ORGANIZATION AND ITS ENVIRNOMENT

Organization and its Envirnoment



Organization and its Envirnoment

Executive Summary

This paper discusses some exploratory evidence from operations management of Honda Motors currently evaluated in environmentally conscious business practices. These exploratory discussions suggested a number of areas for further investigation, linked by a focus on the process of environmentally conscious business practices and its use of management, rather than on purely technical issues of management and data analysis. The focus of attention in dynamic view of assessment of environmentally conscious business practices moves from structures to processes. Since a processual analysis gives operations management theorists and researchers an additional and sensible grounding on which to base further inquiry into issues regarding environmentally conscious business practices.

Introduction

Environmentally conscious manufacturing (ECM) involves developing and implementing manufacturing processes that minimize or eliminate waste, reduce energy consumption, improve materials utilization efficiency, and improve operational safety (Weissman and Sekutowski, 1991). ECM practices and management have evolved with influences from reactive and proactive activities and policies set forth by organizations. The reactive pressures are typically due to governmental and legal regulations, and maintenance of a status quo among corporate competitors. Proactive pressures are associated with constructing and maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage in various markets. Both these pressures will significantly influence the strategic decisions and direction of an organization, whether they are large multinational corporations or small manufacturing firms (Ottman, 1998).

A tool or model to structure strategic environmental decisions in a dynamic competitive and regulatory environment will lesson the competitive, environmental and legal risks faced by many organizations (Henrique and Sadorsky, 1996). To achieve its goal, all environmentally conscious business practices need to be carefully designed, assessed, and redesigned.

However, very little attention has been given to the actual or potential impact of environmentally conscious business practices on the manufacturer itself, other than the largely untested assertion that green strategy leads to green success. This assertion neglects, in particular, the possibility that a trade-off exists between manufacturer and customer interests, and that environmentally conscious business practices may have adverse effects on the corporate environment, or the manufacturing strategy itself.

Research has provided a good understanding of much of the structure of environmental management. To date, however, little work has focused on the process of environment management as it unfolds within manufacturing organizations. Moreover, little attention has been given to the impact of the processual characteristics and structural issues surrounding the implementation of environmentally conscious business practices assessment. It is certainly true that attention has been paid to the implementation of environmentally conscious business practices themselves, but a processual analysis suggests that the more critical issue is the positive, negative, or ambivalent impact of these business practices on the implementation of market orientation and manufacturing strategies, rather than the implementation of such business practices themselves.

Soichiro Honda founded the Honda Motor Co. at Hamamatsu, near the southern coast of Japan between Tokyo and Nagoya. That was in 1948. For the first fifteen years, Honda was a motorcycle producer, selling its products in Japan and over the ...