The scope of the above studies is limited to the current situation in the USA. To do this, we will start by reviewing the role that people play in ISO 14001. In the next chapter, the hypotheses of the paper will be developed based on the reference model, the ISO standard and the literature review.
The literature has abundantly emphasized the fundamental nature of training in terms of the appropriate implementation of environmental measures (Dechant & Altman, 1994; Starik & Rands, 1995; Wehrmeyer, 1996). This is stated in the relevant section of the standard and can be gleaned from studies focused on the quality domain (Powell, 1995).
Data collection and measurement of variables
Data collection
To obtain a current census of the population studied, we used information from the "Sociedad Española de la Calidad", as well as from the Cantabria Chamber of Commerce which, through its initiative, "Programa Cantabria XXI", actively promotes the implementation of environmental management systems in the companies in the region. Using these two sources, and after rectifying the first data received, the total number of companies with an ISO 14001 EMS implemented or in an advanced stage of implementation was determined to be 59. enclosed with the survey describing the motive and objectives of our research, ensuring the privacy of the data provided and, as an incentive, offering the research results.
The data collection took place in the months of November and December 2002, when the companies were called to remind them of the survey. As a consequence of these calls, we found that three of the companies initially included in the sample population had abandoned their intention to implement an EMS, thus reducing our study group to 56 companies. When creating the questionnaire, we referred to the literature on the implementation of environmental management systems as well as to that which deals with the effects of the implementation of quality management systems (Saraph, et al., 1989;.
The inclusion of the quality management literature is justified not only because of the greater level of empirical research in this area, but also because quality management and environmental management share the same philosophy and many similar practices. We decided not to create separate questionnaires tailored to industrial or service companies, and we paid special attention to the preparation of the questions to avoid misunderstandings. Based on the results of this pretest, together with the participants' suggestions, we compiled the final version of our questionnaire.
Different versions of the questionnaire were prepared, in which the order of the items in each question was changed to avoid bias in the responses.
Measurement of variables
One question explored this link as it related to environmental managers, and the second did so in terms of the rest of the management team. These aspects form the phases of the continuous improvement cycle, or the PDCA cycle. Interdepartmental information flow and coordination” was measured with three questions about how the need to analyze information flow between departments of the work center or factory varied, and about the information flow and coordination between the environmental management department and the other company departments.
In order to check whether, in cases where more than one item was used to measure the variation of a certain parameter, the scales used correctly reflect this variation, reliability was analyzed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. It can be seen from the tables that all items in each scale show a correlation greater than 0.5. The lower limit of alpha in terms of acceptance of scale validity is generally accepted as 0.7 (Nunnally y Bernstein, 1994; Peterson, 1994), a value that is well exceeded by all scales in the tables mentioned above.
In the leadership rewards scale (consisting of two items), the alpha is 0.982, also above the values considered valid. In addition to this analysis of reliability, a factor analysis was conducted for each of the scales comprising more than two items. In each case, a single factor was obtained with an eigenvalue greater than one.[5] This allowed us to use the mean value of the items that make up the scale as a global indicator of the corresponding parameter.
And it is this indicator that is used in the analyzes that appear in the next section where we present the main results of the empirical study.
Results
It is striking that the value for the training of employees appears to be smaller than that for management. This result could be due to the fact that the EMS has been recently implemented in the majority of the companies surveyed (87.5% of the companies in the sample have been ISO 14001 certified for less than two years). The fact that the increase in the need for information and interdepartmental coordination was not substantial could be due to the fact that 52.5%.
And for those hypotheses where the variation was measured with a 5-point Likert scale, two categories were created to indicate that the indicator being analyzed was promoted or showed no variance. The hypotheses regarding management involvement (top and middle) were both supported by the fact that they both increased significantly (in 87 to 92% of the cases, respectively). In this case, based on an analysis of the results, it can be deduced that there was a significant intensification of training for both groups, with 97% of the sample population confirming this situation.
The empowerment hypothesis was supported in a statistically significant manner, with 92% of cases indicating that employee empowerment increased. Finally, the hypotheses related to rewards are the only ones that were not supported, since the results obtained, although not statistically significant, are contrary to those expected. It was reported that a correlation exists between manager's rewards and the achievement of environmental goals in only 35% of the cases studied, and this dropped to 32% for employees.
As a synthesis, the results obtained confirm that the percentage of answers that confirm the hypotheses are significantly different in statistical terms, as well as being superior to those obtained that refute the hypotheses.
Conclusions
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