Original Article

Impact of Green Supply Chain Global Business Review

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Management Practices on Employee © 2021 IMI
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Firm Performance

Krisana Visamitanan1 and Nuttapol Assarut1

Abstract
This study extends the knowledge in green supply chain research by investigating the impacts of green
supply chain management (GSCM) practices on employee engagement and organizational commitment
through firm performance. The 268 respondents included in this study were employees of firms that
implemented GSCM in Thailand. Our structural model was analysed using partial least squares structural
equation model (PLS-SEM). The results revealed that only social and operating performance mediated
the impact of four different GSCM practices on employee engagement and organizational commitment,
including environmental education, green marketing and green warehousing and distribution which
have positive effects, and green manufacturing which has a negative effect on firm performance. Though
these four GSCM practices are reported to have a significant influence on environmental and marketing
performance, these two aspects of performance failed to mediate the relationship of these practices
with employee engagement and organizational commitment. The results suggest that in order to
enhance employee engagement and organizational commitment, firms should invest more in GSCM
practice drivers of social and operating performance. These include environmental education, green
marketing and green warehousing and distribution. Thus, we explained more clearly the mechanisms
under which GSCM practices influence employee engagement and organizational commitment.

Keywords
Green supply chain management, firm performance, employee engagement, work engagement,
organizational commitment

1 Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thiland.

Corresponding author:
Nuttapol Assarut, Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thiland.
E-mail: nuttapol@cbs.chula.ac.th
2 Global Business Review

Introduction
Supply chain management (SCM) is a key business concept concerned with developing collaboration
among inter- and intraorganizational business processes, which contributes to firm performance and
competitive advantages (Singh et al., 2010). The concept was originally developed based on the field of
logistics management and was extended to include market channel management (Min & Mentzer, 2000).
The objective of SCM is to balance customer demand with firms’ inter- and intraorganizational activities
to achieve profitable growth (Chandra & Kumar, 2000). The focus is on the operational perspective of
firms’ operational efficiency in managing flows of material, information and money (Cooper et al., 1997).
Later, the concept was modified with the evolvement of management philosophy from shareholder-
oriented (Tse, 2011) to stakeholder-oriented management (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Freeman, 1994).
While shareholder-oriented businesses target company profit indicators explicitly (Moore, 1999),
stakeholder-oriented businesses focus on fair returns among all parties in the supply chain as well as the
effectiveness of both short- and long-term operations resulting from good relationships among
stakeholders (Jensen, 2001; Moore, 1999). Several studies have supported the importance of developing
healthy relationships among stakeholders in SCM to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of the
overall supply chain (Birasnav, 2013; Busse, 2016; Co & Barro, 2009).
Svensson (2009) pointed out the importance of ethical concerns in conducting SCM to create
sustainable long-term relationships among members as well as its positive impacts on society. Corporate
social responsibility (CSR) has become a concern in SCM (Chi, 2011; Spena & De Chiara, 2012). In
particular, the influence of the environmental conservation trend gave birth to various aspects of green
management (Alfred & Adam, 2009; Siegel, 2009; Taylor, 1992), for example, green supply chain
management (GSCM) (Sarkis et al., 2011; Srivastava, 2007), green logistics (Rodrigue et al., 2008) and
green marketing (Ottman & Books, 1998; Ottman et al., 2006). It was found that social- and environmental
awareness operations contributed to firm performance in both financial and nonfinancial aspects
(Srisuphaolarn & Assarut, 2016, 2019; Wang & Hsu, 2011; Wang et al., 2015).
Implementing GSCM is an important management issue for sustainable development of firms.
(Vermaet al., 2018). Dhull and Narwal (2016) reviewed the drivers forfirms to adopt GSCM. According
to their work, besides the requirement of the market and the pressure from stakeholders, ISO-14001
environmental standard and the pressure from governments’ environmental regulations have also led
GSCM to become one of the criteria in evaluating business partners. This further influenced researchers
to explore the ways to effectively conduct and improve efficiency of GSCM. Empirical evidence has
revealed the impacts of GSCM practices on firms’ economic, social, environmental and operating
performance (Fang & Zhang, 2018; Geng et al., 2017; Vanalle et al., 2017). However, it was found that
employee engagement is one of the key challenges in implementing GSCM (Balon et al., 2016; Sharma,
2014). Some studies attempted to identify human resource management practices that supported GSCM
practices and performances (Nejati et al., 2017; Zaid et al., 2018), while other studies focused on the
promotion of GSCM among employees (Kura, 2016; Mukonza & Swarts, 2019; Safari et al., 2018).
However, little attention has been paid to the results of implementing GSCM practices in the formulation
of employee attitudes towards firms.
This study considered GSCM as a one type of CSR practice that is integrated into a firm’s business
process (Srisuphaolarn, 2013). In this sense, GSCM practices may also have an impact on employees’
attitudes towards their work and firm in a way similar to the CSR practices in past research studies
(Duthler & Dhanesh, 2018; Nazir & Islam, 2020). Thus, while past research studies have attempted to
investigate the impact of GSCM on firm performance, the research question of this study is that if afirm
Visamitanan and Assarut 3

is performing better, does it encourage the employees to engage more in their work as well as to have
more commitment to the firm.
To answer the research question, this research extends the scope of GSCM research by incorporating
the concepts of employee engagement and organizational commitment from human resource research
into the analysis. The analysis model was proposed to investigate the impacts of GSCM practices on
employees’ attitudes, including employee engagement and organizational commitment. The findings
would be beneficial to the design of GSCM practices to enhance employees’ work efficiency or create
loyalty towards the firm.
The remaining article is organized into the following sections. In the second section, the relevant
literature about key concepts in this study is presented, followed by the research objectives in the third
section. Then, the research methodology is explained in the fourth section. In the fifth section, we present
the research results. The remaining sections include discussion, conclusion and managerial implications
and limitations/further research.

Review of Literature

Green Supply Chain Management Practices

GSCM is aconcept in which environmental aspects are integrated into SCM in both inter- and
intraorganizational practices (Sarkis et al., 2011). The objective of GSCM is to reduce or resolve the
environmental problems arising from supply chain practices and to create benefits to the overall
stakeholders in the system (Ahi & Searcy, 2013; Franchetti et al., 2017). The concept of GSCM is
different from the conceptof green logistics, which focuses on the intraorganizational practices
encompassing raw material management, waste management, packaging design and transportation,
which are deemed a part of GSCM practices (Chin et al., 2015; Franchetti et al., 2017; Wang, 2019)
Geng et al. (2017) were among the first researchers who tried to develop a general tool to evaluate
GSCM practices. They reviewed relevant past studies and categorized GSCM practices into five core
practices, including environmental management, green procurement or supplier integration, customer
cooperation, green design and reverse logistics. A similar research undertaken by Schmidt et al. (2017)
incorporated green logistics practices in the measurement but did not take customer cooperation into
consideration. Recently, Yildiz and Sezen (2019) systematically reviewed past GSCM assessment tools
and proposed a tool comprised of eight practices: internal environmental management, green purchasing,
environmental education, green marketing, green packaging, green manufacturing, green distribution
and reverse logistics. Although the tool proposed by Yildiz and Sezen (2019) covers diversified practices,
it has not yet included the factor concerning customer cooperation (Fang & Zhang, 2018; Geng et al.,
2017; Vanalle et al., 2017). Accordingly, this study proposes an assessment tool consisting of nine
practices that cover important GSCM practices studied in the past literatures, as summarized in Table 1.

Green Supply Chain Performance Assessment

Previous researchers have proposed several green supply chain performance assessment methods.
Epstein and Wisner (2001) applied a balanced scorecard (Kaplan & Norton, 1992) in their assessment.
The method includes four perspectives: learning and growth, business process, customer, and financial
performance. Later, Figge et al. (2002) proposed incorporating nonmarket perspectives, such as legal
Table 1. Green Supply Chain Management Practices Mentionedin This Study.
Chinet Fang an- Genget Schmidtet Vanalleet Yildizet
Practices Definitions al.(2015) dZhang(2018) al.(2017) al.(2017) al.(2017) Wang(2019) al.(2019)
Internal The management system is      
environmental designed to create coopera-
management tion among different units in
policy the organization to achieve
environmental management
objectives.
Supplier Supplier environmental aware-      
integration ness is used as one of the
criteria for supplier selection.
Customer Buyers of goods for produc-   
cooperation tion or middlemen in the
distribution process are
incorporated in environmental
management practices, such as
product design and transport
planning.
Environmental Employees and all stakehold- 
education ers are educated on the
importance of environmental
management as well as the
guidelines for proper imple-
mentation of the practices to
sustain GSC.
Green Marketing activity that is 
marketing designed from environmental
impact awareness or the use
of a marketing activity as a way
to promote environmental
awareness among consum-
ers, customers and society in
general.

(Table 1 continued)
(Table 1 continued)
Chinet Fang an- Genget Schmidtet Vanalleet Yildizet
Practices Definitions al.(2015) dZhang(2018) al.(2017) al.(2017) al.(2017) Wang(2019) al.(2019)
Green product Product and packaging are     
and packaging designed with environmental
awareness and minimal use of
resources, and the material
used should be recyclable and
degradable.
Green A firm that has improved   
manufacturing efficiency and production
planning, new technology or
a process that reduces waste,
consumes less energy, reduces
pollution in the environment
and manages waste in the
production process
Green Warehousing and distribution   
warehousing management that is aware
and distribution of environmental impact by
(Green logistics) reducing greenhouse gas emis-
sions and energy consumption
Green re- Firm’s plans for the return-    
verselogistics ing of goods or materials in
the supply chain for reuse or
recycling.
Source: The authors.
6 Global Business Review

issues, into the assessment. Butler et al. (2011) proposed a sustainability balanced scorecard that
measured four perspectives, namely sustainability, stakeholders, process and learning. The sustainability
perspective combined three subfactors, that is, economic prosperity, social justice and environmental
quality. Rabbani et al. (2014) reconstructed the assessment factors and proposed a new model including
five perspectives: process, learning, economics, social and environmental performance. Rabbani et al.
(2014) suggested that economic, social and environmental performance represent firms’ sustainability.
Apart from the balanced scorecard concept, some researchers proposed a tool to measure firms’
sustainability. Some researchers assess sustainability based on environmental, economic and social aspects
(Boukherroub et al., 2015; Haghighi et al., 2016), which is in line with the three factors of sustainability
proposed by Rabbani et al. (2014). In addition, Geng et al. (2017) proposed incorporating operating
performance into the evaluation and suggested four aspects of the assessment tool, namely environment,
economy, society and operation. Other studies have proposed different aspects of assessment, such as
marketing performance or customer satisfaction (Golicic & Smith, 2013; Schmidt et al., 2017; Wang, 2019).
Based onall the above existing assessments, this research proposes a tool for assessing green supply
chain performance, which consists of the following five aspects:

• Economic performance. Economic performanceis defined as the ability to reduce costs related
to procurement, energy consumption, waste disposal and fines for harming the environment.
• Operating performance. Operating performanceis defined as the assessment of improved
production efficiency, on-time deliverability, inventory reduction, reduction of waste from
production and other added values.
• Marketing performance. Marketing performance is defined as the assessment of the awareness
of clients about the image of the company or its products, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Environmental performance. Environmental performance is defined as the assessment of the
ability to reduce the waste emitted into the air and water as well as the capacity to reduce waste
and the usage of poisonous substances in operations.
• Social performance.Social performance is defined as the assessment of social impact from
GSCM practices.

Several studies confirmed the impact ofGSCM practices on firm performance (Genget al., 2017;
Greenet al., 2012). Thus, the impact of GSCM practices on employees’ perceptions of the five aspects of
firm performance were tested in this study.

Employee Engagement
The concept of employee engagement is defined as employees’ positive emotional attachment and
commitment to employers (Dernovsek, 2008). The concept was developed by human resource consulting
companies as the basis foremployee assessment and management guidelines for their clients. Later, the
concept was widely accepted among researchers and developed in two research streams (Dernovsek,
2008; Saks, 2006): the first was developed based on the concept of human spirit at work (Kahn, 1990;
May et al., 2004), and the other was based on the concept of burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Maslach
et al., 2001).
Saks (2006) developed the concept of employee engagement from Kahn’s (1990) research. He
proposed that employee engagement should include two aspects: job engagement and organizational
engagement. This implies that employees can engage in both their jobs and their firms. Based on the
Visamitanan and Assarut 7

proposed idea, several researchers further developed a scale to measure employee engagement (Albdour
& Altarawneh, 2014; Al-Tit & Hunitie, 2015).
On the other hand, based on the concept of burnout, Schaufeli et al. (2002) proposed the concept of work
engagement to explain employee engagement, which means positive psychological conditions at work
consisting of vigour, dedication and absorption. Schaufeli et al.’s (2002) original work engagement assessment
tool comprises 17 questions (Utrecht Work Engagement Scale [UWES]), which were further refined into a
short set of measurements consisting of 9 questions (UWES-9) by Schaufeli et al. (2006). UWES-9 was
found to have the same explanatory power as that of the full set (UWES) and was applied to explain employee
engagement in various contexts (Breevaart et al., 2016; Enwereuzor et al., 2018; Guo et al., 2017).
As discussed above, it is clear that UWES-9 assessment focuses only on work-related conditions. It was
only one aspect of employee engagement in accordance with Saks (2006), that is, job engagement, and it
does not concern organizational engagement. However, UWES-9 has been widely accepted and applied in
various studies (Fairlie, 2011; Geldenhuys et al., 2014; Landells & Albrecht, 2019; Sharma, 2014). Thus,
this research study decided to use UWES-9 to evaluate how employees thought about their work.
Sharma (2014) found the positive impact of employee engagement on the adoption of GSCM
practices, while several studies confirmedthe impacts of management practices on employee engagement,
that is, CSR practices (Ahmad et al., 2017; Duthler &Dhanesh, 2018; Nazir & Islam, 2020), work
environment (Anitha, 2014), human resource practices (Pradhan et al., 2019), etc.There is a lack of
studies regarding the impacts of GSCM practices on employee engagement. Thus, the direct impacts of
GSCM practices on employee engagement were evaluated in this study. Furthermore, this study also
attempts to explain how firm performance impacts employees’ engagement in their work after
implementing GSCM practices. Therefore,the mediating role of firm performance in the relationship
between GSCM practices and employee engagement was also investigated in the analysis model.

Organizational Commitment
While Schaufeli et al.’s (2006) employee engagement focuses on the effect that psychological condition
of employees has on their work,this study attempts to make further investigation on how employees
thought about their firms after implementing GSCM practices. Past literature proposed the concept of
organizational commitment to explain ‘the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and
involvement in aparticular organization’ (Mowday et al., 1979, p.226).The empirical research
studiesconfirmed that strong employee engagement contributes to high organizational commitment
(Hanaysha, 2016; Nazir & Islam, 2017). Also, several studies found the impact of firms’ activities on
organizational commitment, for example, CSR activities (Ahmad et al., 2017; Brammer et al., 2007,
Turker, 2009), work environment (Hanaysha, 2016) and job characteristics (Ahmad, 2018). However,
there is lack of studies that investigate the impact of GSCM practices on organizational commitment.
Accordingly, this study also investigates the impact of employee engagement on organizational
commitment. In addition to that, this study also analysed the direct impact of GSCM practices on
organizational commitment, as well as their indirect impact through firm performance.

Objectives
As discussed, the environmental impact of SCM has become a crucial concern in doing business today.
Previous research studies found that engagement of employees was one of the key factors linked to
effective GSCM. While past research studies attempted to investigate the influential factors to promote
8 Global Business Review

employee engagement in GSCM practices, this study focus on another angle by trying to investigate the
impact of GSCM practices on employee engagement.

Theoretical Framework
According to the literature review and objectives, the research framework for this study is shown in
Figure 1. This study attempted to examine the influence of the nine GSCM practices on firm performance
in five aspects: economic, operating, marketing, environmental and social. In addition, this study
examined the effects of all GSCM practices and firm performances on employee engagement and
organizational commitment.

Methodology
The 268 respondents included in this study were employees who worked at the supervisor level or at a
higher level in firms that implemented GSCM in Thailand. A questionnaire survey was conducted for
data collection. After the respondents provided details concerning their gender, age, educational level,
employers, positions and employment duration, they rated the degree to which their company engaged
in GSCM practices using 44 questions. Then, they answered 36 questions about their firms’ performance
when implementing GSCM. Finally, they rated their employee engagement using 18 questions consisting
of 9 questions for employee engagement and 9 questions for organizational commitment. All the
questions were rated on a 5-point Likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).
The measurements of GSCM practices and firm performance were developed based on the
measurements proposed by Vanalle et al. (2017), Wang (2019) and Yildiz & Sezen (2019), while the
measurements of employee engagement and organizational commitment were derived from Schaufeli et
al.’s(2006) UWES-9 and Turker (2009), respectively.

Figure 1. Research Framework.

Source: The authors.
Visamitanan and Assarut 9

Figure 2. Analysis Results with Only Significant Paths.

Source: The authors.
Note: Insignificant variables were omitted.

Partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) technique was used to analyse the research
model. The technique is suitable for the exploration or extension of an existing structural theory (Hair et
al., 2011), while smaller sample size is acceptable (Rigdon, 2016). Thus, PLS-SEM was considered
suitable for this study, as the sample size was small with 268 respondents, compared to a large number
of observational variables in the analysis model.

Results and Analysis

As shown in Table 2, the 268 respondents included inthis study consisted of female (n = 155, 57.84%)
and male (n = 113, 42.16%). The majority of respondents were 21–30 years old (n = 190, 70.90%) with
a bachelor’s degree education (n = 220, 82.09%). Most of them had less than 5 years (n = 150, 50.97%)
or 5–10 years (n = 81, 30.22%) of work experience and worked as staff (n = 150, 50.97%) or as a
supervisor (n = 64, 23.88%).
Regarding the firms, most of the respondents worked in Thai firms (n = 142, 52.99%). The firms were
mostly related to mining or concession businesses (n = 89, 33.21%), professional services (n = 70,
26.12%), or manufacturing firms (n = 63, 23.51%). Most of the firms were large firms with more than
5,000 employees (n = 66, 24.63%) or 1,001–5,000 employees (n = 77, 28.73%) or mid-sized firms with
151–500 employees (n = 61, 22.76%).
10 Global Business Review

Table 2. Respondents’ Profiles.

  Count (n = 268) Percentage   Count (n = 268) Percentage
Gender Firm’s nationality
Male 155 57.84 Thai 142 52.99
Female 113 42.16 Chinese/Taiwanese 3 1.12
Age Japanese 48 17.91
21–31 years old 190 70.90 US 28 10.45
31–40 years old 61 22.76 European Countries 25 9.33
41–50 years old 16 5.97 Others 22 8.21
No answer 1 0.37 Industry
Education Agriculture busi- 1 0.37
nesses
Bachelor’s degree 220 82.09 Mining and other 89 33.21
concession
businesses
>Bachelor’s degree 43 16.04 Manufacturing firms 63 23.51
No answer 5 1.87 Consumer product 19 7.09
manufacturers
Work Professional 70 26.12
experiences services
<5 years 150 55.97 Other services 25 9.33
5–10 years 81 30.22 No answer 1 0.37
11–15 years 19 7.09 Firm size
(number of
employees)
>15 years 13 4.85 <50 19 7.09
No answers 8 2.99 50–150 20 7.46
Work position 151–500 61 22.76
Management level 46 17.16 501–1,000 23 8.58
Supervisor level 64 23.88 1,001–5,000 77 28.73
Staff level 150 55.97 >5,000 66 24.63
Others 8 2.99 No answer 2 0.75
Source: The authors.

Testing Measurement Model

Based on the constructs derived from past literature and due to the limited number of respondents and
number of items in the measurement, the analysis was conducted using PLS-SEM technique in the
SmartPLS statistical package (Ringle et al., 2015). Tables3 and 4 present the results of the testing
measurement model.
According to Table 3, based on the criteria that all factor loadings should higher than 0.700, some
items were dropped from the analysis (Chin, 1998). The average variance extracted (AVE) and
Visamitanan and Assarut 11

communality indices of all constructs were higher than 0.600 (Fornell &Lacker, 1981), while composite
reliability and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were higher than 0.800 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Thus,
the reliability and validity of the measurements were all confirmed.
The discriminant validity of all measurements is tested in Table 4. The square roots of AVE of all
latent constructs were higher than the correlation coefficients of the related latent constructs. Following
the criteria suggested by Fornell and Lacker (1981), the analysis confirms the discriminant validity of the
measurements.

Table 3. Reliability and Validity of the Measurement Model.

Numbers Factor Composite Cronbach’s
of Items Loadings AVE Reliability Alpha Communality
Internal environ- 4 0.817–0.843 0.685 0.897 0.847 0.685
mental management
policy
Supplier integration 5 0.781–0.818 0.630 0.895 0.853 0.630
Customer 4 0.814–0.895 0.744 0.921 0.885 0.744
cooperation
Environmental 4 0.716–0.890 0.667 0.888 0.830 0.667
education
Green marketing 4 0.760–0.817 0.627 0.871 0.803 0.627
Green product and 6 0.777–0.874 0.674 0.925 0.903 0.674
packaging
Green 5 0.755–0.828 0.641 0.899 0.861 0.641
manufacturing
Green warehousing 5 0.735–0.814 0.605 0.884 0.838 0.605
and distribution
Green reverse 4 0.807–0.886 0.716 0.910 0.868 0.716
logistics
Environmental 4 0.798–0.886 0.736 0.918 0.880 0.736
performance
Economic 4 0.854–0.916 0.770 0.931 0.901 0.770
performance
Social 6 0.759–0.843 0.647 0.916 0.890 0.647
performance
Operating 7 0.814–0.886 0.728 0.949 0.938 0.728
performance
Marketing 6 0.718–0.835 0.614 0.905 0.874 0.614
performance
Work 8 0.718–0.856 0.613 0.927 0.909 0.613
engagement
Organizational 7 0.719–0.866 0.660 0.931 0.914 0.660
commitment
Source: The authors.
Table 4. Discriminant Validity.
F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11 F12 F13 F14 F15 F16
F1 Internal environ- 0.827
mental management
policy
F2 Supplier integration 0.611 0.794
F3 Customer coopera- 0.461 0.649 0.862
tion
F4 Environmental 0.567 0.550 0.493 0.816
education
F5 Green marketing 0.602 0.557 0.554 0.611 0.792
F6 Green product and 0.555 0.506 0.482 0.608 0.519 0.821
packaging
F7 Green manufactur- 0.539 0.528 0.504 0.607 0.557 0.706 0.801
ing
F8 Green warehousing 0.452 0.457 0.427 0.538 0.487 0.612 0.689 0.778
and distribution
F9 Green reverse 0.413 0.330 0.349 0.441 0.445 0.568 0.576 0.701 0.846
logistics
F10 Environmental per- 0.472 0.437 0.406 0.455 0.450 0.502 0.617 0.510 0.547 0.858
formance
F11 Economic perfor- 0.232 0.315 0.269 0.309 0.301 0.322 0.289 0.317 0.281 0.385 0.878
mance
F12 Social performance 0.452 0.391 0.374 0.496 0.489 0.449 0.437 0.378 0.359 0.496 0.394 0.804
F13 Operating perfor- 0.168 0.266 0.259 0.234 0.257 0.265 0.219 0.396 0.296 0.384 0.430 0.516 0.853
mance
F14 Marketing perfor- 0.453 0.436 0.465 0.472 0.575 0.489 0.444 0.453 0.470 0.548 0.480 0.676 0.496 0.784
mance
F15 Work engagement 0.313 0.268 0.236 0.188 0.243 0.229 0.238 0.268 0.206 0.301 0.257 0.418 0.354 0.388 0.783
F16 Organizational com- 0.298 0.242 0.205 0.176 0.272 0.247 0.246 0.277 0.217 0.298 0.165 0.462 0.393 0.401 0.731 0.812
mitment
Source: The authors.
Visamitanan and Assarut 13

Testing the Structural Model

As shown in Table 5, the results of path analysis are simplified by showing only the significant paths and
presented in Figure 2. Regarding the effects of GSCM practices on firm performance, the results showed
the positive effects of green manufacturing on environmental performance (coefficient = 0.364, p-value
< 0.01). However, the effect of green manufacturing turned negative for operating performance
(coefficient = -0.218, p-value < 0.05). The practice that had a positive effect on operating performance
was green warehousing and distribution (coefficient = 0.386, p-value < 0.01).
Green marketing affects marketing performance positively (coefficient = 0.311, p-value < 0.01).
Additionally, green marketing (coefficient = 0.184, p-value < 0.05), together with environmental
education (coefficient = 0.196, p-value < 0.01),has a positive effect on social performance. Green reverse
logistics has apositive effect on both environmental performance (coefficient = 0.281, p-value < 0.01)
and marketing performance (coefficient = 0.190, p-value < 0.05). The results did not find a significant
effect of internal environmental management policy, customer cooperation, or product and package
design on firm performance.
Regarding effects on employee engagement and organizational commitment, it was found that internal
environmental management policy (coefficient = 0.197, p-value < 0.05) and social performance
(coefficient = 0.228, p-value < 0.05) affect employee engagementpositively. Finally, social performance
(coefficient = 0.154, p-value < 0.01), operating performance (coefficient = 0.117, p-value < 0.05) and

Table 5 . Results of the Structural Model.

Standard-
Coefficients Deviation t-Statistic p-Value
Green manufacturing → Operating performance −0.218 0.095 2.289 *
Green warehousing and 0.386 0.092 4.205 **
distribution
Green marketing → Marketing performance 0.311 0.072 4.332 **
Green reverse logistics 0.190 0.081 2.337 *
Green manufacturing → Environmental perfor- 0.364 0.080 4.536 **
Green reverse logistics mance 0.281 0.072 3.911 **
Environmental education → Social performance 0.196 0.072 2.717 **
Green marketing 0.184 0.075 2.458 *
Internal environmental → Work engagement 0.197 0.092 2.154 *
management policy
Social performance 0.228 0.092 2.487 *
Economic performance → Organizational commit- −0.136 0.052 2.626 **
Social performance ment 0.154 0.060 2.574 **
Operating performance 0.117 0.052 2.271 *
Work engagement → Organizational commit- 0.630 0.048 13.117 **
ment
Source: The authors.
Note: Insignificant variables were omitted.
*p<0.05; **p< 0.01.
14 Global Business Review

employee engagement (coefficient = 0.630, p-value < 0.01) affect organizational commitment positively;
however, economic performance reveals a negative effect (coefficient = −0.136, p-value < 0.01).

Discussion
This study conducted anin-depth review of past literature and proposed an analytical model with nine
GSCM practices and five aspects related tofirm performance. The analytical results reveal that only
social and operating performance–mediated employee engagement had an impact on four different
GSCM practices. Environmental education and green marketing, and green warehousing and distribution
have positive effects on either social or operating performance, while green manufacturing has a negative
effect on operating performance. This implies that although past research studies confirmed the impact
of GSCM on various aspects of firm performance (Yildiz & Sezen, 2019), in this study, it was found that
only social and operating performance lead to employee engagement.
Social performance has a positive impact on both employee engagement and organizational
commitment. Operating performance has a positive impact only on organizational commitment, and
economic performance has a negative impact on organizational commitment. Interestingly, environmental
performance and marketing performance did not impact either employee engagement or organizational
commitment. This can imply that employees did not perceive firms’ environmental and marketing
performance related to their work environments and, thus, did not make them engage in their work or
organization. Good social and operating performance may create a good work environment by which
social performance reflects non-work-related conditions, such as benefits and welfare. On the other
hand, operating performance, including the reduction in expenses and errors, is directly linked to
employees’ key performance indicators (KPI), which reflects their performance and leads to passion for
working with the organization. Last, the negative effects of economic performance imply that employees
are not concerned about the economic performance of their firm. This may be due to the fact that
economic performance is not directly linked to their evaluation or well-being in firms.
Green marketing and environmental education were considered to have a positive impact on social
performance, while green marketing and green reverse logistics impacted marketing performance
positively, and green reverse logistics also hada positive impact on environmental performance. Green
marketing practices are related to sponsorship of environmental events, promotion of green products, or
the provision of information about environmental management, while environmental education is related
to education activities provided to internal and external stakeholders. Both activities are considered as
CSR activities that impact social and stakeholder benefits. Green reverse logistics are related to the
recycling of used and defective products and the selling of excess or used material or equipment. Green
reverse logistics activities together with green marketing can help create customer satisfaction and
improve corporate image.
It was found that green manufacturing showed a positive effect on environmental performance but a
negative effect on operating performance, while green warehousing and distribution showed a positive
effect on operating performance. This may be due to the fact that green manufacturing is a practice that
relates to the additional activities that enhance green issues in the operation process, that is, machines for
reducing the emission of pollution. Thus, the practice was considered beneficial to the environment but
created additional costs or time in the operating process. On the other hand, green warehousing and
distribution was the practice that attempted to reduce time and waste in the warehousing and distribution
process. Thus, it would be considered a practice that improves firms’ operating performance.
Visamitanan and Assarut 15

Based on the meta-analysis method, Fang and Zhang (2018) found a significant positive effect of
customer cooperation and product and package design on environmental, economic and operating
performance, while Geng et al. (2017) confirmed that both practices also have an effect on social
performance. However, the effect of customer cooperation on environmental performance was not
confirmed. The empirical analysis with data from employees survey in this study was different from past
study. The result did not show the significant effects of both customer cooperation and product andpackage
design practices on firm performance, employee engagement and organizational commitment. This may
be due to the fact thatemployees presume customer cooperation and product and package design as
practices that do not directly involve or affect their work. Thus, they do not perceive any effects of these
practices on firm performance, how engaged they felt with their work, and their commitment to the
organization.
The results did not show the effect of policy and internal environmental practice on firm performance.
However, the practice affected employee engagement directly. This may be due to the fact that the
practice is related to work environments that support the well-being of employees while doing their
work. It is much like firms’ fringe benefits provided to employees. Thus, it was not perceived to contribute
to firm performance, but it helped employees feel better about their work and enhanced their employee
engagement, which will further affect their commitment to the organization.

Conclusion and Managerial Implications

This study investigated the impact of GSCM practices on employee engagement and organizational
commitment. The study contributes to past literature in supply chain research by elaborating the concept
of employee engagement from human resource management research. However, most of the existing
studies attempted to investigate the impact of GSCM practices on firm performance andtheir focus was
on the contribution of GSCM practices to firms from a management-level perspective. However, this
study conducted further investigation on the impacts of these firm performances on employees in terms
of employee engagement and organizational commitment. The empirical analysis proved that conducting
GSCM can promote employees’ engagement in their work, as well as their commitment to the firm.
Past studies have suggested that lack of employee commitment is one of the key challenges in
implementing GSCM (AlKhidir & Zailani, 2009; Luthra et al., 2011). The analytical results in this study
provide guidelines to firms in designing GSCM practices that contribute to employee engagement and
organizational commitment. Social and operating performance were found to be the key performances
that contributed to employee engagement. In addition, the practices that were found to have either direct
or indirect contributions to employee engagement were internal environmental management policy,
environmental education, green warehouse distribution and green marketing. These outcomes imply that
firms should have a clear policy on GSCM and communicate it to employees by emphasizing firms’
social and operating performance. Too much emphasis on economic performance should be avoided
because it could create a negative impact on employee engagement.

Limitations/Further Research
Although this study highlights theoretical and practical contributions to GSCM practices from the
employee perspective, the results represent employees in general. Given the diversity of green awareness
16 Global Business Review

among employees, the analysis of the moderating effect of green awareness or other characteristics of
employees is recommended for future research.
Also, this study did not consider the difference among industries in the analysis. Firms’ supply chain
characteristics as well as their impacts on environment would be different among industries. In future,
the further analysis comparing among industries can provide more insight for firms in different industries
in implementing GSCM practices to engage their employee.

Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees of the journal for their extremely useful suggestions to improve
the quality of the article. Usual disclaimers apply.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of
this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD
Nuttapol Assarut https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4403-4889

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