Sandra Rothenberg

Suppliers and environmental innovation: The Automotive paint process

Automobile assembly plants worldwide face increasing pressures in the environmental arena. How a plant responds to these issues has significant implications for the cost and quality of plant operations. This paper uses three case studies of US assembly plants to examine the role of partnerships between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers in improving the environmental performance of manufacturing operations. We find that strong partnerships with suppliers, supported by appropriate incentive systems, were a significant element of the successful application of innovative environmental technologies. Supplier staff members were an important part of achieving environmental performance improvements while maintaining production quality and cost goals. The management factors influencing the extent and nature of supplier involvement are identified. The results of this work point to the importance of suppliers in addressing the manufacturing challenges of the future.

How Corporate Social Responsibility Engagement Strategy Moderates the CSR–Financial Performance Relationship

We propose that firm profits are shaped by how firms engage in corporate social responsibility. Recent research on the corporate social responsibility (CSR)–corporate financial performance (CFP) relationship proposes a variety of contextual and organizational factors to create a more robust link. However, few of these studies explore the role of the CSR engagement strategy. Drawing on absorptive capacity theory and related perspectives such as time compression diseconomies, asset mass efficiencies, and path dependence theory, we argue that when a firm engages in CSR slowly and consistently, focuses on related CSR dimensions, and starts with internal dimensions of CSR, CFP will be enhanced. With longitudinal data collected from 130 firms from 1995 to 2007, we find that firms benefit more when they adopt a CSR engagement strategy that is consistent, involves related dimensions of CSR, and begins with aspects of CSR that are more internal to the firm. The pace of the CSR engagement strategy, however, does not moderate the CSR–CFP relationship. This study helps fill the gap in CSR research by showing that, regardless of contextual factors, a firm can choose the proper strategy to enhance the financial benefits of the CSR engagement.

Tacit knowledge transfer and the knowledge disconnect

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at some of the factors that influence the transfer of tacit knowledge between two product development partners.Design/methodology/approach – Research involved the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data was based on 13 interviews with various individuals, representing three companies, charged with integrating external technology. The quantitative portion of the data was collected through an online survey. The survey was executed by soliciting responses from managers of 39 discreet projects involving various types of external technology integration, representing five different companies.Findings – The paper provides evidence that trust, early involvement, and due diligence influence the extent of meeting technology transfer expectations and tacit knowledge transfer expectations. It also finds that the subject of tacit knowledge transfer, content and process, is poorly understood. While managers and project leaders saw the val...

Lessons from benchmarking environmental performance at automobile assembly plants

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to better understand benefits and problems with different approaches to benchmarking environmental performance in manufacturing.Design/methodology/approach – This paper shares the experience of a research program developing environmental benchmarking measures for the automobile industry.Findings – In this paper, we categorize these options into four general categories: regulatory, gross emissions, efficiency, and life cycle. We found that firms emphasized different approaches to benchmarking depending upon regulatory context and company strategy. Product type, corporate and national culture, resource costs, stakeholder demands also all played a role in influencing their preferred benchmarking approach. Overall, the most robust environmental programs will incorporate elements of all four approaches.Research limitations/implications – The primary limitation of this study is that it draws its data from only one industry. Another limitation of this paper is that it is fo...

A framework for sourcing product development services

Reflects on the experience of three product development teams to build a framework to aid in the process of strategic sourcing. Focuses on patterns observed across these three new product development projects in terms of challenges in strategic sourcing. Building from these observations, proposes a four‐step decision‐making framework that enables product development teams and managers to make informed product development sourcing decisions. The framework was designed to have enough structure to guide the sourcing decision process, but flexible enough to promote challenging thinking and deep analysis.

Technical Assistance Programs and the Diffusion of Environmental Technologies in the Printing Industry: The Case of SMEs:

The goal of this article is to better understand the diffusion of environmentally preferable manufacturing technology (as distinct from pollution control technology) in small-and medium-sized firms (SMEs) and the influence of technical assistance programs on the diffusion of these technologies. The authors draw their insights from the printing industry, a sector where small firms predominate. They find that smaller firms lag slightly in the adoption of environmental technologies. With regard to technical assistance, they find that printers identify suppliers and other industry sources as more useful than government in providing information that leads to active exploration of new environmental technologies. In addition, in comparison to larger firms, smaller firms reported to be less familiar with government-sponsored programs and perceived some of the programs to be less useful. They point to several ways in which regulatory agencies are experimenting to make government sponsored programs more effective.

Corporate Perceptions of Climate Science: The Role of Corporate Environmental Scientists

Although there has been some growing recognition of the role of private actors in international environmental regimes, little attention has been paid to the role of the private sector at the science–policy interface. Because the automobile industry plays a crucial role in mitigation of greenhouse gases, successful policy requires not just the assent but the active cooperation of this sector. Such cooperation, however, requires some institutional acceptance that climate change is indeed a significant risk. In this article, the authors look at the early stages of the automobile industry’s engagement with the discourse on climate change. The authors focus, in particular, on the role of corporate scientists in two U.S. automobile companies in translating this discourse. Acting as boundary spanners and institutional entrepreneurs, these individuals influenced both corporate perceptions of and responses to climate change science.

Automotive Transportation in China: Technology, Policy, Market Dynamics, and Sustainability

ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, China has become a global economic force. However, this economic growth has led to significant increases in carbon-intense energy consumption, with potentially disastrous impacts on the global environment. Fueling this energy explosion is an increased demand for automobiles in China, which has been met by an expanding auto production industry. This paper reviews Chinas current and projected energy and environmental milieu, with particular emphasis on automobile market development. The paper links Chinas sustainability potential to its technologies, policies, markets, and automobile industry structure. The paper concludes by characterizing the type of research that is needed to help meet Chinas growing transportation needs in a sustainable fashion.

Strategies to Cope with Regulatory Uncertainty in the Auto Industry

Automotive assemblers and suppliers have employed a number of different strategies to deal with external uncertainty. These strategies have evolved relatively rapidly of late in part because of changes in the locus of innovation from OEMs to suppliers, changing market conditions, and the future regulations of greenhouse gases. This presents a unique challenge for the industry. Some auto firms have been more effective in dealing with market and regulatory uncertainty due to technology resource integration across platforms and integration between functions on the value added chain from suppliers to retailers.

The Impact of Human Resource Management on Corporate Social Performance Strengths and Concerns

Although high-performance human resource practices do not directly affect corporate social performance (CSP) strengths, they do positively affect CSP strengths in companies that are highly innovative or have high levels of slack. High-performance human resource management (HRM) practices also directly and negatively affect CSP concerns. Drawing on the resource-based view and using secondary data from an objective, third-party database, the authors develop and test hypotheses about how high-performance HRM affects a company’s CSP strengths and concerns. Findings suggest that HRM and innovation are important capabilities because they create and enhance other capabilities.