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Stakeholder Pressure and the Adoption of Environmental Practices: The

Mediating Effect of Training

Article  in  Journal of Operations Management · March 2010

DOI: 10.1016/j.jom.2009.10.001

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 Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Operations Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jom

Stakeholder pressure and the adoption of environmental practices: The

mediating effect of training
Joseph Sarkis a, Pilar Gonzalez-Torre b, Belarmino Adenso-Diaz b,*
a
Graduate School of Management, Clark University, Worcester, USA
b
Universidad de Oviedo, Engineering School, Campus de Viesques, E33204 Gijon, Asturias, Spain

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: The influence of stakeholder pressure on the adoption of environmental practices has been established in
Received 17 December 2008 the literature. In this paper we posit that these direct effects are further mediated, causally, by the level of
Received in revised form 18 September 2009 training in companies. Theoretically, this relationship is supported by the relationship between
Accepted 3 October 2009
institutional theory (stakeholder pressure) and the dimensions of dynamic capabilities in resource-
Available online 16 November 2009
based theory. We investigate this relationship within the Spanish automotive industry. The theoretical
contribution of this paper focuses on further supporting the relationship between stakeholder and
Keywords:
resource-based theory as complementary theoretical frameworks. The practical implications focus on
Environmental and operations
whether or not training should be integrated in order to help in the adoption of particular environmental
management
Stakeholder pressure practices, which in this study are represented by environmentally oriented reverse logistics practices.
Human resource training ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Mediation

1. Introduction
The promulgation of various political, social, and economic
pressures regarding environmental issues over the past few decades
has caused companies to take these issues into greater consideration
in their strategic and operational outlooks. The competitiveness of
organizations has gone beyond building quality products at low
costs in a timely manner. Corporate responsibility and social issues
are even more critical for organizational competitiveness at strategic
and operational levels (Porter and Kramer, 2006). The natural
environment is at the center of this broader ‘sustainability’
competitiveness argument for organizations and operations.
Companies understand the importance of responding to
pressure from stakeholders (Freeman, 1984) to help improve their
competitive posture; however, they also need to manage the many
perspectives and conflicting interests of their stakeholders, which
requires them to develop specific capabilities to manage these
pressures (Rueda-Manzanares et al., 2008). To respond to these
pressures for adoption of environmental practices, the resource-
based view of the firm posits that companies will build the
necessary capabilities and capacities to be able to compete more
effectively. Tactical capability is built by developing worker
knowledge and skills through training. The importance of
managing and balancing these external pressures with internal
capabilities is not only important for organizations to manage but
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 985182008; fax: +34 985182150.
E-mail address: adenso@epsig.uniovi.es (B. Adenso-Diaz).
also provides insights for policy makers and partners within a
broader supply chain perspective.
An important function and resource in responding to these
competitive pressures and building the necessary capability is
training. Studying workforce (human resource) management and
training is an important part of the operations and environmental
management research agenda (Angell and Klassen, 1999; Daily and
Huang, 2001; Hanna et al., 2000; Kitazawa and Sarkis, 2000; Sarkis,
2001) and still continues to be a major, yet understudied topic (del
Brio et al., 2007; Jabbour et al., 2008). Much of the existing research
in environmental operations management has concentrated on
mid-level (firm/supply chain) issues and questions. However,
much less attention has been given to workforce issues and
environmental tools. Operations management researchers have
been motivated to seek and understand the impact of environ-
mental pressures, issue awareness and individual environmental
values on the workforce. A related issue to this revived operational
focus on environmental pressures is workforce training require-
ments for environmental tools such as design for environment,
life-cycle analysis, recycling and other environmentally proactive
practices (Angell and Klassen, 1999).
Similar to the quality revolution of the 1980s, the green
revolution in business at the end of the last century and beginning
of this century requires that environmental management become a
pervasive organizational philosophy where all individuals are
involved in greening the company. This pervading empowerment
of all employees to think and make decisions, and not just within the
purview of specialized staff, was the goal of ISO 9000 and is now a
primary goal of ISO 14000 and total quality environmental

0272-6963/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jom.2009.10.001
164 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176
management efforts (Sarkis, 1998). Developing the necessary
organizational knowledge to adopt and implement environmental
initiatives requires developing knowledge capabilities throughout
the organization, especially if the responsibilities for environmental
management activities are assigned to these ‘empowered’ employ-
ees. Thus, the need and importance of training programs within
organizations is clear.
Nevertheless, few studies have investigated the role of environ-
mental training within the adoption of various environmental
operating practices. This study will examine this specific issue. The
aim of this paper is to provide further insight into the role of training
in the adoption of environmental, organizational and operational
practices, especially in response to stakeholder pressure. We analyze
whether the adoption of environmental practices motivated by
stakeholder pressures is mediated by environmental training efforts
aimed at employees within the organization. Mediation allows us to
evaluate whether there is a causal relationship between the
stakeholders pressures, the environmental practices and the
training. The results of our study overwhelmingly show that, for
the Spanish automotive industry, training completely mediates the
relationship between pressure from stakeholders and the adoption
of three major groups of environmental practices. There are clear
managerial implications concerning the fostering and management
of such programs and projects. Furthermore, there exists broad
policy issues associated with these results. These implications will
be discussed in later sections.
In the following section we provide the practical and theoretical
bases for our study. Our discussion starts with the various
relationships existing between stakeholder theory and the adoption
and performance of environmental management practices. We
likewise briefly introduce the role of the resource-based view (RBV)
of the firm in these relationships. We also discuss the general role of
training in this situation, a discussion which aids in clarifying the
fundamental hypotheses of our study. Our methodology and sample
characteristics are then defined. Finally, we present our results with
a discussion of their implications. Research limitations and future
research directions appear in the final section.
2. Background and theory
2.1. Stakeholder theory
As posited by stakeholder theory, stakeholder pressures result
in significant motivation for organizations to adopt various
environmental practices (Buysse and Verbeke, 2003; Eesley and
Lenox, 2006). Freeman (1984: 46) defines a stakeholder as ‘‘any
group or individual who can affect or is affected by the
achievement of an organization’s objectives’’. In crafting this
definition, Freeman (1984) took the position that companies
produce externalities that affect many parties which are both
internal and external to the firm. Externalities often cause
stakeholders to increase pressures on companies to reduce
negative impacts and increase positive ones. Within institutional
theory, it is argued that ‘stakeholder engagement’ is important in
order for companies to establish social legitimacy. Organizational
capabilities that foster cooperation and environmental learning are
a critical part of stakeholder engagement. Responding to stake-
holder pressure requires organizational learning capabilities,
especially when there are conflicting pressures derived from a
variety of stakeholders (Roome and Wijen, 2006).
‘‘Stakeholders’’ includes both internal and external stakeholders.
Internal stakeholders are relevant to training because employees are
often the initiators, and recipients, of an organization’s proactive
environmental activities (Daily and Huang, 2001; Hanna et al.,
2000). However, for employee commitments to advance, they must
have support from management. Support and leadership from top-
level managers is vital to ensuring an organization-wide under-
standing of and commitment to environmental issues (Zhu et al.,
2008). Such commitment is central to adopting new environmental
programs and improving an organizational environmental strategy
over time. In particular, managerial attitudes and views (Cordano
and Frieze, 2000), managerial interpretations (Sharma, 2000), and
environmental values and leaders (Egri and Herman, 2000) all
influence management decisions regarding their environmental
activities (Fernandez et al., 2003; Sharma, 2000). Thus, workers as
internal stakeholders play a significant role in the adoption of
environmental operational practices.
Organizations that yield to employee and managerial stake-
holder pressures to implement proactive environmental manage-
ment tools create a virtuous cycle that leads to additional pressures
from internal stakeholders. That is, by implementing environ-
mental training, companies may be able to recruit talented
applicants who have a strong preference for working in firms
with proactive environmental management philosophies (Rein-
hardt, 1999). These arguments suggest that companies will
implement environmental audit programs to address their internal
stakeholder (employee) pressures.
External stakeholders, unlike internal stakeholders, do not have
control of critical organizational resources (Sharma and Henriques,
2005). Rather, they have the capacity to regulate or mobilize public
opinion in favor of, or in opposition to, the organization’s
environmental practices (Freeman, 1984). A number of external
stakeholder groups exist, including customers (clients), govern-
ment regulators, shareholders, and society in general represented
by non-governmental organizations.
Regulatory bodies and government (Freeman, 1984; Backer,
2007) are the most obvious external stakeholders when it comes to
environmental issues and are typically associated with coercive
pressures (Zhu and Sarkis, 2007). Businesses must comply with
environmental regulations or face the threat of regulators levying
legal action, penalties and fines. Failure to yield to regulatory
stakeholders also leaves companies vulnerable to individual or class
action lawsuits. Such pressures and threats will hurt an organiza-
tion’s public image and customer relations. Companies may utilize
environmental training and proactive environmental practices as
one means to preempt these regulatory threats. There are also less
coercive regulatory pressures (Backer, 2007). Some of these
pressures may come in the form of voluntary initiatives for matters
such as pollution prevention. Implementation of proactive programs
(e.g. going beyond compliance) may build informal relationships
and accrue political capital. By utilizing proactive environmental
practices, companies may be able to form collaborative relationships
with government more easily and explore more non-regulatory
ways in which government can encourage greater environmental
improvements (Darnall et al., 2008). These collaborations can
promote environmental learning capacity building such as training
programs (Darnall and Edwards, 2006), as well as trust between
companies and regulators (Hoffman, 2000). A good reputation with
regulators may also provide firms with greater political influence
when negotiating the terms of forthcoming regulations with
government officials. Taken as a whole, these arguments suggest
that companies will implement various programs to address
pressures from regulatory stakeholders.
Other external stakeholder pressures originate from non-
governmental organizations and the community (Eesley and
Lenox, 2006). These stakeholders include (but are not limited
to) environmental groups, neighborhood groups, the media and
labor unions (Hoffman, 2000). Each of these groups can mobilize
public opinion in favor of or against a company’s environmental
approach (Benn et al., 2009; Roome and Wijen, 2006). Firms that
fail to yield to these stakeholder pressures risk enduring possible
public protests (Hoffman, 2000). In other instances, community
 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176
stakeholders may publicize information which could persuade
consumers to favor the products of competitors that have
demonstrated a stronger regard for the environment. These
stakeholders therefore provide a ‘‘social license’’ for companies
to operate and may be critical factors influencing an organization’s
decision to adopt various practices (Gunningham et al., 2004).
Supply chain stakeholders, especially customers and clients,
may affect a company’s decision to implement environmental
practices. Client stakeholders require that their vendors adhere to
certain practices to improve their environmental performance and
that they adopt proactive environmental management practices
(Lee and Klassen, 2008; Zhu and Sarkis, 2004). Corporate
customers are also requiring their suppliers to provide them with
written certification of their compliance with all environmental
regulations (Delmas and Montiel, 2007). These certifications can
extend to third party certifications such as ISO 14000. Pressures
such as these arise because corporate customers wish to ensure
that their purchases sufficiently meet environmental quality
standards, since doing so reduces environmental liabilities
associated with final product development (Handfield et al., 2002).
Another group of critical external (and sometimes internal)
stakeholders are those who have financial investments in the
companies. These shareholders are the most fundamental stake-
holders. Businesses must respond to these shareholders by max-
imizing their value (Reinhardt et al., 2008). Firms with proactive
environmental practices have also been shown to have improved
business and financial performance with a focus on ‘win–win’ efforts
(Montabon et al., 2007; Zhu and Sarkis, 2004). In addition, reduction
of risks and liability from proactive environmental practices and
programs also adds shareholder value (Goldstein and Wiest, 2007;
Reinhardt, 1999). Thus, the existence of shareholder pressure may
also serve to protect investments against environmental liabilities
and even help companies gain in financial performance.
2.2. Resource-based view of the firm and the environment
A resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has typically been
applied in order to strategically manage companies (Barney, 1986,
1991; Rugman and Verbeke, 2002). RBV examines those resources
and capabilities of the firm that will enable it to generate above-
normal rates of return and a sustainable competitive advantage.
Resources can include human, information technology, capital,
equipment and knowledge resources. They can be separated into
tangible (equipment and assets) and intangible (knowledge and
intellectual property) dimensions. RBV states that a resource must
be valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (‘‘VRIN’’
attributes) in order to confer advantage (Barney, 1991). RBV predicts
that valuable, rare and costly-to-imitate resources affect the
performance and success of programs (Ray et al., 2005; Sohel and
Schroeder, 2003). Strategic management has viewed these RBV
attributes as core distinctive competencies. Another school of
thought relying on the resource-based view is that of dynamic
capabilities (Coates and McDermott, 2002; Eisenhardt and Martin,
2000; Teece et al., 1997). Dynamic capabilities represent the ability
of managers and others to make ongoing adjustments in resource
allocation and build new organizational thought (Eisenhardt and
Martin, 2000). Dynamic capabilities may include activities for
resource integration, resource reconfiguration, and/or acquisition
and release of resources (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Thus, both
strategic factors and dynamic capability perspectives could be
considered in an RBV theory framework with implications for
adoption of environmental practices and training.
The RBV theory of the firm stipulates that companies can gain
sustainable competitive advantages if they are supported by
organization-level competencies (Barney, 1991; Rugman and
Verbeke, 2002). These competencies reflect unique combinations
165
of resources that are rare, non-substitutable, difficult to imitate,
and valuable to customers. These resource combinations may build
upon a wide variety of basic components, including physical assets,
employee skills, and organizational processes (Delmas, 2001).
Employees’ skills may be purchased, but are typically developed
through education and training efforts. In the natural resource-
based view of the firm, Hart (1995) posits that a combination of
investments can be made to enhance the environmental capabil-
ities of a firm, including investments in technologies, processes,
systems, guiding strategies, and training. It has been shown that
different levels of capabilities are developed for various environ-
mental strategies that companies pursue, and that there are
varying stakeholder pressures which these companies face (Buysse
and Verbeke, 2003).
2.3. The relationship between stakeholder theory, RBV, and
environmental training
Companies have engaged in corporate environmental manage-
ment initiatives to improve their environmental performance.
They have also been able to accrue other benefits for their
organizations from these initiatives, including improved economic
and reduced risk benefits. Yet, significant barriers can exist to the
adoption and implementation of various environmental practices.
These barriers are not only technical, but include organizational
culture and change management barriers (Perron et al., 2006).
Learning and knowledge are fundamental to the development and
utilization of resources and capabilities in RBV theory (Coates and
McDermott, 2002). Training programs that focus on educating and
increasing knowledge for the organization’s employees can help to
overcome these barriers. With this new knowledge, employees can
then understand how the environment can affect and be affected
by their duties and decisions.
From an RBV perspective, the weakness of a company’s business
culture and its shortcomings in human resources may be
important obstacles in the process of corporate environmental
action (Daily and Huang, 2001). Even when there are stakeholder
and institutional pressures for companies to adopt environmental
practices, there are heterogeneous responses to these pressures
(Darnall, 2006) that may be explained by the lack of capabilities as
defined by RBV. Arguably, resources are necessary in order for
companies to respond to these stakeholder pressures to adopt
environmental practices. One of the most important resources is
knowledge resources, which training helps to build.
The research on the question of environmental training, and
human resources in general, is still limited (del Brio et al., 2007;
Fernandez et al., 2003). It has been argued that several human
resources and organizational behavior issues may be very important
for the success of a company’s environmental operations, strategy,
and the development of competitive advantages from these elements
(Daily and Huang, 2001). Such issues include managerial duties, top
management support, the role of organizational culture in the
formation of internal stakeholder environmental awareness, rewards
systems, the organization’s involvement in environmental issues,
environmental training and concern, environmental motivation,
incentives and implementation, and organizational innovations.
Training may play an especially important role because it serves
as a method to build the organizational capacities and knowledge
of all workers who participate in these programs (Sohel and
Schroeder, 2003). Here we investigate the causal role training plays
in the implementation of the company’s environmental practices
by investigating its mediation between pressure from stakeholders
and the adoption of environmental practices.
Research has shown that training serves as a key factor during
the implementation of environmental management systems by
altering attitude and behavior amongst managers and employees
166 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176
(Sammalisto and Brorson, 2008). In smaller companies across
various industry sectors, employee training was viewed as the
most important aspect of environmental management system
implementation in their managing of environmental issues
(Lefebvre et al., 2003). Management’s deep involvement and its
strategic integration, as well as employee motivation and
participation, has a positive impact on the company achieving a
competitive edge based on environmental action; training is meant
to aid in this initiative (del Brio et al., 2007). Training for skills and
knowledge development is important not only for the initial
implementation and adoption of environmental practices such as
environmental management systems, but also for their main-
tenance and continued operation (Balzarova and Castka, 2008).
Companies that implement pollution prevention practices have
also invested in training their employees and therefore can apply
their skills to more advanced forms of environmental management
(Darnall and Edwards, 2006).
2.4. Hypotheses development
Using the above general relationships, we now introduce some
hypotheses based on specific environmental practices. We can
categorize environmental practices into many different dimen-
sions, ranging from those that are very proactive (eco-design) to
those that are relatively reactive (compliance to regulations). We
feel that training is even more critical for the more proactive
practices, not only for knowledge development, but also for getting
‘buy-in’ from workers and management. Proactive environmental
practices may not necessarily be limited to a single dimension, but
may possibly be further characterized (González-Benito, 2008).
We consider three types of proactive environmental practices: eco-
design practices, source reduction practices, and managerial
process management practices.
Eco-design (or design for the environment) seeks to create
processes and products that have minimal impact on the
environment. This encompasses many activities, from design for
disassembly, such as joint and component designs, to broader life-
cycle assessment practices (Kurk and Eagan, 2008). The knowledge
and development of these competences in eco-design initiatives is
a capability that can provide companies with a significant
advantage. Despite almost two decades of development, the lack
of eco-design implementation by companies is still decried
(Verhulst et al., 2007; Boks, 2008). While the technical aspects
of eco-design have been well developed, one major barrier to
implementation still existing are its ‘softer’ aspects, which include
difficulties in adopting certain change management and human
resource practices (Boks, 2006). Eco-design does require a different
mindset and focuses on new, innovative practices that engineers
and designers may not easily grasp due to a traditional focus on
form, fit and economic design. Motivation and competency have
been found to be aspects which are critical to eco-design success
(Johansson, 2002). Both these factors are developed through
appropriate training programs. In a broad study of the imple-
mentation of eco-design practices in Europe, education was found
to be a critical discriminatory factor for ‘front-runner’ companies
(Tukker et al., 2001). We thus posit our first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. The relationship between stakeholder pressures
and the implementation of eco-design practices is mediated by
environmentally oriented training programs.
Source reduction programs for operational processes1 have been
major initiatives in environmentally oriented practices since the
1
We distinguish these operational source reduction programs from eco-design
programs, which focus on longer-term products and/or pollution prevention
activities and designs for processes.
early integration of TQM-like environmental programs such as total
quality environmental management (TQEM) programs (Kitazawa
and Sarkis, 2000). Similar to TQM programs that focus on prevention
and source reduction in quality problems, TQEM programs can also
benefit from the reduction and prevention of waste. Thus, process
source reduction (pollution prevention) programs constitute
practices that can generate substantial early environmental benefits
which are typically greater than those of end-of-pipe practices on
environmental emissions (Sarkis and Cordeiro, 2001). Source
reduction activities can range from mistake-proofing, to identifica-
tion of substitutes, to simple housekeeping activities in programs
similar to TQM. In fact, complementarity has been shown to exist
between quality programs and environmental programs (Zhu and
Sarkis, 2004). Training employees to empower them in TQM and
TQEM techniques has been posited as being crucial to the success of
these programs (Kaynak, 2003; Samson and Terziovski, 1999).
Employee involvement overall is a critical element of programs that
seek to improve both environmental and operational performance
(Hanna et al., 2000). In order to achieve effective empowerment
building and employee involvement, employees need be trained in
specific skills. We thus posit our second hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2. The relationship between stakeholder pressures
and the implementation of source-reduction practices is mediated
by environmentally oriented training programs.
The next grouping of factors could be considered broader
systemic perspectives. These systemic dimensions may actually
overlap with some of the other environmental practices, but
integrate both end-of-pipe and process recycling activities,
broader prevention-type programs, and a focus on items such
as policy and procedures. These elements originate from a more
traditional environmental management system (EMS) such as
those associated with ISO 14000 (González et al., 2008). An EMS
may involve formal systems and databases which integrate
procedures and processes for the training of personnel and the
monitoring, summarizing, and reporting of specialized environ-
mental performance information to internal and external
stakeholders of the firm. The documentation of this ‘‘environ-
mental’’ information is primarily internally focused on design,
pollution control and waste minimization, training, reporting to
top management, and the setting of goals (Melnyk et al., 2003).
Research in this area has concluded that EMS programs are more
successful if factors such as training, empowerment, teamwork,
and rewards are addressed and has suggested that there exists a
relationship between human and ecological sustainability (Dun-
phy et al., 2003; Wilkinson et al., 2001). Training is a critical
element to most of these systems, but it has also become evident
that training is necessary for their successful implementation
(Jabbour et al., 2008). Thus we posit our third and final hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3. The relationship between stakeholder pressures and
the implementation of environmental management system prac-
tices is mediated by environmentally oriented training programs.
3. Methodology
3.1. Instrument development
To study our hypotheses, a research questionnaire (see
Appendix A) was developed to gather data. The questionnaire
targeted managers within Spanish automotive companies. The
design process for the questionnaire consisted of two stages. The
first stage utilized an extended review of the literature to help
identify the major environmental issues facing automotive
industry companies (see Table 1). The initial questionnaire design
also incorporated input from colleagues and experts in both the
 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176
Table 1
Listing of corporate environmental practices and literature sources.
Practices related to the type of material employed (Keldmann and Olesen, 1994)
 Reduction in the variety of materials employed in manufacturing
the company’s products
 Reduction in raw material (i.e. the use of recycled material)
for product manufacturing
 Avoidance of materials that are considered harmful, but not illegal
Practices related to the product design stage (van Hemel and Cramer, 2002;
González et al., 2002)
 Use of ‘‘Life-Cycle Assessment’’ (LCA) for product design
 Use of easy-to-break joints between components to facilitate
disassembly
 Clear identification of materials (colors, codes, etc.) to facilitate disassembly
 Use of standardized components to facilitate their reuse
Practices related to the internal organization of the company from an
environmental management perspective (Nakashima et al., 2002;
Banerjee, 2001)
 Recycling of solid waste
 Environmental management procedures for internal use
 Use of advanced prevention and safety systems at work
environmental and operations fields. This development stage
helped to ensure the questionnaire’s content validity (Malhotra
and Grove, 1998). The second stage of questionnaire development
included face-to-face meetings with auxiliary automotive man-
agers, using the draft questionnaire as an initial guide. The aim of
these interviews was to determine the face validity and accuracy of
how the questions addressed practices in the industry.
The questionnaire is comprised of four sections (see
Appendix A): (1) company identifier information (activity, work-
force, capital, imports, exports, turnover); (2) information on
training; (3) information on environmental practices2 implemen-
ted in the companies regarding materials employed, eco-design
and the internal organization of the company; and (4) items
related to stakeholder pressures. Answers are based on a 7-point
Likert-type scale (from 1—never, or no practices considered to 7—
very frequently, or practice currently implemented being the
industry leader in this area) for the environmental practices. For
the stakeholder pressures we used a 7-point Likert-type scale
asking how much they have felt the concerns (pressures) of
stakeholders from (1—none to 7—strongly).
For statistical testing of the results, we relied on factor analysis
and structural equation modeling. Explanation and application of
the administration of these tools for evaluating mediation is
further discussed in Section 4.
3.2. The study sample
The chosen sample population for this study is composed of
Spanish firms belonging to the automotive industry sector. This
industry was chosen for a number of reasons. The identification of
a single industry at a national level allows us to isolate country-
2
Spain is part of the European Union (EU). This is an important fact when we seek
to evaluate environmental aspects and practices for automotive corporations.
Spain, as a member of the EU, has agreed to adopt all the European environmental
directives, including Directive 2000/53/EC on End-of-Life Vehicles (agreed to by the
Spanish government in 2002). This directive requires automotive companies to
ensure that end-of-life vehicles can only be scrapped by authorized dismantlers,
sets increasing reuse, recycling and recovery targets, states that last owners must be
able to return their vehicles into these systems free of charge, and restricts the use
of heavy metals in new vehicles. These characteristics point to the importance of
investigating environmentally oriented reverse logistics aspects of the supply
chain. This, ‘closing the loop’ is critical for overall industry environmental
performance as well as meeting the goals as set by the end-of-life vehicles
directive by the EU. In this study, we shall focus on the environmentally oriented
reverse logistics practices and training. Additional environmental practices such as
climate change (emissions) would need to be investigated due to variations in
possible stakeholder influences.
167
specific and activity/sector-specific factors that may influence
business behavior. Spain is a country with significant international
influence in the automotive industry, being the third most
important European manufacturer of cars and the seventh
worldwide (ANFAC, 2004). With the growth of globalization in
the automotive industry, there has been commensurate growth in
the internationalization of the Spanish automotive industry, with
decisions often being made in Spain (Spanish Ministry of Industry,
2005). The Spanish automotive market represents 21.6% of Spain’s
exports (ANFAC, 2007). All these characteristics make this industry
even more environmentally and competitively sensitive from an
operations and marketing perspective as a result of these links and
Spain’s overall environmental background.
The automotive industry is an ideal subject for the proposed
study, not only because of its intrinsic economic importance, but
also on account of its influence over other industry sectors both
regionally and globally. In general, the automotive industry has
seen significant pressures to become more environmentally sound
and to adopt certain practices and innovations (Orsato and Wells,
2007). Therefore, automakers throughout the world are working
on similar issues such as reducing fuel consumption, CO2
emissions, end-of-life waste, and the use of recycled materials.
A look at the environmental history of the major automakers with
factories in Spain (Nissan, Ford, Renault, Citröen, Seat, GM) shows
how all of them have established programs to design and
manufacture more environmental friendly vehicles. These reper-
cussions are felt throughout their supply chains (as shown by
Geffen and Rothenberg, 2000, or González et al., 2008, for the case
of the Spanish automotive industry).
The largest (in terms of sales) 1150 companies in the Spanish
automotive industry were first determined. Given the size of the
objective population and its dispersion throughout the country, it
was considered appropriate to take a representative sample of the
population. Thus, a random quota sampling method based on the
specific activity of the firm was employed. Data collection was
completed throughout the entire national territory, thus ensuring
sample representativeness. The study drew a random sample of
208 companies.
Field work commenced in October, 2004 and concluded in
January, 2005. The total number of firms interviewed was 157 (a
sampling ratio of 75.5%), with complete data being obtained in all
cases. This was possible due to the fact that we were able to resolve
any problems encountered in the personal interviews with
managers from each firm as they arose.
We evaluated the non-response bias by evaluating the
characteristics of the companies that did respond and that of
the complete 1150 company population. We found no statistically
significant differences (using t-test comparisons) in various
organizational characteristics including years in business, percent
exports, percent imports, annual profit, sales volume and number
of employees (size).
Given that all the data were collected from a single respondent
within each single company, common method bias may present a
problem. This can be tested by the Harman’s single factor test,
entering into a single factor analysis all the measurement items.
According to Podsakoff and Organ (1986) and Doty and Glick
(1998), if all the variables load on one factor or any factor explains
most of the variance, common method bias exists. In our case, an
un-rotated factor analysis using the eigenvalue-greater-than-one
criterion revealed 5 different factors, each one explaining
respectively 19.73%, 15.32%, 13.24%, 12.71%, and 12.13% of the
variance in the data. Since a single factor did not emerge and the
first factor accounts for a fraction of the variance, we can safely
conclude that the results will not be inflated due to the existence of
common method variance in the data.
168 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176

Table 2
Descriptive statistics of the items studied.

Mean S.D.

Environmental practices
F1. Eco-design Use of LCA for product design (LCA) 2.796 2.090
Use of easy-to-break joints between components to facilitate disassembly (JOINTS) 2.758 2.192
Clear identification of materials to facilitate disassembly (IDENTIF) 3.384 2.426
Use of standardized components to facilitate their reuse (COMPON) 3.204 2.299

F2. Source reduction Reduction in the variety of materials employed in manufacturing the company’s products (VARIETY) 2.947 2.281
Reduction in raw material (RAWMAT) 2.379 2.002
Avoidance of materials that are considered harmful, but not illegal (AVOID) 2.664 2.225

F3. Env. managment Recycling of solid waste and rubbish (RECYCLING) 5.116 2.177
systems (EMS) Environmental management procedures for internal use (ENVMAN) 4.284 2.292
Use of advanced prevention and safety systems at work (SYSTEMS) 5.237 1.894

F4. Stakeholders pressures Clients pressures (ST-CLIENTS) 3.904 1.951

Government pressures (ST-GOVERN) 3.619 2.040
Shareholders pressures (ST-SHARE) 3.679 2.051
Workers pressures (ST-WORKERS) 3.444 1.962
ONG/society pressures (ST-SOCIETY) 2.916 2.012

F5. Training Training in eco-design (TR-ECODES) 3.171 2.155

Training in LCA (TR-LCA) 2.763 2.102
Training in recycling/reusing (TR-RECYC) 3.658 2.267
Training in waste elimination (TR-WASTE) 4.204 2.467

The general size characteristics of the firms in the sample 4. Results

include both micro-enterprises – less than 5 workers – (9.5%) as
well as large firms with more than 5000 workers (0.6%). The
average size of the sample workforce is 136 employees. Regarding
the specific activities of the sampled companies, 13% were
manufacturers of motor vehicles, 21% of non-electrical compo-
nents, 4% of electrical components, 7% of car bodies, 37% of spare
parts, and the rest dealers. Descriptive statistics for this study are
shown in Table 2.
3.3. Testing for mediation
In testing for mediation, the relationships amongst the
variables must satisfy all of the following conditions: (1) the
independent variable must influence the dependent variable, (2)
the independent variable must influence the mediator, (3) the
mediator must influence the dependent variable, and (4) the effect
of the independent variable on the dependent variable must
diminish after controlling for the effects of the mediator. If all of
these conditions are satisfied and the influence of the independent
variable becomes non-significant in the presence of the mediator,
the effects of the independent variable are said to be ‘‘completely’’
or ‘‘fully’’ mediated by the mediator. If all of the conditions are
satisfied, but the influence of the independent variable remains
significant in the presence of the mediator, the effects of the
independent variable are said to be ‘‘partially’’ mediated. If any of
these conditions are not satisfied, there is no mediation (Baron and
Kenny, 1986; Tepper et al., 1996).
Mediation testing may be conducted using correlation statistics
and various methods of regression and hierarchical regression (e.g.
da Silveira and Arkader, 2007; Ho et al., 2001). Using regression
approaches for mediation may cause problems related to
measurement error in mediator variable scores, resulting in
difficulties in modeling causation and possible reverse causation
(Hopwood, 2007). The use of structural equation modeling has also
been recommended as a remedy to these problems. Structural
equation modeling (SEM) attenuates this problem by reducing
measurement error through the application of latent variables.
These latent traits of SEM also attenuate concerns that method
effects may be confused with actual substantive results when
testing for mediation (Hopwood, 2007).
4.1. A structural equation model of relationships between stakeholder
pressure and the adoption of practices
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) by means of Structural
Linear Equations is used in this research to evaluate stakeholder
pressure on firms to implement corporate environmental prac-
tices. SEM is a methodology that enables a series of observable
variables or items to be directly or indirectly related to the latent
variables or factors (Hays et al., 1994). Maximum likelihood (ML) is
the method of estimation employed. This procedure allows for a
global adjustment of the proposed models over diverse statistics
that were corrected for non-normality assumptions.
In our model, the first three factors (latent variables), F1, F2 and
F3, are related to environmental practices (see Table 3). Similar
factors were used in other industrial sectors (González-Benito and
González-Benito, 2005).
Another factor (F4) was constructed from stakeholder pres-
sures. This factor is explained via five observed variables or items
(Table 3): client pressures, government pressures, shareholder
pressures, employee pressures and NGO/society pressures.
The last factor (F5) represents the training mediation variable.
In this case we have considered the company training provided to
employees which is related to environmental practices. The aim of
the research is to analyze the effect of training in the application of
environmental practices in the company, and its mediated effect
attending to stakeholder pressures. This factor is constructed
considering four observed variables (Table 3). Cronbach’s a scores
and composites reliability indexes show that all factors were
reliable (Table 3).
To evaluate mediation, we propose two SEM models. The first
model focuses on the direct relationships between the dependent
and independent variable (Fig. 1), while the second model
incorporates the mediating training factor (Fig. 2).
We test for convergent validity by evaluating the reliability
coefficient for each item in each scale. As can be seen in Tables 4
and 5, all the items are significant at the 99% level (with all the
Student-t values greater than 2.54) and all the factorial weights are
higher than 0.7. We may thus guarantee the individual reliability of
the items in each scale in this model (Carmines and Zeller, 1979). In
 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176 169

Table 3
Factors used in the proposed models.

Factor Items (ACRONYM) Cronbach’s a AVE Composite reliability Model

F1. Environmental product design Use of LCA for product design (LCA) 0.805 0.677 0.893 1
Use of easy-to-break joints between
components to facilitate disassembly
(JOINTS)
Clear identification of materials to 0.680 0.894 2
facilitate disassembly (IDENTIF)
Use of standardized components to
facilitate their reuse (COMPON)

F2. Reduction of material usage Reduction in the variety of materials 0.887 0.610 0.817 1
employed in manufacturing the
company’s products (VARIETY)
Reduction in raw material to
manufacture products (RAWMAT)
Avoidance of materials that are 0.595 0.813 2
considered harmful, but not illegal
(AVOID)

F3. Managerial aspects Recycling of solid waste and rubbish 0.801 0.571 0.799 1
(RECYCLING)
Environmental management procedures
for internal use (ENVMAN)
Use of advanced prevention and safety 0.572 0.800 2
systems at work (SYSTEMS)

F4. Stakeholder pressures Client pressure (ST-CLIENTS) 0.907 0.666 0.908 1

Government pressure (ST-GOVERN)
Shareholder pressure (ST-SHARE)
Workers pressure (ST-WORKERS) 0.667 0.909 2
NGO/society pressure (ST-SOCIETY)

F5. Training Training in eco-design (TR-ECODES) 0.762 0.437 0.745 2

Training in LCA (TR-LCA)
Training in recycling/reuse (TR-RECYC)
Training in waste elimination (TR-WASTE)

Model 1 (Table 4) higher factorial weights are obtained for the
items related to environmental practices (clear identification of
materials, variety or materials employed and environmental
management procedures), while in Model 2 (Table 5) higher
factorial weights are obtained for items related to training (waste
elimination and recycling).
To completely confirm the validity of the scale, we evaluate the
discriminant validity of the model. Discriminant validity is
evaluated by means of the average extracted variance (AVE).
Fornell and Larcker (1981) recommend an average extracted
variance higher than 0.50, thus guaranteeing that more than 50% of
the variance of the factor is due to its indicators. As shown in
Table 3, all the AVE are higher than the minimum required value,
except for the factor that refers to training, the AVE of which is
situated on the boundary of this threshold.
Finally, in order to complete the structural model evaluation,
goodness-of-fit indices as well as the chi-squared test are
executed. As can be observed in Table 6, all the results are

Fig. 1. Structural equation model for the direct relationships between stakeholder pressures and the adoption of environmental practices (Model 1).
170 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176
Fig. 2. Structural equation model incorporating the training latent variable as a mediator (Model 2).
satisfactory and hence it may be concluded that the proposed
structural equation models are capable of correctly explaining the
covariances of the sample.
4.2. Analysis of results
The first step to evaluating mediation must show that the
independent variable (stakeholder pressures) influences the
dependent variable (various environmental practices). We see
this evaluation in Fig. 3. All the direct effect relationships between
stakeholder pressures and each of the environmental practices
factors are significant at p < 0.001.
The second step for mediation evaluation is to show that the
direct relationship between the independent variable (stakeholder
pressures) and the mediator is significant. This result is shown in
Fig. 4, with a significant relationship at the p < 0.01 level. The third
step is to show that the mediator variable (training) influences the
dependent variables (environmental practices). Again, in Fig. 4 we
show that the mediator variable is strongly related to each of the
environmental practice variables at the p < 0.001 level. The final
step in testing for mediation needs to evaluate the original direct
relationships between the independent (stakeholder pressures)
and dependent (adoption of environmental practices) variables.
These results are also shown in Fig. 4. We now see that all these
relationships are statistically insignificant. These results show
strong evidence of complete mediation of the relationship between
stakeholder pressures and the adoption of environmental prac-
tices, by the mediator variable training. Thus, Hypotheses 1–3 are
all strongly supported.3
3
To identify whether our bias in organizational size may moderate or influence
these relationships, we controlled for organizational size based on employees. To do
this we split the sample into large and small companies (based on a mean size
cutoff). There were only 18 larger companies falling above the mean, thus only a
small company grouping was investigated. Not surprisingly, the results and
findings were consistent with all the relationships holding. One observation with
this is that there is a preponderance of smaller companies in our sample set and
thus a broader sampling of larger companies would be an interesting direction for
future research.
5. Discussion and conclusion
The results of this study indicate that training, specifically
environmental training, mediates the relationship between
stakeholder pressures and various environmental practices.
Complete mediation occurred regardless of the type of environ-
mental practice adopted. These results show that automotive
companies are only adopting environmental practices if training
programs are in effect. Thus, development of the necessary
intangible knowledge capacities is required in order to achieve
effective response to pressures. Without instituted training
programs, these pressures may go unheeded.
The strongest relationship with training as a mediator seemed
most evident with regards to eco-design practices. Of all the
environmental practices, this one may be deemed the most
technical, which may explain the need for training in order to
successfully convince internal users of these methods of the
importance of integrating eco-design practices into their activities.
Training may need to serve a dual purpose in this situation,
requiring a focus on both competency and motivation. Technical
personnel typically have need of both dimensions for eco-design
innovation (Johansson, 2002). These two dimensions in training
also further the likelihood of adoption of these practices by human
resources due to the building of their capacities (Boks, 2006). We
did not tease out or fully evaluate what actually occurred in these
training programs (awareness raising, motivational or technical
competence development). Overall, there is additional room for
research on the type of training and its effectiveness as a mediator,
especially with respect to eco-design.
The other factor here is that stakeholder pressures are a
composite group of various pressures from a variety of sources. For
example, some pressures on source reduction may come from
internal stakeholders and may differ from external stakeholder
pressures. For these practices, internal training is needed to build
awareness of programs to help in these reduction efforts. For EMS
implementation, training may be a requisite of external parties
(e.g. the standards themselves) and may be more firmly related
(especially since we are focusing on smaller automotive suppliers)
to external stakeholder pressures to implement EMS as members
 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176 171

Table 4
Individual reliability of the items (Model 1).

Factorial weight Student-t R2

Environmental practices
F1. Eco-design Use of LCA for product design (LCA) 0.905 14.059*** 0.614
Use of easy-to-break joints between 0.984 13.235*** 0.654
components to facilitate disassembly
(JOINTS)
Clear identification of materials to 1.190 23.885*** 0.778
facilitate disassembly (IDENTIF)
Use of standardized components to 1.045 15.160*** 0.660
facilitate their reuse (COMPON)

F2. Source reduction Reduction in the variety of materials employed in 1.187 10.974*** 0.791
manufacturing the company’s products (VARIETY)
Reduction in raw material (RAWMAT) 0.878 10.313*** 0.565
Avoidance of materials that are considered 0.868 10.905*** 0.446
harmful, but not illegal (AVOID)

F3. Env. managment systems (EMS) Recycling of solid waste and rubbish 0.962 3.713*** 0.472
(RECYCLING)
Environmental management procedures 1.181 3.735*** 0.634
for internal use (ENVMAN)
***
Use of advanced prevention and safety 0.964 3.589 0.606
systems at work (SYSTEMS)

F4. Stakeholders pressures Clients pressures (ST-CLIENTS) 0.855 12.895*** 0.544

Government pressures (ST-GOVERN) 0.987 16.715*** 0.669
Shareholders pressures (ST-SHARE) 1.015 14.554*** 0.707
Workers pressures (ST-WORKERS) 1.027 12.785*** 0.792
ONG/society pressures (ST-SOCIETY) 0.928 13.932*** 0.617
* ** ***
p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001.

of the supply chain. Thus, additional interesting insights can be For example, the media may play a role as a secondary stakeholder,
accrued from the further identification and refinement of the type but may not singly produce the necessary pressures for companies
of stakeholder pressures that exist. Stakeholders may be viewed as to invest in training programs that would help in the implementa-
not only internal or external, but also as primary and secondary. tion of environmental practices.

Table 5
Individual reliability of the items (Model 2).

Factorial weight Student-t R2

Environmental practices
F1. Eco-design Use of LCA for product design (LCA) 0.882 18.013*** 0.614
Use of easy-to-break joints between components 0.942 17.959*** 0.638
to facilitate disassembly (JOINTS)
Clear identification of materials to facilitate 1.152 18.618*** 0.779
disassembly (IDENTIF)
Use of standardized components to facilitate 1.024 15.584*** 0.685
their reuse (COMPON)

F2. Source reduction Reduction in the variety of materials employed in 1.220 10.551*** 0.801
manufacturing the company’s products (VARIETY)
Reduction in raw material (RAWMAT) 0.889 9.919*** 0.553
Avoidance of materials that are considered harmful, 0.873 11.268*** 0.431
but not illegal (AVOID)

F3. EMS Recycling of solid waste and rubbish (RECYCLING) 1.025 17.536*** 0.494
Environmental management procedures for internal 1.235 12.576*** 0.646
use (ENVMAN)
Use of advanced prevention and safety systems at 0.963 9.578*** 0.576
work (SYSTEMS)

F4. Stakeholders pressures Clients pressures (ST-CLIENTS) 0.851 12.813*** 0.551

Government pressures (ST-GOVERN) 0.987 16.952*** 0.678
Shareholders pressures (ST-SHARE) 1.011 14.653*** 0.704
Workers pressures (ST-WORKERS) 1.022 12.824*** 0.786
ONG/society pressures (ST-SOCIETY) 0.928 13.898*** 0.616

F5. Training Training in eco-design (TR-ECODES) 0.770 6.109*** 0.231

Training in LCA (TR-LCA) 0.748 5.706*** 0.228
Training in recycling/reusing (TR-RECYC) 1.349 13.440*** 0.639
Training in waste elimination (TR-WASTE) 1.480 13.165*** 0.650
* ** ***
p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001.
172 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176

Table 6 5.1. Research and practical implications

Goodness-of-fit indices of the two models.

Indices Recommended Model 1 Model 2 The theoretical underpinning of a joint RBV and stakeholder/
Satorra-Bentler x2
– 122.1769 272.7942 institutional theory perspective is a strong foundation for further
Degrees of freedom – 80 137 understanding the relationship between external forces and
p 0.0 0.002 0.000 internal capabilities related to corporate environmental opera-
x2/d.f. (<3.0) 1.53 1.99 tional practices. This link between a strategic theoretical perspec-
GFI >0.8 0.880 0.816 tive and operational action and activities is something that benefits
(Dawes et al., 1998) both the operations management and strategic management
RMSEA <0.10 0.05 0.08 literature. A study of multiple theoretical perspectives to address a
(Hair et al., 2006) multidisciplinary, multi-scale and multi-functional concern for
companies is needed to further understand how environmental,
CFI >0.9 0.969 0.918
IFI (Hair et al., 2006) 0.970 0.920 operations and strategic theory can cooperate (Amundson, 1998).
We believe that the joint consideration of institutional and
stakeholder pressures provides a number of additional insights

Fig. 3. Results of the Direct Relationship Model (*p < 0.05; **

p < 0.01; ***
p < 0.001).

Fig. 4. Results of the mediation structural equation model (*p < 0.05; **
p < 0.01; ***
p < 0.001).
 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176
into why business organizations are motivated to develop specific
operational programs to aid in building competitive advantage by
enhancing their capabilities. The association and coordination of
these two groups of theoretical lenses can provide ample
explanatory opportunity. In this study we have shown how this
multi-theoretical framework is valuable for furthering joint
understanding of environmental and operational practices.
Practical implications are quite manifest in this study. External
and direct stakeholders such as integrated supply chain members
(evident in the automotive industry), who are dependent on
resilient, reliable and environmentally sound partners, may come
to the aid of smaller companies. For example, in the early days of
just-in-time manufacturing, large supply chain partners such as
Xerox provided expertise to smaller companies to help them
implement just-in-time programs. Larger companies in compe-
titive supply chains have come to realize that greening supply
chains is necessary to maintain an acceptable and reliable source
of components and material (Orsato and Wells, 2007). In addition,
there are cooperative relationships that have further developed
amongst these firms through environmental life-cycle analysis,
eco-design initiatives and regulatory requirements for environ-
mentally sound materials and products (Zhu and Sarkis, 2004; Lee
and Klassen, 2008). Smaller companies may not have the
resources (tangible or intangible) to implement or address these
issues. Larger organizations may wish to provide some of these
necessary resources and training is a major conduit to this
development.
Another practical implication is that the environmental
performance of industry is continuously being scrutinized by
another stakeholder, i.e. governmental or regulatory agencies.
Smaller companies may greatly benefit from governmental
training and education programs. Supporting the diffusion of
environmental practices to companies needs to begin with the
development of human resource capabilities through training and
other ‘soft loans’ by government organizations (Akihisa, 2008).
Thus, further training in general awareness-raising topics may
provide the necessary catalyst for smaller and less resource-
capable companies to begin working in the direction of environ-
mental operational sustainability (Pimenova and van der Vorst,
2004).
5.2. Limitations and future research directions
Even though our results overwhelmingly show that training is a
critical mediator between stakeholder pressures and the imple-
mentation of environmental practices, there are limitations to our
study. The single-industry, single-country limitations point to the
need to investigate whether other industries and countries have
the same experiences. The automotive industry is typically
internationally integrated, especially in the EU. Not all industries
may have the same level of vertical integration across the supply
chain, nor might there be visible environmental implications from
their operations. Thus, these industry differences will need to be
173
evaluated. There is an argument that Spain may not be as culturally
or politically sensitive to environmental issues as other countries
in the world (e.g. Japan or Germany), where it might be more
expected and acceptable for certain practices to be implemented,
whether or not training is included. Alternatively, companies in
less developed countries may be more concerned about economic
growth and thus may not implement additional environmental
programs even if training is provided. In addition, there may be
other variables to help further explain the relationships observed
in our study. Incorporating control variables related to managerial
values and beliefs may be some factors that may explain some of
the variation. There are also nuances of the intra-organizational
training programs themselves that could be investigated. For
example those employees who are less directly influenced by the
adoption of the practice may require a different level of training
than those who might be ‘process’ owners and users of the practice.
Determining the depth of training for particular groupings within
organization, intra-organizational, differentiation may be an
interesting direction for this research. Also, we investigated one
aspect of environmental programs in organizations, environmen-
tally oriented reverse logistics practices. Alternative environmen-
tal practices such as those that have may be less ‘required’ and
more voluntary (e.g. some climate change issues), could have
differing results and could be investigated. Our sample had a
preponderance of relatively smaller (for the automotive industry)
companies. Further expansion to consider larger companies would
also provide additional direction for research. These are only
suppositions at this time and further research is needed to help
identify whether training does mediate in these additional
environmental situations.
Human resources management from a corporate environ-
mental perspective goes well beyond the training activities
presented in this paper. There are broader topical training issues
from basic operations in an organization to technical develop-
ment training not dealing with environmental issues that may
have broader learning and development implications and could be
investigated in the context of organizational environmental
concerns. The scope of human resources activities ranging from
personnel recruitment and selection to incentive planning,
performance measurement, and advancement are all potential
areas that could also influence whether organizations are
successful in implementation and development of environmental
organizational practices. Human resources represent a critical
internal resource that would incorporate both tangible (actual
people and their labor) and intangible (knowledge and learning)
resources that may influence organizational capabilities. There is
substantial research for operations management researchers in
each of these directions.
Acknowledgment
This research was partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of
Science and Innovation, grant MEC-DPI2007-65827-C02-01.
174 J. Sarkis et al. / Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 163–176
Appendix A. Questionnaire*
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