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PurposeClosing the loop at the end of products' useful life is earning increased attention from industry and academia. The recent or upcoming enactment of regulations regarding the management of end‐of‐life products is forcing manufacturers to consider strategies to increase the residual value of the products they make. Facilitating the residual value extraction process for end‐of‐life products is a challenging issue deserving investigation. This paper proposes to investigate this issue.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyzes empirical evidence from a sample of 205 environmentally responsive SMEs operating in the fabricated metal products and electric/electronic products industries. A coherent research model is developed which classifies the closed‐loop supply chain (CLSC) activities along two dimensions, the forward and reverse supply chains.FindingsThis first proposed taxonomy has been shown to be relevant for both sectors. The results also demonstrate that firms' abilities to implement CLSC environmental initiatives vary in their intensity and in their locus along the product value chain. Furthermore, benefits derived from these initiatives seem to vary according to the strategy favored by the firms.Originality/valueThis research is valuable for those firms interested in implementing CLSC strategies in a synergistic manner with their forward supply chain.

Small manufacturing firms make a significant contribution to the economy. Yet, partly because of the greater availability of data on larger firms, strategic management and manufacturing strategy research have tended to neglect small business. Using a survey of small manufacturers, we examine the applicability of Porter's typology of generic strategies to this context and investigate the links between generic strategies and one important dimension of manufacturing strategy‐technology management. The analysis of generic strategies shows consistency with previous work on larger firms and tends to support the use of the typology in this setting. Moreover, the internal and external influences on the technology adoption decision process vary significantly with generic strategies, implying that the role played by individuals and networks constitutes a dominant factor. Surprisingly, no distinction was found between firm groupings with respect to decision criteria, which suggests that the decision process of small firms remains rather inexplicit, informal, and, to a large extent, intuitive. We also found that technologically more sophisticated firms tend to hold stronger competitive positions and that technological strength appears to be related to both cost advantage and differentiation.

Small manufacturing companies are generally less sophisticated than large companies. Their décisions to adopt new manufacturing technologies are often based more on short-term operating realities than on long-term stratégie plans. This research study conducted on 100 smaller manufacturing firms investigates how the process innovators in that group differ from the other firms in terms of the operating problems they face. The global picture of a process innovator which émerges from this study is that of a company with tighter capacity management, better process design, more qualified and better trained employées, a more flexible and more responsive manufacturing System, better quaîity and a more harmonious labor relations climate than other companies.This research was partly funded by a grant from the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Center to the Groupe de Recherche et d'Inteivention en Productivité, and by SSHRC grants number 494-89-oe53 and 494-89-oe36. The authors are also indebted to three anonymous référées for their constructive comments.