Title: Environmental consideration and Small and Medium Enterprises' competitiveness improvement

Authors: Pornthep Anussornnitisarn,, Kongkiti Phusavat, Pensuda Jaiwong, Maaria Pennanen, Petri Helo

Addresses: International Graduate Program in Industrial Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand. ' International Graduate Program in Industrial Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand. ' International Graduate Program in Industrial Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand. ' Department of Production, University of Vaasa, Fin 65101, Vaasa, Finland. ' Department of Production, University of Vaasa, Fin 65101, Vaasa, Finland

Abstract: The research represents an effort by the Department of Industrial Work (DIW) in Thailand to promote its environmental programme among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The DIW aims to study and understand past experiences on SMEs| manufacturing strategies for this effort. The survey is used to collect top executives| viewpoints. Altogether, there are ten SMEs participated in this study. The Analytical Hierarchy Process and the correlation analysis are applied to determine the important level of the environment in manufacturing strategies and how well it integrates with other strategic objectives. The results show that the environmental dimension is not highly important and is a standalone objective without a clear linkage with others. These findings assist the DIW in promoting Green Productivity as an environmental-related initiative to be deployed jointly with the German Technical Cooperation, including a use of the software for process visibility, monitoring and control. Finally, interesting insights on participating executives| viewpoints attributed to a lack of importance on the environment are also provided.

Keywords: green productivity; environmental dimension; manufacturing strategy; SME competitiveness; SMEs; small and medium-sized enterprises; Thailand; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; correlation analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMED.2009.021734

International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, 2009 Vol.6 No.1, pp.18 - 37

Published online: 01 Dec 2008 *

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