Identifying the competitive determinants of firms’ green supply chain capabilities: a study of the electronic manufacturing industry in Taiwan

The green supply chains (GSC) of some firms have argued that firms are unlikely to perform well if they operate their GSC capabilities in isolation. While the link between GSCs and firm performance has been thoroughly studied, stakeholder pressures in greening the supply chain have prevented researchers from identifying the competitive determinants of firms’ GSC capabilities. These pressures include normative pressure corresponding to the environmental requirements of stakeholders. Additionally, descriptive pressure plays a role in identifying the competitiveness of GSC capabilities and instrumental pressure stemming from industrial-professional group environmental activities. Furthermore, the evaluation of GSC capabilities is always vague due to the subjective and linguistic preferences, and the analytical data from operations. Therefore, this study proposes addressing the qualitative scales together in a hierarchical structure evaluation. The study data were collected from focal electronic firms in Taiwan, and we analyzed it using the fuzzy Delphi method and fuzzy analytical network process to present the competitive determinants of GSC capabilities. This study presents theoretical and empirical evidence of firms’ GSC capabilities and has interesting implications for operations management research and practice.