Environmental Knowledge Management Processes and Supply Chain Management Environmental Performance of Malaysian Manufacturing Firms: An Exploratory Study

In recent years, global environmental pollution and degradation issues have received wide attention from all segments of society leading to intense interest in environmentally-sustainable development practices. The growing awareness for this has made it exigent for manufacturing firms and business organizations alike to look towards adopting and incorporating green practices and green operations to improve their environmental and organizational performance. In line with this, green supply chain management has become a much sought-after managerial tool by manufacturing firms to enhance their operations in order to maintain their competitive advantage. Due to the need for organizations to acquire new knowledge and competencies, which would involve a considerable amount of new environmental-related knowledge, this study investigates and evaluates the influence of environmental knowledge management (EKM) processes adopted by manufacturers to enhance their supply chain's environmental performance. Self-administered surveys were distributed to all manufacturing firms in Malaysia that have at least 50 employees as listed in the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) Directory of Malaysian Manufacturers 2009 (FMM 2009). Out of the total of 1589 surveys sent out to the manufacturing firms, 185 usable responses were received, representing a response rate of 11.64%. The data collected was analysed using multiple linear regression analysis. The findings indicate that significant relationship exist with socialization, externalization and internalization EKM processes that collectively explain about 71.0% of the variance in the environmental performance of the supply chain management initiatives. This therefore suggests that firms would need to revisit their human resource and training policies to ensure that there are more emphasis on these three environmental knowledge management processes and to develop initiatives such as research or industry attachment to ensure that staff obtain the latest knowledge via socialization and that the organizational culture within the firm supports these three EKM processes.