An intra-regional comparison on RoHS practices for green purchasing management among electrical and electronics SMEs in Southeast Asia

Green purchasing (GP) has elicited increasing attention in recent years by both academics and practitioners. However, its industrial issues in developing countries have not been investigated at a regional level. This paper aims to compare practices of GP in connection with a widely applied compliance of RoHS among five countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. We sought to determine where the differences occur and which practices are further along. An investigation of 106 manufacturing SMEs in E%E sector shows that a partial difference in the extent of implementation of on RoHS-related GP practices, including documentation, supplier management, and internal management, among these five countries. The implication of this paper indicates that RoHS-related GP enables SMEs to green their purchasing activities by establishing win-win relationships with suppliers, and thus realise sustainable development for the whole supply chains. As a managerial implication, the present study shows that an appropriate monitoring approach involving suppliers in green initiatives can help GP diffusion and greener environment across Southeast Asia.