Efficiency Of Environmental Management Research Articles

Framework for Assessing Environmental Management in Agriculture

1This paper incorporates interdisciplinary New Institutional Economics and suggests a holistic framework for assessing the forms and efficiency of environmental management in agriculture. First, it defines environmental management as a specific system of social order regulating behaviour and relations of various agents related to natural environment, and environmental management in agriculture as eco-management associated with agricultural production. Second, it specifies spectrum of modes and mechanisms of eco-management comprising: institutional environment, market, private, collective, public and hybrid. Third, it suggests stages in analysis and improvement of environmental management in agriculture including: identification of problems, and risks associated with natural environment; assessment of efficiency of available and feasible modes, and specifying cases of market, private, and public failures; assessment of comparative efficiency of alternative modes for new public intervention and selection of the most efficient one(s). Forth, it classifies personal, institutional, technological, natural, and transaction costs factors of management choice. Finally, it builds a principle governance matrix with the most effective market, private, and public modes taking into account the critical dimensions of ecoactivity and transactions (appropriability, assets specificity, uncertainty and frequency), and their potential to coordinate and stimulate eco-activities, meet preferences and reconcile conflicts of individuals, protect eco-rights and investments, overcome uncertainty and risk, assure socially desirable level of environmental protection, and minimize overall (implementing, third-party and transacting) costs.

Research on Chinese Regional Environmental Management Efficiency Based on DEA and Malmquist Index

Based on the analysis of 30 provinces ( except Tibet) in China , this paper used the environmental staffs' number, completed industrial pollution abatement investment amount, waste treatment facilities’ number, the three wastes’ comprehensive utilization output value, and harmless waste treatment capacity as input and output index. The paper evaluated the 30 provinces’ environmental management efficiency (except Tibet) in 2008 and 2009 by Data Envelopment Analysis, then analyzed the time series data of the 30 provinces from 2003 to 2009 by Malmquist index. Study finds that overall Chinese environmental management efficiency’s TFP index is 0.942 in 2009, and decreasing year by year. Besides, it shows that technology is dominant factor of restricting Chinese environmental management efficiency, So, we should increase the investment in science and technology as to improve the efficiency. In addition, the environmental management scale’ expansion and structure optimization are also necessary methods of improving the efficiency.

Greening the Corporation Through Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Organizational citizenship behaviors have been the topic of much research attempting to understand the motivations, manifestations, and impacts of these behaviors on organizational development. However, studies have been based essentially on an anthropocentric and intra-organizational perspective that tends to ignore broader environmental issues. Due to the complexity of environmental issues and their human, informal, and preventive aspects, consideration of these issues requires voluntary and decentralized initiatives that draw on organizational citizenship behaviors. The role of these behaviors has been neglected, or even ignored, in studies of environmental management, which have focused mainly on the explicit, formal, and prescriptive aspects of organizations. The aim of this article is to shed light on the pertinence of organizational citizenship behaviors in improving the efficacy and efficiency of environmental management. The article discusses how the principal dimensions of these behaviors can be applied to the environmental practices of organizations and underlines their importance in responding to essential challenges of environmental management, including the complexity of environmental issues, limitations of formal management systems, the need to consider tacit knowledge, the importance of helping relationships, and the promotion of␣social legitimacy among organizations. Measures to encourage eco-efficiency and establish a favorable context for the emergence of citizenship behaviors are also proposed.

Environmental management cognitive strategies: Acid rain in the Yamaska watershed, Quebec, Canada

Systematic budgetary restrictions foreseen for the next few years will require greater organizational effectiveness in public management systems, particularly in environmental management, in which costs are seen as a burden to the national economy Environmental management efficiency could be increased, among other means, by the adoption of knowledge acquisition strategies that take into account the multiple facets of environmental management, these cognitive strategies involve the development and use of methods to establish facts and to analyze complex environmental situations It is the purpose of this paper to show that an efficient approach is possible in establishing facts from existing data. The method involves a heuristic use of advanced statistical tools to integrate multiple data into the description of environmental phenomena An example is given in which the method has been applied to a data base obtained from the inventory of Yamaska watershed; it revealed 16 facts of potential interest to environmental managers The case study suggests that management system efficiency could be improved by a more comprehensive understanding of the environmental situation that takes into account the structure of biophysical processes and the elements involved in information processing