Greening healthcare supply chain through corporate environmental strategies towards sustainability performance in the Malaysia private hospitals

Abstract

The healthcare industry is a sizeable consumer of natural resources and is a generator of both regulated and non-regulated wastes. Nowadays, the healthcare industry is enlightened by the global concern on sustainable performance. With the proliferation of the green hospital concept, green healthcare supply chain practices in the healthcare industry are becoming more significant. However, the growing green healthcare supply chains research field has not been yet mapped on sustainable performance in the healthcare industry. The lack of a green healthcare supply chain conceptualization hinders developing a green healthcare supply chain and sustainability performance framework. Thus, this research explores the current state of corporate environmental strategy through the green healthcare supply chain that contributes to sustainable performance within the healthcare industry. It also seeks to reveal corporate environmental strategy by studying the green healthcare supply chain practices and their impacts on sustainable performance (economic, environmental and social). In this research, an inductive qualitative research approach and multiple case study research methods were adopted. Six private hospitals were selected from the healthcare service providers in Malaysia. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. This research revealed eight corporate environmental strategies that contributed to sustainable performance: environmental regulation, organizational culture, environmental management practice, environmental management system, corporate leadership, green technology, corporate reputation, and competitive advantage. This finding also was further grouped into sustainable performance pillars (economic, environmental and social). Therefore, a new conceptualization framework of the corporate environmental strategies that integrate with the green healthcare supply chain is developed that contribute to sustainable performance (economic, environmental, and social) exclusively for healthcare industries. Hence, the corporate environmental strategies that integrate with the green healthcare supply chain gives an insight to the private hospitals for long term benefits. Keywords: Corporate Environmental Strategies, Green Healthcare Supply Chain, Sustainable Performance, Multiple Case Studies, Private Hospitals.