Date of Award
Spring 2013
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
Department
Management
First Advisor
Dr. Michael Maloni
Second Advisor
Dr. Amy Henley
Third Advisor
Dr. Stacy Campbell
Abstract
As firms invest a substantial amount of time, effort, and funds to purchase goods and services, it is questionable if organizations will reach environmental sustainability objectives without supply manager active involvement. Although existing research has identified low supply manager support for environmental buying, there is little theoretical understanding and explanation relating corporate environmental policies and objectives to individual behaviors. Consequently, this dissertation seeks to provide insight into understanding and overcoming a lack of supply manager support for environmental sustainability. A research model based on the Theory of Planned Behavior used survey data from practicing supply managers to study the behavioral aspects of environmentally responsible buying. Support was found for all five hypotheses predicting direct effects on intention to engage in environmentally responsible behavior and actual environmentally responsible behavior. Also, direct effects for non-hypothesized relationships were found for the two moderating variables. This dissertation will potentially help researchers and practitioners better understand the antecedents related to supply manager environmentally responsible behavior and subsequently support implementation of corporate environmental sustainability objectives.