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This paper aims to investigate the current value chain activities grounded on Porter’s value chain theory and to examine the drivers of strategic environmentalism that influence sustainable value chain adoption. This study further constructs a prescriptive model to reveal the extent to which information communication technology (ICT)-based industries are adopting sustainable value chain practices.

Data were collected using questionnaire from selected ISO 14000/14001-certified ICT-based firms in Malaysia and analyzed using partial least square-structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that the primary activities positively influence sustainable value chain. Moreover, results indicate that support activities significantly influence sustainable value chain adoption in ICT-based firms. Results further show that strategic environmentalism drivers have an impact on sustainable value chain adoption.

Data were collected from ICT-based industries in Malaysia only. Additionally, this research extends the body of knowledge and offers theoretical implications for ICT-based industries in Malaysia and other emerging economies in adopting sustainable value chain activities.

Practically, this study assists ICT-based industries to change their current paradigm from the traditional operations to a more holistic approach toward supporting practitioners to simultaneously achieve social responsibility, environmental and economic growth.

This study offers social implications for ICT-based industries to implement cleaner operations by decreasing CO₂ emission, lessening energy usage, diminishing cost incurred and minimizing usage of natural resources, thereby increasing product recovery and recycle-ability of IT hardware.

This study is one of the first to address the issue related to sustainable value chain in ICT-based industry by providing a roadmap on how practitioners can implement sustainable initiatives or more significantly, how to infuse these initiatives in their current chain, while concurrently enhancing competitiveness. Furthermore, this paper examines the current activities implemented by practitioners toward sustainable value chain adoption and explores the correlation of the drivers of strategic environmentalism with regard to sustainable value chain.

The purpose of this paper is to increase the student's knowledge of the value chain and its importance in managing costs.

The approach takes the form of a teaching case with practical implications, which also includes teaching notes.

It is important to effectively manage a company's value chain. A clear understanding of the value chain, combined with effective management of all aspects of the value chain can often lead to a competitive advantage in today's business environment.

A company can improve decision making with a clear understanding of the value chain.

This case presents a practical and straightforward approach for instructors to explain the value chain concept and how important managing the value chain can be to the company's overall success.

During a UN Commission meeting in 1983, Norwegian Prime Minister Brundtland came to state one of the most comprehensive definitions of sustainability: ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED Report, 1987). Since then, themes related to sustainability proliferated and passed beyond the ‘macro’ level by also adopting ‘mezzo’ and ‘micro’ levels as unit of analysis. To state this more specifically, a macro perspective reflects a community level point of view, while a mezzo perspective adopts organisation and institution level focus point, and a micro perspective adopts an individual level research view. Within this framework, the issue turns out to be a debate of providing sustainability to the community, to the institutions (‘business enterprise’ being one of them) and to the individuals. Such fragmentation is especially necessary in literature as it is the aggregation of research on multiple levels that will lead to seminal contributions in many respects. Literature suggests evidence of how devastating the outcomes could be when there is conflict among these different levels regarding the meaning and implications of sustainability (e.g. Baumgartner & Ebner, 2010; Linnenluecke, Russell, & Griffiths, 2009).

This paper aims to highlight the challenges and opportunities of sustainable global value chain governance, it demonstrates strong theoretical deficits in this field and offers new pragmatist conceptual perspectives.

The empirical analysis is based on document analyses, 47 expert interviews and on field observations in Ghana, Africa.

Based on an in-depth analysis of a US firm operating a fair trade value chain in an intercultural environment, the authors show that universalistic value chain-oriented governance instruments often fail because of strong institutional and cultural distances. Against the prevailing strategies of top-down management, the authors suggest a more bottom-up, pragmatist and collaboration-based approach to sustainable global value chain governance.

The results of an in-depth case study are not generalizable. Instead, they provide holistic insights into a so-far insufficiently examined field and an empirical fundament for further research on sustainable governance in global value chains. In particular, research on pragmatist, collaborative, dialogue based, bottom-up approaches of sustainable value chain governance will be of great value to further theoretical development of this field.

This study is relevant to researchers and practitioners in the field of sustainable value chain governance. It reveals several misunderstandings about the effectiveness and impacts of sustainable governance in less developed countries and thus builds a foundation for better and more effective problem-solving approaches in international sustainable management activities.

Nontransparent supplier networks and (illegal) sub-contracting, as well as the strong influences of institutional, cultural and sub-cultural factors, make responsible value chain management a challenging task for any firm with international value creation activities. This leaves workers in local factories vulnerable to infringements of their fundamental human rights and the environment unprotected against long-lasting damages. Addressing these challenges and developing new solutions, therefore, can have strong impacts on the lives of workers in international supply chains.

The authors contribute, first, a differentiated empirical description and analysis of a sustainable value chain approach in a less developed country in Africa. Second, using an example of the field study, the authors highlight limitations of value chain-related governance theory based on a field study by illustrating the challenges and barriers and a lack of existing concepts concerning effective sustainable governance in global value chains. Third, the authors show different managerial responses to these cultural and institutional challenges between universalism and relativism, and, fourth, the authors suggest a more collaborative, bottom-up and pragmatist approach to sustainable value chain governance.

The purpose of this paper is to employ an inductive approach to explore how small, nascent, firms in the craft brewing industry use cooperative behaviours with direct competitors to achieve their goals.

Data were gathered from interviews with the founders of seven small, newly established, craft brewers in a Midwestern city in the USA for this exploratory study. Data analysis followed the general tenants of inductive coding. Porter’s value chain model was used as a framework to organise and conceptualise the coopetitive behaviour uncovered.

The firms engage in cooperative behaviours with their direct competitors in areas such as process technology development, procurement, inbound logistics and marketing. A particularly interesting and common collaborative activity was breweries recommending/promoting competing breweries to their own customers.

This study provides clear examples of how relationship building with competitors could be advantageous and help small, nascent firms overcome the liabilities of newness and smallness.

Research on coopetition has called for a greater understanding of the nature of cooperative behaviours in small firms, start-ups and firms outside of high-technology industries. Moreover, research has called for finer-grained approaches to conceptualising coopetition. This paper fills these gaps and shows how Porter’s value chain is a useful tool for organising the types of collaborative behaviours that can be part of coopetition. The findings enhance understanding and facilitate future research by illustrating a broad array of cooperative activities that occur between direct competitors.

To explore the influence of competitive strategy in entrepreneur‐led SMEs and the effects on e‐learning HRD.

Performance consulting company reviews provide holistic information on nine case studies on small and medium sized enterprises drawn from the printing, agri‐foods and media industries.

Competitive strategy is a major influence on an entrepreneur and value chain investments, such as e‐learning HRD. E‐learning benefits and limitations are recognised, and influences categorised through a four‐learning influences model. Embedded e‐learning activities in value chain activities are highlighted. The perception of the entrepreneur, the physical adoption of ICT, the company culture, and the presence of knowledge workers appear to determine the adoption of e‐learning rather than industry sector.

Competitive strategy appears as key influence for entrepreneurs in their choice of prioritisation of resource for value chain activities, including e‐learning. E‐learning embedded into work processes is becoming widely used by knowledge workers, but the informal nature of learning means that it is not recognised immediately as a HRD support activity by line managers or employees. Certain knowledge workers are developing personal learning environments.

Analyses the influences of competitive strategy on the secondary value chain activities of e‐learning HRD from the perspective of an entrepreneur directing an SME. Knowledge workers use informal, embedded learning in these cases, without its explicit recognition as e‐learning. A tension appears to exist between the perception of some entrepreneurs of the Internet as a leisure activity for employees and its use by knowledge workers as a catalyst for informal learning.

The purpose of this paper was to establish the contribution of value chain and productivity to trade performance in the dairy industry using evidence from Uganda.

This study research design is cross-sectional and correlational. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 108 dairy farmers, processors and exporters. Data were analysed through correlation coefficients and linear regression using Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

Hierarchical regression results indicate that value chain and productivity contribute significantly to variances in trade performance of dairy products. Therefore, appropriate value chain processes and high levels of productivity lead to increased trade performance in the dairy industry.

This study focusses on trade performance of dairy products in Uganda. These research findings are useful for informing the deliberations of academicians, regulators and the business community. The results are applicable to all countries that carry out trade specifically in dairy products.

The results are important for trade policy development in the dairy industry. For example, this study informs farmers, processors and exporters of dairy products how value chain activities in dairy farming can be re-aligned to achieve better quality and productivity for exportation. Similarly, the current study provides policy guidance for the relevant ministries such as ministry of trade and other players to come up with holistic policy actions aimed at improving the trade performance of dairy products in the country.

To the researchers' knowledge, this is the first study that provides an initial empirical evidence on the contribution of value chain and productivity on trade performance of dairy products in Uganda.

The aim of this research is to identify the drivers and processes that can influence the outsourcing process in the telecommunications industry. The research focuses on a telecommunications equipment manufacturer that has outsourced a range of activities to suppliers including assembly operations, manufacturing, logistics and design. This strategy has resulted in the company becoming a “systems integrator” in which it manages and co‐ordinates a network of best production and service providers. The implications of this strategy are drawn from an analysis of this company and three suppliers by analysing three outsourcing programmes over an 18‐month period. There is considerable focus on evaluating the capability of activities in the value chain in relation to potential suppliers. The findings in this research challenge the value of using the core competence concept as a basis for outsourcing. In fact, the findings show that analysis and management of the supply chain can have a greater impact on the outsourcing process than attempting to unravel the complexities and intricacies of the core competence approach.

This study explores the relevance of the value chain concept in internet‐driven business and assesses the extent to which businesses utilize the internet from a value chain perspective. It attempts to answer the following three questions: is the value chain concept relevant and applicable to the internet as a means of understanding the internet? To what extent do organizations utilize the internet according to a value chain perspective? Does the business use of the internet change over time?

To answer these questions, a longitudinal survey study was conducted over a two‐year period. The first study collected data from 110 firms on the way they utilize the internet. Two years later, a similar survey was conducted with 70 firms using the same instrument used in the first study.

The study provided empirical support for the use of the value chain concept as a viable taxonomy for assessing the level of adoption of the internet. The study also provided a time‐lapsed glimpse of how organizations evolve in adopting the internet.

One of the shortcomings of the study is in the sampling process, although various measures were taken to ensure that the data represent a wide range of organizations, so that the findings can be reasonably generalizable.

The most important practical contribution of the study is that it provides practitioners with a tool to systematically plan and deploy an ever‐increasing array of internet applications. The internet value chain model should provide organizations with a strategic and macro perspective to evaluate and manage various internet applications.

An important contribution of this study is that it empirically observed the evolution of the internet practices in business according to the value chain framework. There has been plenty of anecdotal evidence of changes in the way business utilizes the internet, but no study has empirically assessed these changes systematically based on a theoretical framework. The study provides a valuable theoretical framework for researchers to continuously accumulate knowledge on the use of the internet in business.

While the implications of outsourcing have been extensively studied from the point of view of the developed country multinational corporation (MNC) and its home economy, far less attention has been paid to the developing country firm (DCF) participating in the outsourcing collaboration. This article aims at presenting, evaluating, and synthesizing a number of theoretical contributions that may help build an agenda for future research on outsourcing from a DCF perspective.

Through a review of the extant theoretical literature on outsourcing, the article seeks to explicate a DCF perspective on outsourcing.

The article argues that although several theoretical domains indirectly shed light on outsourcing from a DCF perspective, they are typically approaching the issue from a macro (country) and meso (industry) level perspective and rarely explicitly apply a micro (firm) level perspective. Moreover, they tend to view DCF strategy in outsourcing collaborations as functions of MNCs' strategies, not as strategies in their own right. In order to fill this apparent lacuna in the outsourcing literature, the article reviews a number of theories that may help building a research agenda on outsourcing from a developing country perspective.

The article contributes to the outsourcing literature by explicating a DCF theoretical perspective on outsourcing.