Environmental management of Japanese companies in Thailand : the case of electrical and electronics industries

Abstract

To focus on environmental management of Japanese enterprises in Thailand, including supplier and assembly companies. The industry researched is the electric and electronics industry. This research has three objectives 1) to describe the environmental management practice of Japanese companies in Thailand as a comparison with the companies operated in Japan ; 2) to examine what are the important factors for Japanese companies to start and keep implementing environmental management in Thailand ; and 3) to study the impact of implementing environmental management on competitiveness of Japanese companies. The method used in this study is descriptive analysis based on interviews to companies' executives or person being in charge of environmental department by using the questionnaire. Moreover, three hypotheses are tested in this study, which are cost reduction hypothesis, pollution haven hypothesis and competitiveness hypothesis. In terms of first objective, the practices of environmental management by Japanese companies in Thailand have improved. There is no company who think Thailand is pollution haven because of the lax environmental laws and standards. Regarding with second objective, the important factor to implement and keep environmental management is Thai Environmental Laws and regulations for Japanese companies. The requirement from trading partners is also important factor for the companies. With regards to the third objective, every company can enhance the competitiveness through environmental management practices. The differentiation focusing on the improvement of production process is the dominant advantage, not cost reduction, among the companies researched.