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That knowledge acquisition from external sources can play a pivotal role in product design is a well-known fact. However, knowledge acquisition need not play a pivotal role in every context; it is also documented to have a dark side (i.e. negative impacts). Specifically, given that product stewardship, by definition, calls on each party in the product life cycle – including suppliers – to share responsibility for the environmental impact of products, the purpose of this study is to answer the question “whether knowledge acquired from suppliers plays a beneficial role in the context of product stewardship?”

This study focuses on the effect of knowledge acquisition on product stewardship and its subsequent effect on environmental performance. Given that the effect of knowledge acquisition could be moderated by firm-specific and relational factors, this study also considers the moderating role of knowledge exploitation and supplier opportunism. Using primary data, the hypotheses are tested using two-stage hierarchical ordinary least squares regression models involving valid instruments.

Though extant research doubts that knowledge acquisition will always be beneficial, this study adheres to the tenets of knowledge-based view and hypothesize that knowledge acquisition is pivotal to product stewardship and its subsequent impact on environmental performance. But the results suggest an intriguing double-edged effect of knowledge acquisition; while its direct effect on product stewardship is nonsignificant, it seemed to have a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between product stewardship and environmental performance. But whenever knowledge exploitation and supplier opportunism are maintained at ideal levels, this double-edged effect of knowledge acquisition is successfully negated.

While knowledge acquisition is key for new product design, its specific role in the product design that incorporates environmental considerations is still not clear. By proposing that knowledge acquisition could instead have a double-edged effect within the unique context of product stewardship, the study makes an invaluable contribution to the extant literature on knowledge management within supply chain relationships.

Corporate environmental expenditure has been a growing concern in recent years, yet mixed findings exist regarding its economic impact. The purpose of this paper is to explain the mixed relationship between environmental expenditure and economic performance from the natural-resource-based view.

Using Global Reporting Initiative survey data from 120 firms in 30 countries, this study uses PROCESS, a path-based analysis software, to test the moderation and mediation hypotheses in an integrated analytical model.

The findings show that environmental expenditure has a negative impact on economic performance through pollution prevention capability. In contrast, environmental expenditure has a positive impact on economic performance through product stewardship capability. Both effects are significantly strengthened when the firm is located in an environmentally munificent country.

This study intends to inform firm managers, especially those in environmentally munificent countries, to relocate their environmental expenditure to enhance firms’ economic performance. In particular, firms should focus more on the reduction of input, such as raw materials, energy, and water, instead of output, including emissions, effluents, and wastes.

The contrasting indirect effects of pollution prevention and product stewardship offer a viable explanation for the mixed findings in the existent literature on environmental expenditure from a new perspective.

This paper aims to develop frameworks to support implementation and competitive leveraging of distinct sustainable supply chain operations. This derives from conceptual definition of the dynamic capabilities required to support Hart’s (1995) natural-resource-based view resources in the supply chain.

This conceptual study uses qualitative content analysis to extract capabilities from review and analysis of literature related to natural-resource-based view (NRBV) and sustainable supply chain management. Intercoder reliability assessments support conceptual development of such capabilities into dynamic capability frameworks.

Specific interrelations between each NRBV resource and corresponding supply chain strategies are conceptualised. From this, capabilities are categorised to corresponding resources, dynamic capabilities activities and internal–external focus. This results in definition of 107 dynamic NRBV capabilities.

Contributions are threefold: distinct frameworks for competitive sustainable supply chain management is offered; the NRBV benefits from enhanced practical guidance via the definition of its dynamic capabilities, addressing the theory-practice gap; and understandings of dynamic capabilities and their role in both the NRBV sustainable supply chain management is advanced.

This paper offers four frameworks to allow firms to tailor sustainability strategies to suit their needs and guide competitive leveraging. Definition of capabilities offers practical guidance to operationalise NRBV resources.

This is the first holistic interpretation of NRBV capabilities and explicit application of dynamic capabilities. This forms the basis of a broader research agenda for the NRBV in sustainable supply chain management.

Forward and reverse supply chains form a “closed loop” when managed in a coordinated way and this “cradle to cradle” responsibility has strong relevance to addressing environmental sustainability in global supply chains. The extensive outsourcing of manufacturing has created highly fragmented supply chains, which is strongly evidenced within the UK clothing industry, and it presents major environmental challenges, particularly around waste and resource use. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a closed loop supply chain (CLSC) can be successfully developed to address environmental sustainability.

The natural resource-based view (NRBV) acknowledges the importance of a firm’s tangible and intangible resources, as well as socially complex relationships, and provides three path-dependent strategies for achieving environmentally based competitive advantage. Via an in-depth case study of the UK-based clothing firm, the NRBV is employed as a framework for understanding the processes that a focal firm needs to engage in to develop a CLSC, and the contribution that is made by its resources and supplier relationships.

The findings illustrate the key importance of strategic resources and shared vision and principles between the focal firm and its suppliers, in order to progress from a more reactive pollution prevention strategy to a fully embedded CLSC response to environmental sustainability. The case study highlights the need to extend the current CLSC model to integrate the design function and end customer; the design function ensures that appropriate environmental practices can be implemented, and customers represent a key stakeholder as they enable the reverse flows required to maximise value and minimise waste.

The NRBV and its three path-dependent strategies are an established framework for understanding environmentally based competitive advantage, but has not previously been explicitly employed to investigate CLSCs. This research, therefore, provides valuable insight into the applicability of this model in the supply chain field, and the key role of tangible and intangible resources and socially complex supplier relationships in developing and achieving a CLSC.

Secondary markets provide a place for unwanted items to be bought and sold, which diverts them from landfills, reducing the products' ecological impact and creating economic value. The purpose of this paper is study the secondary markets to understand the size of this important portion of the US economy.

The data were collected from financial reports, news articles, and interviews with subject experts. From all of these sources, the scope and size of secondary markets can be estimated.

Secondary markets are effective in diverting a large number of products from landfills, creating numerous jobs, resulting in substantial economic value in the process. Although not reflected in current government metrics, a conservative estimate is that the secondary market represents 2.28 percent of the 2008 US gross domestic product.

Several of the secondary markets have many small players, with no strong trade associations or other authorities to estimate their size. The paper's estimates based on known sources are very conservative, perhaps underestimating the size of these sectors.

As society increasingly pays attention to the ecological impact of its products, secondary markets will play an important role in supply chains. Understanding the magnitude, structure and reach of these markets can help firms develop better product stewardship and lifecycle management.

Individuals will not directly change their behavior from this research, but the findings should help companies behave differently, which in the end will offer products with lower ecological impact.

Secondary markets are an integral part of the US economy, and have not been adequately studied.

The creation of a truly global marketplace with a rapidly expanding middle class has created unparalleled opportunities global brands and the multinational corporations that own them. From household and food products to travel and luxury brands, this converging global market with converging lifestyle aspirations would appear to enable global brand stewardship on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, brand marketing and corporate communications practices around the world have become increasingly consistent, eradicating what were once sharp local differences in theory and practice in different countries. The paper aims to focus on this issues surrounding this.

To understand the hidden obstacles to a seamless global approach to corporate and brand marketing, Porter Novelli commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct an online survey of the communications directors of US‐based global multinationals asking detailed questions about what they believe is working well in their global PR networks and what they believe is less than satisfactory. They were asked to rank the importance of a set of core attributes relating to brand marketing and corporate communications and then to rate the performance of their internal PR organization on those attributes.

The outcome of this research revealed five key sources of what can be called network inertia which is discussed in more detail in another paper.

Offers clear actions for global multinationals to meet the extraordinary difficulties in managing their PR networks to create and nourish effective and consistent brand stewardship across the globe.

In the current highly competitive market, most organizations are moving away from reactive and compliance-based to proactive environmental management. This proactive approach to environmental management calls for taking a strategic approach to adoption of green practices beyond an organization’s internal borders. In this respect, incorporating green practices into a firm’s supply chain has attracted interest of operations management scholar and practitioners. The influence of external pressures on the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices has been established in the literature. This research posits that the adoption of GSCM practices is also driven by a firm’s internal strategic factors including its key resources and competitive strategy. It also suggests that these direct effects are further mediated by the green strategies (GSs) adopted in companies. Theoretically, these relationships are supported by combining the institutional theory with the natural resource-based view. A structural equation modeling is applied to formulate and analyze the relationships and the mediating effect using a survey data collected from 139 ISO14001-certified manufacturers in Malaysia. The results verified the mediating effect of GS adoption on the relationship between internal and external strategic factors, and GSCM practices. This research has made an original contribution to knowledge by bridging the fields of strategic environmental management and GSCM.

This paper aims to reflect on recent closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) practices using a natural resource-based view (NRBV) and dynamic capabilities (DC) perspective.

Two empirical case studies of CLSC exemplars are used to discuss the theoretical relevance of these views.

The paper shows how strategic resources help companies in two sectors achieve successful CLSC designs. Strategic supply chain collaboration is an important success factor but also presents a number of challenges. The NRBV is used to explain the importance of new resources in technology, knowledge and relationships and stresses the role of DCs to constantly address changes in the business environment to renew these strategic resources.

This research elaborates on NRBV theory related to CLSCs and reinforces the inclusion of DCs. It specifies the application of NRBV in the context of textiles and carpet manufacture and highlights the inherent conflicts in seeking value while moving towards sustainable development.

Investments in technical and operational resources are required to create CLSCs. Pure closed-loop applications are impractical, requiring relationships with multiple external partners to obtain supply and demand for recycled products.

CLSCs may provide opportunities for social enterprises or third sector organizations collaborating with manufacturers.

This paper provides insights into the constituent resources needed for successful CLSCs. It also helps move CLSC research from a tactical logistics problem to a problem of strategic resources and relational capabilities: what we term “dynamic supply chain execution”. This paper develops a framework for transitioning towards CLSCs, underlining the importance of co-development and forging new relationships through commitment to supply chain redesign, co-evolution with customers and suppliers and control of supply chain activities.