Managing Organizations for Sustainable Development in Emerging Countries

Angappa Gunasekaran,Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour,Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317529385
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Économie
• Subtopic: Développement durable

Managing Organizations for Sustainable Development in Emerging Countries focuses on the main challenges and opportunities of managing firms and emerging economies in the light of sustainable development. One of the key questions of sustainable development is how organizations from developing countries are achieving their economic goals while considering, simultaneously, environmental issues like conservation of natural resources, eco-efficiency, biodiversity conservation, and climate-change mitigation. These questions are relevant for government, industry, and urban sustainability. However, in the modern literature that discusses organizational management for sustainable development, few studies focus on the reality of organizations from emerging countries. Moreover, changing environmental legislation in emerging countries (such as China and Brazil) will affect organizational managers. In this context, this book may contribute to organizational management in the search for more sustainable organizations, as well as deal with the challenges of managing organizations in the context of increased social problems, degradation of natural resources, loss of biodiversity, and climate change.

This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology.

Managing organizations for sustainable development in emerging countries: an introduction

Angappa Gunasekaran^a, Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour^b and Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour^b

^aUniversity of Massachusetts – Dartmouth, Dartmouth, USA; ^bUNESP – Univ Estadual Paulista (Sao Paulo State University), Bauru, Brazil

This introduction article is for the special issue ‘Managing organizations for sustainable development in emerging countries: natural resources, biodiversity, and climate change’ in the International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology and presents an introduction to the topics and summarizes accepted contributions in the special issue. The accepted works may contribute with organizational management in the search for more sustainable organizations. The works focus on the challenges of managing organizations in a context of degradation of natural resources, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. Accepted papers discuss these issues, based on the reality of emerging economies (e.g. Brazil, India, and China).

1. Introduction

Sustainable development is a type of development that meets the economic, social, and environmental needs of contemporary society without sacrificing the future generations’ needs and development. According to Hopwood et al. (2005), the usual model for sustainable development is grounded on three pillars, linked to the environment, society, and economy. One of the key questions of sustainable development is how organizations from developing countries are achieving their economic goals. This is a question that considers, at the same time, environmental issues like conservation of natural resources, eco-efficiency, biodiversity conservation, and climate-change mitigation. These questions are relevant for government, industry, and urban sustainability (Zhao et al. 2013).

However, in the modern literature that discusses organizational management for sustainable development, few studies focus on the reality of organizations from emerging countries. Moreover, changing environmental legislation in emerging countries (such as China and Brazil) will affect organizational managers. For example, according to Bosetti et al. (2009), China, in particular, has doubled its emissions since the signature of the Kyoto protocol in 1997, and the country is now the largest contributor of energy-related CO2 emissions. These authors also argue that it is now clear that developing countries, especially fast-growing regions, such as those in the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), will have a major impact on future emission dynamics and will play major roles in climate negotiations. In this context, managers from emerging economies, mainly from BRIC, will play key roles in the journey for Sustainable Development.

Subjects, such as management of natural resources (ecosystems), biodiversity, and climate change will be parts of the agenda of how organizations from emerging economies will contribute to a more sustainable society and development.

These subjects are part of the most relevant challenges for humankind and related works may provide guidelines to help the pursuit of Sustainable Development (Olsson et al. 2014).

The management of natural resources is related to ecosystem management. When implemented, it is expected that ecosystem management will protect the environment, maintain healthy ecosystems, allow for sustainable development, and preserve biodiversity (Lackey 1998).

Biodiversity, according to Sala et al. (2000), corresponds to all organisms – terrestrial and freshwater. This includes plants, animals, and microbes, on scales ranging from genetic diversity within populations, species diversity, and community diversity across landscapes. Still, according to Sala et al. (2000), changes in biodiversity affect the functioning of the ecosystem, wellbeing of human beings, and emissions of greenhouse gases. Moreover, land use can have serious consequences for endangered natural resources.

Climate change is characterized by strong scientific evidence that the average temperature of the Earth’s surface is rising. This is a result of increased concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming will lead to substantial changes in world climate, which in turn, have a big impact on human life and the built environment. Therefore, efforts must be made to reduce the use of fossil energy and to promote green energy (Omer 2008).

Hopwood et al. (2005) believe that a cause of difficulty in promoting sustainable development is guided by the lack of adequate knowledge and that there is a need to integrate economic, social, and environmental mechanisms. The lack of knowledge about how to integrate these multiple objectives in everyday organizations may be negatively affecting managers. Thus, to advance knowledge about the ways that emerging organizations can contribute to sustainable development, this special issue encouraged the submission of papers, but is not restricted to, on the following subjects:

• Climate change, as a challenge and opportunity for managers.

• Natural resource conservation and eco-efficiency in organizations.

• Best practices of managing for sustainable development.

• Environmentally responsible supply-chain management.

• Organizations and millennium-development goals.

• Managing organizations and considering biodiversity and ecological constraints.

• Responsible supply chain management.

• Marketing strategies, focusing on green issues.

• Role of environmental legislation in managing for sustainable development, and

• Challenges and opportunities for emerging economies.

It is worth noting that emerging economies have great potential to introduce major changes in the debate on sustainable development, particularly in regard to the emerging countries (Papa & Gleason 2012). In this sense, the proposition of the Call for Papers ‘Managing organizations for sustainable development in emerging countries: natural resources, biodiversity, and climate change’ by focusing on the discussion of the role of organizational and governmental actions is justified in the current context of the search for a more sustainable global economy.

2. A brief overview on the accepted works

For this special issue, we received submissions from authors of different countries, focusing on the reality of Brazil, India, and China. These countries are part of the BRIC group. Unfortunately, we did not receive submissions from Russia and other emerging countries. We also did not receive papers that directly covered all of the suggested subjects for this special issue. These limitations will be further discussed in the conclusion of this Introduction article. After the process of selecting the best articles, articles that make up this special issue are presented below.

The article ‘Influence of eco-innovation on Indian manufacturing sector sustainable performance’ develops an eco-innovation conceptual model. This model relates the management and innovative practices (antecedents) and overall sustainable performance (consequences) of eco-innovation, using an institutional theory. Using an Indian-manufacturing sector empirical data and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach, this paper determines the effects of eco-innovation’s antecedents and consequences. In the Indian context, this study suggests that the role of management practice is more significant, regarding eco-innovation, than innovative practices. The results reflect practitioners’ view on how to increase innovation rates and to focus more on social aspects. The finding suggests that training on environment-related practices could involve innovation and social aspects in the Indian-manufacturing sector context.

The aim of ‘A measure of sustainability of Brazilian agribusiness using directional distance functions and data envelopment analysis’ is to estimate a set of indicators of relative efficiency in the Brazilian agricultural sector. The aim is also to satisfy the concept of Pareto optimality, simultaneous economic empowerment, ecological dimensions, and social functions. In order to accomplish this goal, the methods of Directional Distance Functions and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) were applied. These indicators confirm, in different ways, the hypothesis that it is possible to perform consistent productive strategies with the maximization of social welfare, despite the apparent antagonism, among these three dimensions. In addition, it is shown that efficient Brazilian states tend to combine the three dimensions in different ways.

The article ‘Reverse logistics in the Chinese auto-parts firms: implementation framework development through multiple case studies’ focuses on Reverse Logistics (RL) implementation issues in the Chinese auto parts manufacturing sector. Based on a comprehensive literature review and multiple case studies in Chinese auto parts firms, this paper proposes a conceptual RL framework and highlights the major implementation issues. The study suggests that Chinese RL implementation requires close government-monitoring mechanisms and incentives, top management commitment within firms, technology, and human-capabilities support.

The article ‘Factors for implementing end-of-life products reverse logistics in the Chinese manufacturing sector’ aims to understand and prioritize various end-of-life product reverse logistical factors from a Chinese manufacturing sector perspective. Multiple case studies in five different industries within the manufacturing sector have been carried out in order to understand views with respect to reverse logistics. Analytic hierarchy process has been employed in this study to prioritize the governing factors for the successful implementation of reverse logistics operations in the Chinese manufacturing sector. Results indicate that Chinese firms are unlikely to embark on reverse logistics operations without external factors, such as strict government legislation.

‘Social development benefits of hydroelectricity CDM projects in Brazil’ involved an assessment of 46 registered hydro-CDM projects, under the Kyoto Protocol, in terms of their potential impacts on the envisaged social development goals. Two case studies were also examined. The results indicate that organizations managing hydroelectric initiatives in Brazil can offer a pathway towards achieving a number of important social benefits. Successful projects were found to have good community involvement and were managed by both cooperative ventures and money-making corporations. The research also identified several challenges that hinder the hydro-CDM projects in delivering more social benefits, and the research provided a number of recommendations for the organizations to face these challenges.

‘Sustainable development in the BRICS countries: an efficiency analysis by data envelopment’ discusses the performance of countries in the BRICS group, regarding sustainable development. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of these countries in transforming productive resources and technological innovation into sustainable development. The proposed objective was achieved by using econometric tools, as well as the DEA method, in order to create economic, environmental, and social-efficiency rankings for the BRICS countries. This enables comparative analyses of the sustainable development of the BRICS countries. The results of such assessments can be of interest for more specific scientific explorations.

‘Social learning for sustainability: supporting sustainable business in Brazil regarding multiple social actors, relationships and interests’ discussed how one of the largest companies in the chemical segment in Latin America formed a network with social actors; it also discussed how the company is socially learning to deal with the dialectic between return on investments for its shareholders and benefits for its stakeholders. Therefore, research was conducted based on Boje’s narrative analysis. The data was built through interviews, informal conversations, textual and audiovisual documents, and nonparticipant observation. The results discuss the concepts and describe the social learning process for sustainability (in this case, for sustainable agriculture) from the viewpoint of a profit-based organization. In this sense, the study seeks to strengthen the connection between social learning and sustainability.

‘Evaluating losses in ecosystem services in nature reserves in Sichuan, China’ assessed land use and the variation of ecosystem services value (ESV) during 2000–2010 in national nature reserves in Sichuan. The work analyzed the comprehensive effects of natural disasters and human activities on the decline of ESVs. Total ESV in the national nature reserves in Sichuan was approximately 2741.35 million US dollars in 2000, 2616.81 million US dollars in 2005, and 2499.06 million US dollars in 2010, representing a decrease of 242.29 million US dollars, or 8.84%, in the decade. Forestland, grassland, wetland, and water bodies played vital roles in the function of ecosystem services, with an aggregated ESV of 99% of the total. The largest proportion of the total ESV was the protection of biodiversity at 48.6%. ESV of all land use types and single ecosystem services continued to decline during 2000–2010. A mechanism of adaptable risk prevention should be established, and unreasonable human activities should be avoided to protect ecosystems a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Managing organizations for sustainable development in emerging countries: an introduction
• 2. Influence of eco-innovation on Indian manufacturing sector sustainable performance
• 3. A measure of sustainability of Brazilian agribusiness using directional distance functions and data envelopment analysis
• 4. Reverse logistics in the Chinese auto-parts firms: implementation framework development through multiple case studies
• 5. Factors for implementing end-of-life product reverse logistics in the Chinese manufacturing sector
• 6. Social development benefits of hydroelectricity CDM projects in Brazil
• 7. Sustainable development in the BRICS countries: an efficiency analysis by data envelopment
• 8. Social learning for sustainability: supporting sustainable business in Brazil regarding multiple social actors, relationships and interests
• 9. Evaluating losses in ecosystem services in nature reserves in Sichuan, China
• Index