Omani researcher explores collective impact of Green Supply Chain Management practices
Dr Anwar Khamis al Sheyadi, assistant professor of Operations and Supply Management at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences Rustaq, won an award for his latest study on the impact of the Green Supply Chain Management practices on the environment.
Among the many innovative research projects of the ninth National Research Award, organised by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, ‘The complementarity of Green Supply Chain Management practices and the impact on environmental performance’ by Dr Sheyadi won in the Cultural, Social and Basic Sciences field in the PHD category, said a press release.
According to Sheyadi, the purpose of this study was to examine the collective rather than substitutive impact of internal and external Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) practices on two aspects of environmental performance: environmental impact and environmental cost savings. GSCM is proposed as a collective competency, combining four distinct, but interrelated, sets of practices: environmental management systems, eco design, source reduction and external environmental practices.
Sheyadi and his team used a survey data from 138 Omani manufacturing firms and Structural Equation Modelling. The results showed that there was a strong empirical support for the complementarity of GSCM practices, and that there was a strong positive relationship between the level of collective GSCM competency and the environmental impact achieved. The findings supported the belief that complementarities between
GSCM practices lead to better performance. Sheyadi and his team recommended that managers should therefore focus on implementing bundles of GSCM practices as complement to each other rather than searching for individual best practices.
As for the significance of the project, Sheyadi suggested that this study focused on implementing GSCM among Omani manufacturing enterprises, a context that has not received much attention in the GSCM literature. GSCM is particularly important to enhance the attractiveness of Omani companies, and enable them to enter into the global networks of large multi-national companies. GSCM in general and findings of this study in particular can contribute positively to achieving Oman green plans and initiatives. This research contributed significantly to the existing knowledge about this region and provides more realistic and practical implications for managers and decision makers in Oman and other similar contexts.
This study was conducted by Sheyadi, Dr Luc Muyldermans, Nottingham University Business School, UK, and Dr Katri Kauppi, Aalto University, School of Business, Helsinki, Finland. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Management, a leading peer reviewed journal for the publication of original research related to managing environmental systems and improving environmental quality.
“The award serves as a motivation for us and to all researchers towards making more efforts that have a positive applied impact on strategic decisions in vital sectors,” Sheyadi said after receiving the award.