The Sustainability Debate by Adrian Wilkinson, Malcolm Hill, and Paul Gollan - Article Example

ARTICLE REVIEW Name: Course: Tutor: Institution: Date: Article Review In the article International Journal of Operations & Production Management Emerald Article: The sustainability debate by Adrian Wilkinson, Malcolm Hill and Paul Gollan explores the definition and incidence of sustainability and the critical roles played by corporations and governments in the development of legislation for establishment of standards for business processes and products. The article explores the capacities of modern organizations necessary to achieve sustainability. The article defines sustainable development as the type of “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The term sustainability is reliant on activities such as maintaining, restoration, renewing of specific elements within an organization. In addition, sustainability should also be inclusive of ethical dimensions of fair practice and tradeoffs between future needs within an environment and the existing economic pressures. The authors also note of the growing importance of sustainability in modern businesses as organizations use it as a means of enhancing their positions in the market and competitive advantage. Governments play a primary role in ensuring environmental sustainability through the establishment of environment regulatory and standards frameworks towards conservation of production inputs. In addition, this is critical towards enhancing the quality of life, in economic environments where actions may be termed as a cost improvement and detrimental to an organization’s industrial competitiveness. It is understood from other research, that the establishment of regulatory frameworks and standards for sustainable development of products, delivery of services and business processes can be effective in reducing costs. This is induces the emergence of innovations and creations that are critical towards the reduction of costs within the organizations (Kleindorfer, Singhal, & Wassenhove, 2005, 487). The harmonization of environmental standards and their overall interpretation by organizations have been effective in elimination of barriers to international competition. Stringent environment regulations and standards prompt industries to innovate and become creative in development of solutions towards various environmental problems and challenges experienced within the organization. The authors use examples in Germany and Japan, which are among some of the top industrialized global economies known for development of solutions such as landfills and collaboration of government and private sector to development environmental solutions respectively. On the other hand, it is evident that governments are unable to solve all of the world’s environmental problems without the support of the private sector and economic environments. Initially, previous governments were criticized for the lack of political will and inability to utilize economic resources and incentives towards reduction of industrial pollution. However, there has been growth in the idea that focusing on the market model would be detrimental to global markets given its emphasis on short-term profit advantages at the expense of long-term growth and profitability (Kleindorfer, Singhal, & Wassenhove, 2005, 489). The article also notes of the presence of evidence of the attempts by corporations to compete in only environmentally sensitive economies through the promotion of sustainable products or “green products”. This can be attributed to the fact that corporations and the lack of government wellbeing and appropriation of resources has resulted in the emergence of predisposing factors that have contributed to environmental degradation through pollution. The cumulative occurrences of crises such as unsustainable population growth, decline in non-renewable resources, reduction in diversity of animal and plant species, ecotoxins, high incidences of waste and destruction due to lenient standards and regulations, and growing inequalities across income brackets and social classes. The growth of inequalities across incomes can be directly attributed to the market model that has been focused on short-term financial benefits and profit maximization (Wilkinson, Hill, & Gollan, 2001, 1493). The authors note that such problems arise from the lack of developing sustainable measures for the relationships between human activity and the environment. Human activities are undertaken with minimal or no concern over the future of survival of human, animal and plant life. Thus, businesses in the global economy, in the wake of the identified environmental concerns, should operate with regard to their interactions with the environment for sustainability and positive futures of humanity (Kleindorfer, Singhal, & Wassenhove, 2005, 490). Governance structures should be improved to ensure the adoption of appropriate standards and the effective harmonization of existing regulation frameworks for sustainable futures. However, this does not mean that some corporations have been keen on adoption of appropriate standards and regulations for ensuring their approach towards responsible business practices in the creation and delivery of products and services to their consumers (Seliger, 2007. 23). In essence, managers should constantly confront the challenges associated with the alignment of needs and interests of their organizations with those of resources, society towards enabling the achievement of competitive advantage and maintaining high levels of productivity (Wilkinson, Hill, & Gollan, 2001, 1497). Operations managers initially understood environmental pressures as products of external constraints brought about by environmental standards and regulation. The growing number of external pressures such as local communities, industrial accidents, legislation, competitors, consumer awareness towards “green products”, activism, media, scarcity of raw materials, and high costs of disposal of waste have placed direct pressures on operation managers in modern organizational settings. It is noted in the article of the lack of adequate and in-depth research on environmental operations management resulting in gaps in research literature. In addition, the article also makes an important consideration on the importance and evolution of industrial ecology. Industrial ecology would affect business across various fields whereby waste from one industry can be utilized as raw materials for other industries (Seliger 2007, 29). For instance, in developed economies such as Germany, industries are located in proximity to recycling plants and raw material providers to eliminate the demand or need for transportation and packaging. Environmental operations management has grown and evolved towards improvements in the relationships between manufacturing and environmental technologies and the environment and quality management systems. This illustrates the critical nature of differentiation between proactive investments in prevention of incidences of pollution and the reactive investments towards controlling pollution. This is illustrative of the importance of prevention and control of pollution towards environmental performance. It is the imperative of operational managers in organizations to include environmental considerations in functional aspects of an entity (Wilkinson, Hill, & Gollan, 2001, 1500). Manufacturing operations and activities through product and process technologies can be primary drivers of enhancing environmental performance. This is as a result of the differences ecological impacts amongst raw material specifics, energy consumption levels, production efficiency, pollutant emissions, delivery systems, and opportunities towards recycling. This in turn may give rise to prioritization of advanced environmental technologies towards reducing and limiting negative environmental impacts from business processes. It is evident of the importance of development of proactive as opposed to reactive regulations and standards for prevention of the high incidences of environmental pollution to regulate organizational operations. The perspectives on sustainability emanate from the treatment and elimination of pollution, the benefits associated with opportunity costs from waste of resources, wasted effort, and reduced value of products and services. In relation to resource productivity, competitiveness and environmental improvement can interact for significant benefits to the modern organization. In addition, innovation and creativity is evidently critical towards environmental sustainability and competitiveness because of the growth of international environmental needs and demands within the global marketplace. It is important to note that the identified occurrences are usually prevalent across industries that are presumed to have significant effects on the environment. Changes to environmental and operations management as identified above are impossible to achieve without the presence of accompanying human resources policies towards the development of appropriate and adequate managerial and technical capacities within an organization. It is also apparent of the presence of other issues such as enabling employee satisfaction in the workplace, corporate profitability, and survival when pursing sustainability in the modern organization (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2013, 56). Human resource management has evolved over the years from the initial understanding of human management towards resource management. This based on the premise that the potential, needs, and aspirations of the employees should be understood in the workplace for sustainability to be achieved. For actual corporate sustainability to be achieved, human resource practices and polices should be integrated for ensuring sustained organizational performance and the achievement of positive employee outcomes such as equity, wellbeing and career or personal development. The growing focus on customized quality consciousness in the global market and prevalence of new technologies, a new breed of employees has emerged known as the “knowledge worker”. They are characterized by high skills, experience training, and qualifications in existing and emerging areas of business processes. Thus, the achievement of corporate sustainability, profitability, and growth is evidently reliant on the management of employees to ensure high levels of satisfaction, engagement, and subsequent commitment (Wilkinson, Hill, & Gollan, 2001, 1501). The intellectual capital and capacity within modern organizations is the ideas, innovations, knowledge, and experience held by the employees, which the management seeks to formalize and codify towards optimizing organizational value. This has given rise to new employment relationships that is developed from the contingent contractual culture because of the focus placed by organizations on short-term financial profitability. This reinforces the critical nature and developing corporate human capabilities and focusing on long-term sustainability of the modern employment engagements in organizations (Wilkinson, Hill, & Gollan, 2001, 1495). From this article, it is apparent of the presence of various questions such as the application of human resources by modern organizations towards achievement of corporate sustainability and profitability. Sustainability is relative to all resources to include the human factor in production of goods and services in the modern organization. In addition, issues such as the use of human resources towards ensuring social and economic responsibility are also highlighted as areas that would demand new research. Sustainable operations management in an overly competitive and integrated global market is a challenge to achieve as a result of constraints such as rapid population growth, income inequalities, rapid technological advancements aiding high incidences of industrialization and depletion of natural resources. The authors successful illustrate the elusive nature of sustainable operations management for modern organizations. Bibliography Wilkinson, A, Hill, M & Gollan, P, 2001, “The Sustainability debate”, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 21 Iss. 12: 1492-1502. Krajewski, L J, Ritzman, L P, & Malhotra, M K, 2013, Operations management, Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson. Seliger, G 2007. Sustainability in manufacturing recovery of resources in product and material cycles. Berlin: Springer. Kleindorfer, P R, Singhal, K, Wassenhove, L N V, 2005, “Sustainable Operations Management”, Production and Operations Management (POMS), Vol. 14, No. 4: pp. 482–492 Haggar, S, 2007, Sustainable industrial design and waste management cradle-to-cradle for sustainable development, Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press. Read More