Discussion: View Thread

  • 1.  Advice

    Posted 12-26-1999 07:12
    Greetings,
    Charles explained that the message I sent last night may
    have been garbled as it was in an attachment. It included
    graphics that do not appear in this text version. Thank you again in
    advance for your advice:


    Greetings,
    I'd appreciate your advice on my next adventure in research.
    I'm in the "publish or perish" mode, and as such one of my primary
    goals is to generate scholarly articles. My potential research
    question is: what is the relationship between strategies on the
    natural environment and performance across an industry? I know I
    have a rich literature to draw from. Here are my questions for you:
    1. What are the best strategy typologies for decisions that
    deal with the natural environment? I'd offer that Olive (1990,1991,
    AMR/AMJ) is the most appropriate, but I'd like to use other
    typologies as well. I have scales for Miles and Snow, but I'd
    appreciate any advice on different typologies. I'd rather choose
    ones that have defined and tested scales. For example, is Greer and
    Downey's (AMR-1982) "CSL" model appropriate to measure strategic
    types that deal with regulations?
    2. How should I measure my dependent variable - performance?
    I want to study both financial and environmental (sustainability -
    water, indoor air, deforestation) performance. I could use
    traditional financial measures such as ROI and ROE. Measures for
    environmental performance are more troublesome. I will go out with a
    survey, so I could ask representatives of the firms to self-report.
    To avoid the self-reporting biases, I could use the Toxics Release
    Inventory (TRI), but I'm not sure if I will be able to correlate the
    data to my individual firms. I'd greatly appreciate information from
    anyone who has tried to link TRI data to survey data.
    3. I could also use your help in selecting the issue and
    study population. I will try to study firms in multiple levels
    within an industry or supply chain. I'd love to find an industry
    with firms with specific SIC codes for archival information!

    My possible hypotheses include:
    H1: The more consistent the strategies of the complete supply-chain,
    the better the performance (need more than one supply chain!)
    H2: Performance is correlated with environmental performance for the
    complete supply chain.
    H3: Self-regulation will produce higher financial and environmental
    performance.
    H4: Moderating effects?

    I look forward to communicating with you. I thank you in advance for
    your time and advice.

    Bruce
    --
    Bruce Clemens PhD PE
    Room 360 CISAT Tower (A-1)
    Mail Stop Code: 4102
    College of Integrated Science and Technology
    James Madison University
    Harrisonburg, VA 22807
    office: (540)568-8770
    home: (540)289-7755
    fax: (540)568-2768
    internet: clemenbw@jmu.edu
    http://www.isat.jmu.edu/faculty/clemens.htm
    Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.
    Dance like nobody's watching. Sing like no-ones listening. (Cathy
    Mattea
    tune written by Leigh or from some '60's prophet and moodified by Prez

    Raines, Dolly Sods, 1999)