دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی رابطه بین تولید کم سود، آسیب زیست محیطی و عملکرد شرکت - اشپرینگر 2018

Abstract

Prior research has found mixed results of leanness, with a counter idea being that slack allows flexibility to improve firm financial performance. We first seek to confirm empirically that leanness in manufacturing does in fact contribute to both lower environmental damage and to improve firm financial performance. With increased awareness of global environmental issues, we incorporate environmental damage measures from Trucost to assess how they may affect firm performance and are affected by leanness. The measures of leanness are calculated based on publically available financial data from Compustat. Based on a final sample of 406 manufacturing firms representing 3594 firm-year observations from 2002 to 2013, the proposed relationships of leanness to firm outcomes and environmental damaged are investigated. A key finding of this study is that a firm should aim its lean efforts to reducing environmental damage, which in turn has more of an effect on improving financial performance than other lean initiatives.

5 Conclusions

This study adds to the extant literature by using secondary empirical data rather than primary data (self-perception surveys). We utilized a sample of firm performance data merged with environmental performance data, provides a new view on the relationships between firm leanness, environmental damages, and financial performance. One of the key contributions is the validation of the proposition that lean initiatives may improve both financial and environmental performance. Although these results may seem intuitive, as discussed earlier in the paper, prior research has either found mixed results regarding the relationship between environmental improvements and financial performance or was based on perceptions of a survey respondent. We believe that our tests of these relationships, conducted using empirical environmental damage data and financial data, should give managers confidence that lean can improve both the environmental and financial performance simultaneously. A second key contribution of this study is the new insight that environmental damages can mediate partially the impact of lean on financial performance.

These findings have several important implications from a managerial perspective. First, the results show that while lean efforts in a firm can improve financial performance significantly, efforts that target the reduction of environmentally damaging waste will have a more pronounced impact on financial performance. A manager would be wise to target reducing environmental damage through lean initiatives not only because such efforts are socially responsible but also because these initiatives will improve the bottom line. Conversely, the benefits of waste reduction efforts that do not impact environmental damages may be muted within firms that produce high levels of pollution.