Ebrahimi, S.M. and Koh, L. (2021) Manufacturing sustainability: Institutional theory and life cycle thinking. Journal of Cleaner Production, 298. 126787. ISSN 0959-6526
Abstract
This study sets out to bridge resource perspective on material selection with stakeholder and institutional theory considerations to provide a more comprehensive understanding of life-cycle thinking on material selection decisions in the automotive industry. The objective is to shed light on how regulatory, normative and mimetic institutional pressures, affect sustainability decisions when switching or substituting materials or manufacturing processes in the automotive industry. Within a hybrid life cycle analysis framework, the environmental hotspots across the supply chains of two empirical management examples of Aluminium and CFRP LCA models are presented, quantified and ranked. Further justifications are provided on why and how regulatory, normative-peer and peer-normative pressures affect life cycle decisions. Findings reveal early, mid-process and late-stage life cycle hotspots, both in the material selection and the manufacturing process for both components. This decision support framework can be used to diverge from high energy-intensive manufacturing process and conventional raw materials, and provide forward-looking automotive manufacturers with opportunity to make asset-specific investments in lightweight, fuel-efficient vehicles, and sustainable manufacturing operations. This study presents a new framework that hybridises institutional theory and life cycle thinking to enable a standard routine and decision assessment of sustainability. This study provides a novel theoretical perspective on life cycle assessment by highlighting how the framing rules in a given institution mirror the trajectory of institutional pressures from regulatory (organised laws) through normative (organised behaviour) to mimetic (copied behaviour).
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of Cleaner Production. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Institutional theory; Sustainability; Life cycle assessment |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 May 2021 16:00 |
Last Modified: | 23 Mar 2022 01:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126787 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:173956 |