Lean Manufacturing and Environmental Sustainability: The Effects of Employee Involvement, Stakeholder Pressure and ISO 14001

Abstract

This paper explores the relationships between lean manufacturing (LM), the promotion of green practices, employee involvement, pressure to take actions against environmental issues, the adoption of an ISO 14001-based environmental management system (EMS) and environmental performance in order to understand how LM can help improve environmental performance through environmental practices and the development of a lean culture. The effects of pressure to “go green”, employee involvement and the adoption of an EMS based on the International Organization for Standardization’s standard ISO 14001 are discussed. Data were collected from 220 Chinese manufacturing firms and analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) regression. The results suggest that the implementation of LM has a positive effect on the promotion of green practices and consequent achievement of high environmental performance; employee involvement is a moderator that affects the relationship between green practices and environmental performance; pressure to “go green” is a mediator in the relationship between LM and green practices; however, the adoption of ISO 14001 does not act as a moderator on the relationship between LM and green practices, but synergies emerge if ISO 14001 is integrated with LM. The study shows the importance of human attitudes and fosters managers to develop the necessary mechanisms to ensure and enhance employee involvement and lean culture. Although these determinants of environmental sustainability have been studied separately until now, this paper analyzes them simultaneously, investigating the relationship between different strategies and shedding some light on successful actions that promote sustainable manufacturing, and on the role of LM in sustainability. The findings can help manufacturers to take the initiative to improve environmental performance and assist governments in implementing industrial policies.

Lean Manufacturing and Ergonomics Integration: Defining Productivity and Wellbeing Indicators in a Human–Robot Workstation

“…The system developed by Eiji Toyota, named Toyota Production Systems (TPS), pioneered this waste elimination/reduction vision and has been recognized as doing more with less [5]. To identify, eliminate and prevent wasteful operations, several techniques and tools compose the LM, such as 5S workplace organization, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Just-In-Time (JIT), Standard Work, pull production, or Value Stream Mapping (VSM) [6,7]. LM is widely applied in industrial settings and facilitates companies' competitiveness by reducing production costs and at the same time improving working conditions [2].…”

Management Styles and Decision-Making: Pro-Ecological Strategy Approach

“…There is always an organizational culture, such as weather or atmosphere [51,52], which are terms often associated with the organizational management styles or organizational character [51] or spirit [53]. These similarities to the natural environment elements are justified due to changes the pro-ecological approach induces in the organizational culture [54,55]. The changes in the organization's culture are important for change management, motivation, and leadership (Figure 1) [56].…”

Employee Voice: The Missing Factor in Sustainable HRM?

“…Research into Green HRM at the employee level has found that employees are an important catalyst for an organisation to achieve its 'green' ambitions. Empirical research has demonstrated the impact employees can have on an organisation's environmental performance through employee's organizational citizenship behaviour towards the environment (OCBE) [8,[35][36][37][38], employee involvement in team projects [39][40][41], employee participation programs [11][12][13][42][43][44], or employee's abilities, motivations and opportunities (AMO) [9]. While the research finds that employees do affect environmental outcomes through Green HRM, a gap in the literature exists in the consideration of how employees can voice and be part of the drive towards and development of, environmental initiatives.…”

“…However, despite the central role human resources can play in achieving sustainability objectives, a fundamental element that we see as missing in Sustainable HRM literature is the role of the employee, and more specifically structured employee voice, in the development of a sustainable approach to HRM. Within the emergent literature on Sustainable HRM, there is research that brings the employee to the fore such as [8,9], including some that explore the impact of employee involvement or participation on environmental initiatives for example; [10][11][12][13]. Other work in the Sustainable HRM field has explored other aspects of HRM, such as recruitment and selection [14,15], training and development [16,17], Performance Management [18] and Reward Management [19] and its role in developing sustainability.…”