to improve the environmental compatibility of their businesses (Ken et al. , 2000). Generally, the bene? ts of collaborative practices with upstream suppliers are much broader. In contrast, collaboration with downstream customers yields mixed outcomes Vachon and Klassen, 2008). By exploring the operational performances due to green partnership along the supply chain, Vachon and Klassen (2006) indicated that partnership with customers was positively related to product quality and ? exibility, whereas partnership with suppliers was associated with better delivery operations. Thun and Muller (2010) interviewed m anagers from the automotive supply industry in Germany and con? rmed the need for GSCM on the one hand but corresponding problems in terms of required resource on the other.Case studies of the British and Japanese food retail sector and the British aerospace industry showed that it would be easier to adopt GSCM if certain suppliers could play a leading role in a group of similar suppliers (Jeremy, 2000). While large companies can mandate their supplies to comply with certain environmental initiatives, cooperative approaches are likely to be more fruitful. Sharfman et al. (2009) suggested that inter rm trust, uncertainty and proactive environmental management most directly affect the extent of a company’s engagement in GSCM.Jeppesen and Hansen (2004) examined the conditions for environmental upgrading of Third World companies led by foreign companies. They argued that environmental upgrading on the value chain must be understood partly as a result of external industry and mark et forces, and partly as a result of the internal resources and competitive strategies of the companies involved. Two typical models are found for better application of GSCM strategies. One is to develop more environmentally friendly goods through cooperation like joint research.The other is to request that the suppliers satisfy higher environmental standards, for example achieving ISO14001 certi? cation, and the limitation of speci? ed materials in products. The construction of cooperative strategies and the evaluation of suppliers help improve the compatibilities of supply chain to the environment (Lamming, 1996). The extent of GSCM practices adopted by Chinese companies was examined by a survey of companies in several industrial sectors such as power generation, petrochemicals, electric and electronics and automobiles (Zhu and Geng, 2006).It was hard for the surveyed companies to integrate environmental issues into their business operations with suppliers and customers. Some lead ing companies have made efforts in internally proactive CEM practices like pursuing ISO14001 certi? cation, but most have just started to consider external GSCM activities. In China, environmental pressures are stronger for large companies than for small and medium? sized ones (Zhu and Geng, 2001). Automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have been required by the automobile assemblers to operate in an environmental manner since Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.Chinese electronic enterprises are found to be performing better in GSCM practices (Zhu and Sarkis, 2006). Development of an Analytical Framework and Research Hypotheses As mentioned earlier, this study tries to expand the determinant factors of GSCM practices in China from a company’s internal explanatory variables, which have been explored in previous studies (e. g. Zhu et al. , 2008), to the external pressures. Different alternative theoretical viewpoints, such as stakeholder t heory, institutional theory and the resource? based view, have been used to look at GSCM practices.As typical inter? organizational collaborations, the stakeholder theory with broad acceptance would be appropriate for discussing GSCM issues rather than intra? organizational management activities. In practice, stakeholder theory and institutional theory are rather similar in grouping a company’s external ‘others’, including the input and output environment of the company (suppliers and product consumers), its competitive environment (companies producing similar services or products) and its regulatory environment (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Delmas and Toffel, 2004).In this study, we identi? ed the determinant factors of GSCM practices by referring to existing literature and developed an overall analytical framework as shown in Figure 1. The relationships between the determinant factors and a company’s GSCM activities and research hypotheses are explained as follows. Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 4 Xianbing Liu et al. Figure 1. Overall analytical framework of this studyHypothesis a (Ha): External Pressures The importance of external factors lies in the complementary nature of the factors behind Chinese companies’ adoption of GSCM practices at the early stage of environmental policy transformation. Besides the requirements of governmental regulations, domestic and foreign clients, competitors and neighboring communities may exert pressures on the companies (Hall, 2000). These external pressures have jointly prompted companies to become more aware of environmental problems and to practice certain GSCM activities (Sarkis, 1998; Hervani et al. 2005). Customer expectations have become the most important external pressure (Doonan et al. , 2005). To achieve sustainable solutions and business goals, the environmental properties of products and ser vices have to satisfy customer demands (Zhu and Sarkis, 2006). ‘Communities’ refer to those who are not necessarily involved in the business partnership directly but have knowledge of local companies (Nelson et al. , 1999). The community perspectives shoul be adequately represented as they may in? uence a company’s decision? aking process (Kearney, 2004). It has been indicated that communities have the ability to in? uence the social reputation of a company (Henriques and Sadorsky, 1996). According to Zhu and Sarkis (2006), Hall (2000) and Sarkis (1998), external pressures are believed to be important factors affecting a company’s GSCM practices. This generates the ? rst integrative hypothesis of this study as: Ha: companies that face higher pressures from external stakeholders are more likely to adopt GSCM practices.Hypothesis b (Hb): Internal Factors Business strategy is not only in? uenced by external stakeholders since companies subject to the same lev el of external pressure may perform differently (Prakash, 2000; Gunningham et al. , 2003). It is argued that companies also adopt different environmental practices due to their individual interpretations of the objective pressures from the outside. The difference between ‘objective’ and ‘perceived’ pressures would lead to diverse responses from companies.Therefore, our analytical model adds two internal organizational factors, namely support by top managers and a company’s learning capacity, to jointly explain a company’s GSCM practices. Management support by top managers is critical for the introduction and implementation of innovations in a company, especially environmental management systems (EMSs) (Daily and Huang, 2001). Top management support can affect the success of new initiatives by facilitating employee involvement or by promoting a cultural shift in the company, for example. Previous research suggests that cross? unctional programs need support from senior management, and indicates that top management support is associated with the success of environmentally preferable purchasing (Carter et al. , 1998). As GSCM is a broad? based organizational endeavor, Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China 5 it has the potential to bene? t from top management support. Meanwhile, a company’s learning capacity is viewed as especially important in a resource? ased view. GSCM practices are amenable to the bene? ts derived from learning since they are human resource? intensive and greatly rely on tacit skill development by employee involvement, team work and shared expertise (Hart, 1995). The capacity for implementing innovative environmental approaches is usually enhanced by employee self? learning, professional education and on? the? job training. The education level of employees and the frequency of internal environmental training are often used as proxies of a company’s learning capacity.The above discussions suggest two sub? hypotheses on internal factors which may be expressed as Hb1 and Hb2: Hb1: a company’s level of GSCM practices is positively associated with the support of top managers. Hb2: a company’s level of GSCM practices is positively associated with the company’s learning capacity. Hypothesis c (Hc): the Linkage of External and Internal Factors As discussed above, the addition of internal factors reasonably complements the pressures from external stakeholders in explaining the practice of GSCM.A company’s internal factors may be viewed as intermediate variables to adjust the in? uences of external pressures. A company will be unlikely to implement GSCM activities if it does not have the necessary capacity, no matter what pressures it faces. This generates one more hypothesis on the relationship of external pressures and internal factors in determining a company’s GSCM practices in this study, which may be documented as: Hc: the relationships between a company’s external pressures and adoption of GSCM are mediated by internal factors. MethodsSamples and Data Collection The data for this study were collected by a questionnaire survey conducted in the region of the Yangtze River Delta during April and May 2009. Two small areas in the delta were selected for the survey implementation. One was Taichang, a county? level city in Jiangsu Province. Another was Kangqiao Industrial Park based in Shanghai. Developed from traditional environmental policies, local environmental agencies have tried some innovative measures for improving CEM by encouraging the public’s involvement against industrial pollution.With aims to reduce the compliance cost and maintain ? nancial value, the companies there have adopted some proactive environmental practices. The better background of CEM in the study area compar ed with other regions of China provides the possibility for us to monitor companies’ GSCM activities in this study. According to the literature overview and preliminary understandings about the contextual background of the study area, a questionnaire was developed to measure companies’ GSCM practices, determinant factors and organizational performance.The questionnaire format consisted of four major components: general information on the companies; GSCM activities such as environmentally preferable procurement; the degree of external pressures felt by the companies; and the evaluation of environmental and economic performances. The environmental managers were chosen as focal points in the survey to answer the questions concerning GSCM issues in their companies. Due to the large scope for GSCM activities, the environmental manager discussed matters with the purchasing manager and production manager as necessary.Over a period of approximately 2 months, the survey was con ducted in two phases. In the ? rst stage, local government of? cials and seven companies were contacted in order to test the validation and feasibility of answering the survey document. The questions are listed in a concise but accurate manner to avoid misunderstanding by the respondents. The ? nalized format was sent to 210 enterprises on a name list provided by the local environmental protection bureaus Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 6 Xianbing Liu et al. EPBs). A total of 165 respondents were con? rmed to be useful for the analysis, meaning a relatively high (78. 6%) valid response rate due to the coordination of local EPBs. The distribution of usable responses by industrial sectors is listed in Table 1. As expected, the samples from the sectors of machinery manufacturing, chemicals and textile and dyeing account for nearly half of the total, which are the representative industries in the st udy area. Operationalization of the Variables Dependent Variable The dependent variable in this study is LGSCM, a company’s overall GSCM practice level.LGSCM may be represented by a series of practical activities since it is dif? cult to directly measure the degree of GSCM involvement. Twelve items of GSCM activities were identi? ed to estimate a company’s overall level of GSCM practices in the current Chinese context, as listed in panel A of Table 2 and abbreviated as GA1 to GA12. This study addresses the GSCM practices as a company’s proactive environmental efforts in the manufacturing phase by excluding the end? of? pipe pollution control measurements and reverse logistic management of used products.Four categories of GSCM practices, represented by C1 to C4, respectively, are included: internally proactive environmental activities (C1); environmentally preferable procurement (C2); environmentally conscious design (C3); and supplier managed inventories and ser vices (C4) (Walton et al. , 1998; Carter et al. , 2000; Zsidisin and Hendrick, 1998). Achieving ISO14001 certi? cation, implementation of cleaner production auditing and reutilization of byproducts and other waste are chosen as internal proactive environmental activities of the companies.A company’s procurement strategies have strong impacts on the upstream producers in the supply chain, e. g. by buying non? toxic materials (Sarkis, 2003). In this study, four types of activities are de? ned as environmentally preferable procurement by the companies: requiring suppliers to offer cleaner products, evaluating suppliers’ environmental performances, providing education and technical assistance to suppliers, and providing education for internal procurement staff.Environmentally conscious design primarily focuses on technological improvements of products and processes to mitigate environmental impacts. Three items of activities, namely working closely with suppliers in produc t design, reducing waste in cooperation with suppliers and providing product? related environmental information for customers, are selected to assess the environmentally conscious design practices of companies. The last type of GSCM practice is supplier managed inventories and services which are found in chemical industries.Certain chemical companies commissioned their inventory management to the providers of raw materials due to the higher potential risks and the management experiences of the suppliers (PPRC, 2002). Since many chemical companies are located in the study area, two items are included to represent a company’s GSCM activities in this aspect. One is to entrust suppliers to manage company inventories. Another is to offer inventory management services for clients. Sector Paper Textile and dyeing Chemicals Plastics and rubber Metals Machinery and equipment manufacturing Electronics Automobile Printing Construction Others In totalNumber of samples 5 19 24 7 5 35 6 13 3 5 43 165 Percentage 3. 0 11. 5 14. 6 4. 3 3. 0 21. 2 3. 6 7. 9 1. 8 3. 0 26. 1 100. 0 Table 1. Distribution of the usable respondents by industrial sectors Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China Variable Description of the proxy 0 A: GSCM activities Internal proactive Achieving ISO14001 certification (GA1) environmental Cleaner production uditing (GA2) management (C1) Reutilization of byproducts and other wastes (GA3) Require suppliers to offer cleaner products (GA4) Environmentally Evaluate environmental performances of suppliers (GA5) preferable procurement (C2) Provide education and technical assistance for suppliers (GA6) Environmental education for internal purchasing staff (GA7) Work closely with suppliers in product design (GA8) Environmentally Work with suppliers on waste minimization (GA9) conscious Provide environmental information for products (GA10) design (C3) Supplier managed Entrust suppliers to manage some of the inventories (GA11) inventories (C4) Offer inventory management services for clients (GA12) 1 Valuation 2 3 4 5 7 LGSCMB: Determinant factors REGULATORY DCLIENT COMPETITOR COMMUNITY FCLIENT TSUPPORT EDUCATION TRAINING Pressure of environmental regulations Importance of domestic client’s environmental expectation Importance of competitors’ green strategies Pressure of complaints from neighboring communities Pressure of foreign customer’s environmental expectation Degree of support from company’s top managers Education level of the employees Frequency of internal environmental training External pressures Internal factors C: Control variables Characteristics of the companies Company’s size (LSIZ) Industrial sector belongings (SECTOR) Natural log of turnover Table 2. Definition and valuation of GSCM activities, the determinant factors and the controls The companies were requested to p resent a ? ve? oint Likert scale for each item of the 12 activities. The scales are de? ned as: 1 = not considering the activity at all; 2 = planning to consider; 3 = considering currently; 4 = partially implementing; and 5 = implementing successfully. The average score for all 12 items was used to represent the company’s LGSCM. In a similar way, the average score for the items of each GSCM category was used as the level of practice of that category. Independent Variables Recalling the section on ‘Development of Analytical Framework and Research Hypotheses’, the determinant factors behind companies’ adoption of GSCM activities include external pressures and internal factors. As listed in panel B of Table 2, ? e external pressures and three internal factors are classi? ed. In a similar way, a ? ve? point Likert scale was used to measure the importance, strength or degree of each factor: 1 = not at all; 2 = to some degree; 3 = moderate; 4 = relatively high; 5 = very high. The score for each factor was used to estimate its relationship with LGSCM. The only exception is for FCLIENT (pressure from foreign customers). The company’s export ratios were used as the proxy for this variable. It is assumed that the higher a company’s export ratio was, the higher the Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 8 Xianbing Liu et al. ressure from foreign markets that would be felt by the company. The export ratios were classi? ed into four levels in the questionnaire format with consideration of easier responses from the surveyed companies. Control Variables Two more variables are introduced into the analytical framework as the controls. One is company size and another is the industrial sector to which it belongs. The existing literature suggests that larger companies are more likely to be under public scrutiny and are expected to have a higher propensity to be involved in innovative environmental practices (Hettige et al. , 1996). Larger companies are also likely to have superior resources for environmental activities.Companies with higher environmental sensitivity are more willing to improve their environmental performances. Panel C of Table 2 lists the methods for evaluating control variables. A natural log of the turnover in 2008 was used to represent a company’s size. A company’s industrial sector af? liation is classi? ed into two types, with ‘1’ referring to environmentally sensitive industries (ESI) and ‘0’ being non? ESIs. ESIs in China include mining, thermal power, construction materials, pulp and paper products, metallurgy, petroleum, brewing, fermentation, textiles, pharmacy, tanning and chemical industries (SEPA, 2003). The others are classi? ed as non? ESI.Results and Discussions Result for GSCM Practices of the Companies SPSS was used for the statistical analysis in this study. Cro nbach’s ? was calculated in order to test the consistency reliability of the values given to the items of GSCM activities. The estimated ? for all 12 items is 0. 912, which is higher than the 0. 9 that would imply a high validity of the dataset constructed. An exploratory factor analysis was performed on the 12 GSCM items to ? nd if there are different dimensions of these activities. Two factors were extracted. However, the ? rst factor accounts for 49. 9% of the variance in total and the second only accounts for 11. 6%.The rotated component matrix of the factor analysis is listed in Table 3. All the items relating to external GSCM practices (GA4 to GA12) are highly associated with factor 1. The results for internally proactive environmental activities (GA1, GA2 and GA3) are not clear since they have nearly equal loadings on both factors. The factor analysis result proves the rationality of using the average score of all the classi? ed GSCM items (LGSCM) as the dependent vari able for the regression analysis in this study. Table 4 gives a statistical summary of the scores of the de? ned GSCM activities. LGSCM of the respondents achieved an average score of 3. 9, indicating that Chinese companies are still at a very preliminary stage in their GSCM items 1 GA11 GA12 GA10 GA5 GA9 GA6 GA7 GA8 GA4 GA1 GA2 GA3 0. 814 0. 803 0. 779 0. 767 0. 749 0. 747 0. 730 0. 725 0. 691 0. 578 0. 490 0. 500 Component 2 ? 0. 119 ? 0. 107 – 0. 273 ? 0. 271 – 0. 321 ? 0. 303 0. 207 0. 492 0. 622 0. 583 Table 3. Rotated component matrix of factor analysis of GSCM items Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China 9 GSCM practices. The surveyed companies have started to implement internally proactive CEM activities to some degree (averaged at 3. 41–3. 93).Most of them plan to think about or are considering the environmental activities which would be jointly practiced with external actors in the supply chain. As examples, GA6 (provide education and technical assistance for suppliers) and GA8 (work closely with suppliers in product design) only obtained average scores of less than 3. 00. Nevertheless, slight improvement was observed in this study compared with the previous survey conducted in north China by Zhu and Sarkis (2006). This change may be attributed to the different location of the study areas. As described earlier, the region for this study has a relatively developed economy, and the companies there may be performing better on the environment than those in other areas. The surveyed companies react differently to the classi? d GSCM activities. Figure 2 provides details of the score distribution of GCSM activities practiced by the respondents. Many companies are implementing certain proactive Categories and items of GSCM activities Internal proactive environmental activities (C1) GA1 GA2 GA3 Environmentally preferabl e procurement (C2) GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7 Environmentally conscious design (C3) GA8 GA9 GA10 Supplier? managed inventories and services (C4) GA11 GA12 Overall level of GSCM practices (LGSCM) Obs. 158 159 160 160 159 160 159 160 162 153 159 159 156 157 158 158 148 Mean 3. 60 3. 41 3. 51 3. 93 3. 38 3. 84 3. 47 2. 76 3. 48 3. 32 2. 93 3. 45 3. 54 3. 11 3. 10 3. 2 3. 39 SD 1. 07 1. 49 1. 35 1. 14 1. 01 1. 16 1. 19 1. 27 1. 27 1. 04 1. 30 1. 22 1. 27 1. 23 1. 24 1. 33 0. 91 Min. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Max. 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Table 4. Statistical summary of GSCM activities of the surveyed companies One 100% 90% 80% Two Three Four Five Ratio of the score 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% GA1 GA2 GA3 GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7 GA8 GA9 GA10 GA11 GA12 Items of GSCM activities Figure 2. Distribution of the scores of company’s GSCM activities Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 10 Xianbing Liu et a l. internal CEM practices.Nearly 70% of the surveyed companies are reusing byproducts and other generated waste to some degree. Around half of them are making efforts to achieve ISO14001 certi? cation and are pursuing a cleaner production audit. The companies are selective about those GSCM activities requiring cooperation with external actors on the supply chain. About 70% of the respondents are asking their upstream suppliers to provide cleaner materials or products to avoid possible environmental risks. The number of companies which arrange internally environmental education for their procurement staff and work closely with their suppliers for waste minimization is also around 50%.Another item of GSCM activity practiced relatively better by the companies is to provide product? related environmental information for their clients. However, most of the companies do not supply technical assistance to their suppliers. About 65% of the companies have not taken any action concerning envi ronmentally conscious design with their suppliers. In summary, the surveyed companies’ GSCM activities are obviously due to individual business needs and bene? ts from their own perspectives. GSCM is still a new concept for most Chinese companies. More time is needed for them to recognize the importance of strategic cooperation with other members of the supply chain. In? epth GSCM practices within a wider scope would be adopted if companies could unite as a group with a shared strategy on business and environmental issues. Descriptive Statistics of the Other Variables Table 5 summarizes the variables describing the determinant factors of GSCM activities. Companies gave higher scores to the pressures from external stakeholders. Among the external pressures, the regulative requirements and domestic client’s environmental expectations are viewed as highly important, achieving an average score of 4. 41 and 4. 29, respectively. Keeping up with competitors in the same sector is also regarded as an important factor (averaging 4. 08). The sampled companies usually carry out internal environmental training two or three times a year.The education level of employees is relatively low, probably because most of the companies are from traditionally labor? intensive industries. An average score of 2. 87 is presented for top managers’ support, which implies that company managers do not care much about GSCM efforts. This ? nding shows for a fact that the managers of Chinese companies do not seriously considering environmental activities other than basic compliance. Regarding the control variables indicating company characteristics, most of the samples are small and medium? sized. Large companies, with an annual turnover of more than 300 million Chinese yuan (CNY), only account for 7. 4% of the total.Small enterprises, which have fewer than 300 employees or yearly sales of less than CNY 30 million, account for 64. 2%. The remaining 28. 4% are medium? sized companies. According to the classi? cation criteria of the Chinese national environmental authority, half of the samples are categorized as ESI (49. 1%). The other half is non? ESI. Most of the respondents (71. 4%) process raw materials or produce components for downstream manufacturers. Result of the Relationship Between LGSCM and the Determinant Factors Pearson rank correlation was used to give a preliminary observation of the relationships between the overall level of GSCM practices and the determinant factors identi? ed earlier. The correlation matrix is shown in Table 6. ThisVariables and abbreviations REGULATORY DCLIENT COMPETITOR COMMUNITY FCLIENT TSUPPORT EDUCATION TRAINING Obs. 156 156 152 162 150 159 160 159 Mean 4. 41 4. 29 4. 08 3. 88 2. 46 2. 87 3. 30 4. 15 SD 0. 75 0. 86 0. 85 1. 73 1. 27 1. 35 1. 03 0. 75 Min. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Max. 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 External pressures Internal factors Table 5. Statistical summary of the determinant factors Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China LGSCM LGSCM REGULATORY DCLIENT COMPETITOR COMMUNITY FCLIENT TSUPPORT EDUCATION TRAINING 1 b 0. 195 a 0. 361 a 0. 391 ? 0. 083 0. 022 0. 113 a 0. 441 a 0. 559 REG.DCLIENT COMP. COMM. FCLIENT TSUP. EDU. 11 TRAINING 1 a 0. 395 a 0. 506 0. 035 0. 041 b ? 0. 176 b 0. 197 a 0. 477 1 a 0. 538 0. 008 0. 064 ? 0. 105 b 0. 354 a 0. 447 1 a 0. 038 0. 055 ? 0. 085 a 0. 238 a 0. 395 1 ? 0. 015 a ? 0. 471 0. 037 0. 150 1 ? 0. 086 0. 073 0. 139 1 ? 0. 041 ? 0. 073 1 a 0. 421 1 Table 6. Correlation coefficients of LGSCM and the determinant factors a Correlation is signi? cant at the 0. 01 level, two? tailed. b Correlation is signi? cant at the 0. 05 level, one? tailed. indicates that LGSCM is signi? cantly correlated with the external pressure variables DCLIENT and COMPETITOR, and internal factors like EDUCATION and TRAINING.Standard multiple regressions were performed wi th LGSCM as the dependent variable and each of the determinant factors and controls as independent variables. The results are listed in Table 7. The level of multi? collinearity between the variables was tested by an inspection of the condition index and variance proportions in the SPSS collinearity diagnostics table. According to the criteria given by Tabachnick and Fidell (2001), multi? collinearity is not a problem in this analysis since each condition index is less than 30 and the variance proportions are much less than 50. The regression result in Table 7 indicates that Ha is supported in general.Among the external pressures, DCLIENT and COMPETITOR are signi? cantly and positively associated with LGSCM at P = 0. 000. This implies that domestic clients’ environmental preferences and competitors’ green strategies for differentiation are major external drivers for companies to adopt GSCM activities. One more external factor which has a slightly positive correlation w ith LGSCM, signi? cant at P < 0. 01, is REGULATORY. Government regulations were believed to be dominant forces for CEM in the past since a company’s environmental strategies are imposed coercively via environmental sanctions (Delmas, 2002). However, this study classi? ed GSCM practices as those beyond basic environmental compliances.The governmental requirements may become a relatively minor factor for the adoption of GSCM practices. No signi? cant associations are found between the other two external pressures, COMMUNITY and FCLIENT, and LGSCM. The surveyed companies greatly valued the pressure from their neighboring communities. However, community pressure cannot account for a company’s GSCM efforts, probably because the communities mainly complain about the environmentally illegal activities of companies rather than lobby for proactive efforts such as GSCM practices. The pressure from foreign clients is not strongly felt by manufacturers in the current phase. Regard ing the internal factors, Hb1 is not supported. The support of top managers is not found to be signi? antly associated with a company’s LGSCM in this survey, which is in contrast to the result of Carter et al. (1998). Nevertheless, Hb2 is fully con? rmed. The two variables representing a company’s learning capacity, education level of employees (EDUCATION) and frequency of internal environmental training (TRAINING), are signi? cantly and positively associated with LGSCM at P = 0. 000. This result is identical to that of Zhu et al. (2008), which con? rms the hypothesis that the extent of GSCM practice engaged in by Chinese companies is positively related to the level of organizational learning capacity. Result of the Mediating Function of Internal Factors The egression result of LGSCM and the determinant factors in the previous section con? rm the causal chains existing between each of the three external pressures (REGULATORY, DCLIENT and COMPETITOR) and two internal fa ctors (EDUCATION and TRAINING) with LGSCM. Signi? cant relationships are found between each of the three external pressures and each of the two internal factors, as shown in Table 8. The t? statistic of all the regressions is greater than 2. 00. Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 12 Variables entered (a) REGULATORY ? 0 REGULATORY LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (c) COMPETITOR ? COMPETITOR LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (e) FCLIENT ? 0 FCLIENT LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (g) EDUCATION ? 0 EDUCATION LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 708 0. 374 0. 151 0. 178 1. 846 5. 721 4. 592 1. 299 18. 884 0. 294 0. 067 0. 000 0. 000 0. 196 1. 804 0. 033 0. 156 0. 253 4. 026 0. 544 3. 959 1. 573 5. 281 0. 097 0. 000 0. 588 0. 000 0. 118 0. 409 0. 356 0. 155 0. 258 0. 859 4. 224 4. 457 1. 772 13. 382 0. 226 0. 392 0. 000 0. 000 0. 079 0. 497 0. 266 0. 176 0. 293 0. 851 2. 760 4. 856 1. 960 9. 673 0. 169 0. 397 0. 007 0. 000 0. 052 Coef? cient t? statistic P? value Variables entered (b) DCLIENT ? 0 DCLIENT LSIZ SECTOR F? alue R2 (adjusted) (d) COMMUNITY ? 0 COMMUNITY LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (f) TSUPPORT ? 0 TSUPPORT LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (h) TRAINING ? 0 TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) ? 0. 310 0. 597 0. 128 0. 126 1. 803 ? 0. 021 0. 167 0. 278 1. 507 0. 041 0. 177 0. 260 0. 439 0. 342 0. 147 0. 322 Coef? cient Xianbing Liu et al. t? statistic P? value 0. 896 3. 890 4. 172 2. 210 12. 583 0. 214 0. 372 0. 000 0. 000 0. 029 3. 117 0. 840 4. 452 1. 680 7. 112 0. 123 0. 002 0. 402 0. 000 0. 095 4. 695 ? 0. 341 4. 018 1. 765 6. 188 0. 109 0. 000 0. 734 0. 000 0. 080 ?0. 726 7. 001 4. 031 0. 955 26. 249 0. 370 0. 469 0. 000 0. 000 0. 342 Table 7.Regression results for LGSCM and each of the determinant factors According to Baron and Kenny (1986), a third condition has to be met in order to con? rm the mediating function of internal factors as hypo thesized in this study. The signi? cant relations between the external pressures and LGSCM shall be strongly reduced if the internal factors are controlled. We tested Hc by repeating the OLS regressions in three steps. In step 1, LGSCM is individually regressed against each of the three external pressures which have signi? cant relations with LGSCM. In step 2, each of the three pressures and EDUCATION, as an internal factor, jointly enter into the regressions as independent variables.In a similar way, step 3 is carried out by substituting the variable of EDUCATION by TRAINING. The regression results are listed in Table 9. The robustness of the result was checked by doing the regressions with the control variables added for each case. The corresponding regression results are described in Table 10. There are no obvious changes in the signi? cances of the regression results listed in Tables 9 and 10. The mediation function of internal factors does occur and Hc is supported. In the case of introducing the internal factors into regressions, the signi? cances of external pressures to LGSCM are all reduced signi? cantly or even removed completely.This implies that the low level of GSCM involvement of Chinese companies could be fundamentally attributed to a lack of the necessary internal capacities for GSCM practices. The strong pressures Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China Variables entered Coef? cient t? statistic P? value Coef? cient t? statistic 13 P? value (a) EDUCATION as dependent variable ? 0 REGULATORY F? value R2 (adjusted) ? 0 DCLIENT F? value R2 (adjusted) ? 0 COMPETITOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 2. 131 0. 268 4. 409 2. 479 6. 145 0. 033 3. 806 4. 671 21. 819 . 0120 5. 280 2. 982 8. 894 0. 050 0. 000 0. 014 (b) TRAINING as dependent variable 2. 014 0. 83 6. 196 6. 667 44. 445 0. 222 8. 689 6. 144 37. 748 0. 195 9. 751 5. 216 27. 211 0. 1 50 0. 000 0. 000 1. 503 0. 421 0. 000 0. 000 2. 451 0. 396 0. 000 0. 000 2. 125 0. 288 0. 000 0. 003 2. 727 0. 350 0. 000 0. 000 Table 8. Regression results of internal factors and external pressures with significances to LGSCM Variable entered Coef? cient Step 1 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Step 2 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Step 3 t? statistic P? value (a) REGULATORY as the independent variable ? 0 REGULATORY EDUCATION TRAINING F? value R2 (adjusted) 2. 331 0. 241 5. 126 2. 367 0. 000 0. 019 1. 502 0. 146 0. 375 3. 358 1. 540 5. 338 17. 416 0. 89 0. 001 0. 126 0. 000 0. 747 –8. 783E? 02 0. 728 5. 601 0. 031 1. 699 ? 0. 895 7. 580 32. 931 0. 312 0. 092 0. 372 0. 000 (b) DCLIENT as the independent variable ? 0 DCLIENT EDUCATION TRAINING F? value R2 (adjusted) 1. 637 0. 407 4. 237 4. 619 0. 000 0. 000 1. 077 0. 286 0325 2. 813 3. 319 4. 634 22. 731 0. 236 0. 006 0. 001 0. 000 9. 139E? 02 0. 174 0. 612 21. 331 0. 124 0. 220 2. 206 6. 622 35. 351 0. 328 0. 826 0. 045 0. 000 (c) COMPETITOR as the independent variable ? 0 COMPETITOR EDUCATION TRAINING F? value R2 (adjusted) 1. 675 0. 423 4. 776 5. 031 0. 000 0. 000 0. 978 0. 319 0. 338 2. 787 4. 010 5. 101 27. 949 0. 279 0. 006 0. 000 0. 00 0. 100 0. 226 0. 570 25. 314 0. 147 0. 251 2. 811 6. 342 36. 265 0. 337 0. 802 0. 006 0. 000 Table 9. Regression results of LGSCM for mediating function test Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 14 Variable entered Coef? cient Step 1 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Step 2 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Xianbing Liu et al. Step 3 t? statistic P? value (a) REGULATORY as the independent variable ? 0 REGULATORY EDUCATION TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 497 0. 266 0. 851 2. 760 0. 397 0. 007 ? 0. 197 0. 194 0. 357 0. 162 0. 190 ? 0. 355 2. 177 5. 270 4. 99 1. 375 15. 139 0. 310 0. 723 0. 031 0. 000 0. 000 0. 172 ? 0. 220 ? 0. 029 0. 611 0. 125 0. 128 ? 0. 419 ? 0. 294 6. 159 3. 811 0. 944 19. 319 0. 368 0. 676 0. 769 0. 000 0. 000 0. 347 0. 176 0. 293 4. 856 1. 960 9. 673 0. 169 0. 000 0. 052 (b) DCLIENT as the independent variable ? 0 DCLIENT EDUCATION TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 439 0. 342 0. 896 3. 890 0. 372 0. 000 0. 008 0. 212 0. 322 0. 144 0. 214 0. 018 2. 453 4. 573 4. 373 1. 552 15. 598 0. 317 0. 986 0. 016 0. 000 0. 000 0. 123 ? 0. 638 0. 137 0. 540 0. 124 0. 153 ? 1. 343 1. 592 5. 842 3. 883 1. 139 20. 317 0. 380 0. 182 0. 114 0. 000 0. 000 0. 257 0. 147 0. 322 4. 72 2. 210 12. 583 0. 214 0. 000 0. 029 (c) COMPETITOR as the independent variable ? 0 COMPETITOR EDUCATION TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 409 0. 356 0. 859 4. 224 0. 392 0. 000 ? 0. 237 0. 275 0. 329 0. 148 0. 168 ? 0. 511 3. 472 4. 911 4. 592 1. 236 17. 453 0. 345 0. 610 0. 001 0. 000 0. 000 0. 219 ? 0. 742 0. 183 0. 524 0. 127 0. 124 ? 1. 589 2. 268 5. 753 3. 994 0. 928 21. 233 0. 393 0. 115 0. 025 0. 000 0. 000 0. 355 0. 155 0. 258 4 . 457 1. 772 13. 382 0. 226 0. 000 0. 079 Table 10. Regression results for robustness test of the mediating function from external stakeholders do not necessarily lead to GSCM in reality. More speci? ally, REGULATORY is completely mediated by the two internal factors, while DCLIENT and COMPETITOR are only partially mediated. This indicates that the adoption of GSCM practices of Chinese companies is probably more responsive to non? coercive and competitive factors such as pressures from the domestic clients and leading companies in the same sector. This interesting ? nding also con? rms that governmental regulations in China do not play an active role in encouraging industrial practices in GSCM. In addition, the greater reduction of signi? cances in step 3 than in step 2 demonstrates that the variable of TRAINING is indeed potent as an intermediate variable.The internal environmental training of related employees may strongly enhance a company’s capacity to deal with external pressures by being proactive in environmental management such as GSCM practices. Conclusions This paper explores the current status and determinant factors of GSCM practices adopted by companies located in the Yangtze River Delta of China. The surveyed companies perform slightly better than the companies sampled in a Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China 15 previous survey in North China (Zhu et al. , 2008). However, the overall level of GSCM practices does not differ dramatically. This con? ms that Chinese companies are still at a preliminary stage of GSCM practices. In particular, the companies’ environmental management in cooperation with external members of the supply chain is very marginal. Among a larger range of determinant factors classi? ed in this study, external pressures from domestic clients and competitors are signi? cantly and positively ass ociated with LGSCM while the regulatory pressure shows slightly positive in? uence. Learning capacity of the company signi? cantly determines LGSCM as an internal factor. Differing from the result of Zhu et al. (2008), the support of top managers has less in? uence on GSCM activities.These results are consistent with those of Jeppesen and Hansen (2004), which attributed the environmental improvement of Third World companies on the value chain to external market forces and the internal resources of the companies. Another meaningful ? nding of our analysis is that the internal factors are greatly mediating the in? uences of external pressures. Our analysis may provide essential policy implications for promoting the GSCM practices of companies in China. Many more concerns about a company’s environmental performance from its external stakeholders will be facilitated, which may generate pressures for the company’s efforts in GSCM practices. It is very necessary to educate c ompanies to better understand the advantages and approaches of GSCM as an innovative strategy for sustainable production.The diffusion of successful cases would be an effective method, as it helps increase a company’s capacity to actually adopt GSCM practices. As an empirical study of GSCM in China, this paper develops a comprehensive analytical framework and conducts an integrative analysis. Nevertheless, a few questions remain for subsequent studies. As examples, the working mechanism of determinant factors identi? ed for GSCM practices needs to be observed in more detail. 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