GREEN MANAGEMENT AND THE NATURE OF TECHNICAL INNOVATION

Innovation is a key component of a firm's strategy to improve market competitiveness and operational efficiency as well as to respond effectively to changing consumer preferences and regulations. A firm has the choice of undertaking different types of innovations that differ in the extent to which they involve changes in products, processes or practices and lead to gains in efficiency or brand image. We postulate that the extent and nature of innovation undertaken by a firm depends on its management system which not only influences its organizational structure, but also the incentives for making continual improvement in its technical capabilities, the extent of employee involvement in decision making and the internal communication channels for information sharing. We develop an empirical framework to examine the extent to which a management system promotes innovation and how its effect differs across different types of innovations.Environmental Economics and Policy, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Why Do Firms Strive to Be Green? Explaining the Adoption of Total Quality Environmental Management

Many firms are undertaking environmentally friendly organizational change by applying the philosophy of Total Quality Management with its emphasis on reducing waste and increasing efficiency to improve their management of pollution. This paper investigates the factors that lead to total quality environmental management (TQEM) by large firms. We find that internal considerations stemming from a firm's technical capability, size of operations, and volume of past emissions are positively associated with the TQEM adoption decision. The first two factors are proxies for the firm's costs of adopting TQEM while the third factor is related to the benefits from increasing efficiency and waste reduction, and thus proxies for internally generated demand for TQEM. In contrast, external market and regulatory considerations, such as the desire to improve a firm's image with customers and regulators, earning good-will with regulators and the anticipation of future regulations appear not be associated with the adoption of TQEM. All of the external factors are also better thought of as influencing the firm's benefits from (or demand for) TQEM. Thus, the paper's main conclusion is that the adoption of TQEM is driven mostly by supply-side factors, and that to the extent that demand-side factors are important, they too originate internally within the firm rather than externally from the market and government regulation.Firm Organizational Structure, Regulatory and Market Pressures, Toxic Pollution, Environmental Economics and Policy, D23, M11,

Determinants of Student Performance in an Undergraduate Financial Accounting Class

This study investigates the effects of class size, high school accounting, aptitude and attitude on learning , measured by the difference between post-test and pre-test scores, in an undergraduate financial accounting class, after controlling for students' major and semester level. Statistical analysis showed that scores of students in small classes improved by 48%, while scores of students in the large classes improved by 6% percent, implying a decline in learning by 88% by shifting to larger classes. High school accounting was found to improve pre- and post-test scores but the improvement on their post-test scores was significantly lower, implying a diminishing effect of high school accounting on performance as the complexity of the course material increases. We also found that midterm grade (aptitude) and changes in perception about the relevance of the class on business-related issues (attitude) motivate learning.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

GREEN MANAGEMENT AND THE NATURE OF TECHNICAL INNOVATION

Innovation is a key component of a firm's strategy to improve market competitiveness and operational efficiency as well as to respond effectively to changing consumer preferences and regulations. A firm has the choice of undertaking different types of innovations that differ in the extent to which they involve changes in products, processes or practices and lead to gains in efficiency or brand image. We postulate that the extent and nature of innovation undertaken by a firm depends on its management system which not only influences its organizational structure, but also the incentives for making continual improvement in its technical capabilities, the extent of employee involvement in decision making and the internal communication channels for information sharing. We develop an empirical framework to examine the extent to which a management system promotes innovation and how its effect differs across different types of innovations

Why Do Firms Strive to Be Green? Explaining the Adoption of Total Quality Environmental Management

Many firms are undertaking environmentally friendly organizational change by applying the philosophy of Total Quality Management with its emphasis on reducing waste and increasing efficiency to improve their management of pollution. This paper investigates the factors that lead to total quality environmental management (TQEM) by large firms. We find that internal considerations stemming from a firm's technical capability, size of operations, and volume of past emissions are positively associated with the TQEM adoption decision. The first two factors are proxies for the firm's costs of adopting TQEM while the third factor is related to the benefits from increasing efficiency and waste reduction, and thus proxies for internally generated demand for TQEM. In contrast, external market and regulatory considerations, such as the desire to improve a firm's image with customers and regulators, earning good-will with regulators and the anticipation of future regulations appear not be associated with the adoption of TQEM. All of the external factors are also better thought of as influencing the firm's benefits from (or demand for) TQEM. Thus, the paper's main conclusion is that the adoption of TQEM is driven mostly by supply-side factors, and that to the extent that demand-side factors are important, they too originate internally within the firm rather than externally from the market and government regulation

Striving to be green: the adoption of total quality environmental management

Many firms are undertaking environment-friendly organizational change by applying the philosophy of total quality management with its emphasis on reducing waste and increasing efficiency. Their objective is to improve their management of pollution and increase customer satisfaction. This article investigates the factors that lead to total quality environmental management (TQEM) by large firms. We find that internal considerations stemming from a firm's technical capability, size (absolute and relative to competing firms), extent of operations and volume of past emissions are strongly associated with the TQEM adoption decision. The first four factors are proxies for the firm's costs and capabilities of adopting TQEM while the fifth factor is related to the benefits from increasing efficiency and waste reduction, and thus proxies for internally generated demand for TQEM. The desire to improve a firm's image with customers, earning good-will with regulators and the anticipation of future regulations do not appear to be associated with the adoption of TQEM. Thus, this article's main conclusion is that the adoption of TQEM is associated mostly with internal factors and motives.

Conservation capital and sustainable economic growth

An endogenous growth model, which links pollution to ineffective input-use, is developed to examine the potential for achieving balanced growth while preserving the environment through investment in conservation capital. We derive conditions under which individual preferences for environmental quality and private incentives for investment in conservation capital can lead to non-decreasing environmental quality with balanced growth even in the absence of environmental regulations. Additionally, conditions under which investment in conservation capital can enable an environmentally regulated economy to achieve a higher rate of sustainable balanced growth than otherwise are analysed. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Determinants of Student Performance in an Undergraduate Financial Accounting Class

This study investigates the effects of class size, high school accounting, aptitude and attitude on learning , measured by the difference between post-test and pre-test scores, in an undergraduate financial accounting class, after controlling for students' major and semester level. Statistical analysis showed that scores of students in small classes improved by 48%, while scores of students in the large classes improved by 6% percent, implying a decline in learning by 88% by shifting to larger classes. High school accounting was found to improve pre- and post-test scores but the improvement on their post-test scores was significantly lower, implying a diminishing effect of high school accounting on performance as the complexity of the course material increases. We also found that midterm grade (aptitude) and changes in perception about the relevance of the class on business-related issues (attitude) motivate learning