The Life Cycle Management and Intellectual Capital factors that influence sustainability integration in organisational processes

Following the suggestions of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative publications on Life Cycle Management (LCM) as a business management approach to improve sustainability performance, this research explored LCM as a promising research area that could help identify the factors that influence the integration of sustainability aspects into organisational processes. The initial research strategy was comprised of LCM literature analysis to explore LCM and identify potential factors that could direct the data collection. The analysis of the LCM literature shows that LCM is vaguely described. This research analysis puts into context the various LCM approaches through the introduction of the four LCM elements. The LCM elements were used as a frame to analyse the LCM cases found in the literature and identify the factors that influence integration of sustainability in organisational processes. The next stage of the research strategy was to conduct action research studies to explore in close proximity the integration of sustainability aspects in organisational processes. Two in depth action research studies were conducted, influenced by engaged scholarship. During Case A, the LCM elements were used in practice to influence the project whilst the LCM factors were observed in practice. Case A demonstrated the complexity of sustainability-related information integration in organisational processes and the division of information flows towards different organisational functions to inform their own decision. The analysis highlighted that developing knowledge is a key LCM factor that influences the application of LCM. As the importance of developing knowledge became apparent, a novel sustainability related intellectual capital (SrIC) framework was developed then used during Case B. This framework is shown to assist the sustainability professionals of Company B in enhancing the sustainability related intellectual capital of the company, which in turn led to more effective sustainability integration. This research used LCM as a ‘vehicle’ to explore the integration of sustainability aspects into organisational processes and hence contribute to the LCM literature with the four LCM elements framework of analysis, descriptions of the factors that influence the application of LCM, bringing a focus on the importance of developing knowledge for the effective application of LCM, and identifying the intellectual capital factors that influence the integration of sustainability aspects into organisational processes.EPSR

Barriers to Implementing the International Integrated Reporting Framework: A Contemporary Academic Perspective

Purpose: This paper is motivated by the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) call for feedback from all stakeholders with knowledge of the International Integrated Reporting Framework , and specifically of the enablers, incentives and barriers to its implementation. The paper synthesises insights from contemporary accounting research into integrated reporting (IR) as a general concept, and integrated reporting as espoused by the IIRC in the (IIRC, 2013). We specifically focus on possible barriers and emphasise the specific issues we feel could be rectified to advance the , along with the areas that may potentially hinder wider adoption and implementation. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws upon and synthesises academic analysis and insights provided in the IR and academic literature as well as various directives, policy and framework pronouncements. Findings: The flexibility and lack of prescription concerning actual disclosures and metrics in the could allow it to be used for compliance, regardless of the other benefits lauded by the IIRC. Thus we see forces, both external and internal, driving adoption, with one prominent example being the European Union Directive on non-financial reporting. Because of the different ways in which IR is understood and enacted, there are numerous theoretical and empirical challenges for academics. Our paper highlights potential areas for further robust academic research, and the need to contribute to policy and practice. Research limitations/implications: The paper provides the IIRC, academics, regulators and reporting organisations with insights into current practice and the framework. We highlight the need for further development and evidence to help inform improvements both from a policy and a practice perspective. A key limitation of our work is that we draw upon a synthesis of the existing literature which is still in an early stage of development. Originality/value: The paper provides the IIRC with several insights into the current , and specifically with the enablers, incentives and barriers to its implementation. Also, it provides academic researchers with a number of important observations and an agenda upon which they can build their future research

The intellectual capital - environmental practices, performance and their relationships in the Romanian banking sector

Purpose – This paper reviews the knowledge assets that can be capitalized for successful Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) implementation in the Romanian banking industry. GSCM is defined as the company’s ability to understand and manage the environmental risks along the Supply Chain (SC) (Carter and Rogers,2008). Banks are very much members of the SCs (McKenzie and Wolfe, 2004), called to integrate the environmental management into both operational and core commercial activities and to manage the environmental risk in their supply chain (FORGE Group,2000; International Finance Corporation, 2006; UNEP Finance Initiative, 2009a). Intellectual capital, or the ‘stock’ of knowledge-based equity firms hold, is recognized as a key contributor to their competitiveness (Bontis et al., 1999), which may act as a driver of environmental pro-activeness (Bernauer et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2007), as well as an obstacle in the process to design and implement GSCM (Post and Altman, 1994; Baresel-Bofinger et al., 2007), while organizational learning is seen as the key component in overcoming the organizational obstacles to environmental changes (Post and Altman, 1992; Post and Altman, 1994; Anderson and Wolff, 1996). Design/methodology/approach – This research paper describes the empirical results of a cross-sectional design employed in a sample of 41 banks operating in Romania with the purpose a. to explore the stage of designing and implementing GSCM practices in the Romanian banking sector; b. to determine which GSCM practices tend to be followed the most, c. which are the bank managers’ perceived benefits from implementing GSCM practices, as well as perceived obstacles in GSCM implementation in the banking sector; and d. what is the relationship between the aforementioned variables. For these purposes several statistical analyses were used, including both descriptive and inferential statistics. Originality/value – This is the first study looking for GSCM issues in the Romanian banking industry. The results of this research provide insights into what extent knowledge assets could be capitalized for successful Green Supply Chain Management implementation in the Romanian banking industry. Furthermore, it is increasing the ecological awareness, the theoretical and managerial insights for an effective implementation of GSCM practices in the banking sector. The analysis reveals that GSCM practices (especially practices in the immaterial flow) are strongly and significantly correlated with perceived benefits and pressures. However,this should be addressed in future research because the present study offers only correlational data and cannot establish causation. The study also concludes that bank’s size and foreign/Romanian ownership do not influence at all the level of GSCM practices implementation and related perceptions (pressures, obstacles,benefits) in the Romanian banking sector. Practical implications – The findings of this paper point to the conclusion that the banking sector in Romania is at a somehow advanced stage of ecological adaptation in the physical flow and at an early stage in the immaterial and commercial flows. Based on the literature and study’s findings, regarding the role that the management of intellectual capital and knowledge flow plays, several recommendations are proposed for enhancing the implementation process of GSCM practices in the banking industry in Romania

Sustainability as corporate culture of a brand for superior performance

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in the Journal of World Business. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2012 Elsevier B.V.Sustainability research highlights new challenges and opportunities for businesses. This paper reviews the literature to understand the ability of sustainable green initiatives when practiced as a corporate culture to individually create new opportunities for operations, management and marketing. According to current research, business opportunities exclusively available to different functions of a firm can drive its performance. The role of marketing in the achievement of superior performance by virtue of sustainability practices is also explained by the existing literature. Branding literature, however, fails to explain the influence of a brand on sustainability-driven opportunities available to a firm for superior performance. The objective of this study is to explore if a brand can strengthen the ability of sustainability-based green initiatives of managers to drive opportunities available to a firm for superior performance. A conceptual framework grounded in the triple bottom line theory is presented based on the assumption that brand as a stimulating factor can accelerate the conversion of opportunities available to a business into superior performance. Academic and managerial perspectives have been used to draw upon the implications of the model. Both practitioners and academic researchers will benefit from future research on this topic

Sustainable innovation: key conclusions from Sustainable Innovation Conferences 2003–2006 organised by The Centre for Sustainable Design

The following is taken directly from the introduction. This booklet summarises the key conclusions from the 2003–2006 conferences on Sustainable Innovation organised by The Centre for Sustainable Design (www.cfsd.org.uk). The conclusions are drawn from the respective conference presentations, papers and discussions. The publication has been sponsored as part of a ‘Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Innovation & Design’ project awarded to The Centre for Sustainable Design by the South-East England Development Agency (SEEDA)

The Governance of Knowledge in Academic Spin-Offs. The Case of Emilia-Romagna.

The phenomenon of academic spin-offs (ASOs) has been widely studied in recent times. Scholars have mainly concentrated on identifying the factors that favours the phenomenon and the incentive alignments of the parties involved in the process. These works tend to remain static in nature by solely investigating the ex ante determinants of the process, that is the elements that favoured a context to be more profitable than others, usually in terms of the number of ASOs generated. More recently scholars have also acknowledged that ASOs are heterogeneous firms and have started investigating the development process of such firms. It has been highlighted that ASOs need to overcome certain defined stage of growth in order to become established firms in the market. Our work continues this line of investigation and aims to gives evidence that the paths of ASO development are heterogeneous themselves. We investigate the flows of knowledge taking place within and across the firm in a dynamic manner, at various stage of the development process of the firm: we study the governance of knowledge in a sub-population of ASOs and give evidence of the variety of possible ways the firm can develop.governance of knowledge; academic spin-off; theory of the firm; technology development

An integrated core competence evaluation framework for portfolio management in the oil industry

Drawing upon resource-based theory, this paper presents a core competence evaluation framework for managing the competence portfolio of an oil company. It introduces a network typology to illustrate how to form different types of strategic alliance relations with partnering firms to manage and grow the competence portfolio. A framework is tested using a case study approach involving face-to-face structured interviews. We identified purchasing, refining and sales and marketing as strong candidates to be the core competencies. However, despite the company's core business of refining oil, the core competencies were identified to be their research and development and performance management (PM) capabilities. We further provide a procedure to determine different kinds of physical, intellectual and cultural resources making a dominant impact on company's competence portfolio. In addition, we provide a comprehensive set of guidelines on how to develop core competence further by forging a partnership alliance choosing an appropriate network topology

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty two papers which were presented on the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY ’08 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments, held in Ofir, Portugal, from 25th to 27th of June, 2008. The main motive of the meeting was the growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily the companies and their businesses. From this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Concerning the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participativeness, the Conference Organisation provided the broadcasting over Internet of the Conference sessions, dialogical and formal presentations, for all authors’ and participants’ institutions, as an innovative Conference feature. In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 97 authors from 10 countries, namely from Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Sweden and United Kingdom. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope and would like that this book will be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the second of which is planned for year 2011.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Workforce Value Chain Analysis In High Tech Multinational Corporations' Electronic Manufacturing In Penang

The present research aims to explore the depth in the pioneer MNC investment company and to investigate on workforce value chain for sustainability and survival. Penyelidikan ini bertujuan untuk meneroka syarikat pelaburan MNC peneraju dan menyelidik rantaian nilai tenaga kerjanya untuk kelestarian dan kemandirian syarikat

Do Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) matter for innovation and value creation in knowledge-based business? Aims, forms and practice of collaboration in Italy

Purpose: This paper provides the first results of a scoping study exploring in detail how Cultural and Creative Industries(CCI) can represent a source and resource of critical and creative thinking as well as a set of processes to be deployed in order to foster and support innovation. Scope: Focusing on a sample of Italian companies, the aims, the forms and the specific practices of collaborations between CCI and knowledge-based and traditional businesses are identified and discussed. Method: In order to derive and test theories, trace causal pathways, explore hypotheses, researchers have designed and implemented qualitative research methods and conducted investigation mainly based on web-available data, archives and interview-based information. Results: The case examples of relevant Italian companies effectively provide evidences of the impact and modalities of adopting initiatives to develop innovation capacity. Recommendations and conclusions: The investigation of a sample of Italian companies suggests that most of the attention is focused on collaborations aimed to reinforce company image and reputation, to develop corporate social responsibility and to improve brand recognition