Vol. 9 Issue 1 pp. 000‐000 There is a growing need for integrating environmentally sound choices into supply-chain management research and practice. Perusal of the literature shows that a broad frame of reference for green supply-chain management (GrSCM) is not adequately developed. Regulatory bodies that formulate regulations to meet societal and ecological concerns to facilitate growth of business and economy also suffer from its absence. A succinct classification to help academicians, researchers and practitioners in understanding integrated GrSCM from a wider perspective is needed. Further, sufficient literature is available to warrant such classification. This paper takes an integrated and fresh look into the area of GrSCM. The literature on GrSCM is covered exhaustively from its conceptualization, primarily taking a ‘reverse logistics angle’. Using the rich body of available literature, including earlier reviews that had relatively limited perspectives, the literature on GrSCM is classified on the basis of the problem context in supply chain’s major influential areas. It is also classified on the basis of methodology and approach adopted. Various mathematical tools/techniques used in literature vis-a-vis the contexts of GrSCM are mapped. A timeline indicating relevant papers is also provided as a ready reference. Finally, the findings and interpretations are summarized, and the main research issues and opportunities are highlighted.

Green supply‐chain management: A state‐of‐the‐art literature review

Environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery (ECMPRO): A review of the state of the art

The extent to which member states transpose EU directives in a timely fashion is often argued to be strongly associated with the general effectiveness of national bureaucracies. But what kind of institutional solutions ensure better performance? This paper examines the patterns and effects of departmental oversight across 28 ministries in Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. In mapping the strength of oversight, it relies on around 90 structured interviews regarding the rules-in-use on transposition planning, legal review and monitoring of deadlines. The analysis of the impact of departmental oversight is based on an original dataset of over 300 directives with transposition deadlines between January 2005 and December 2008.

On the european union

The purpose of this paper is to briefly trace the evolution of DEA from the initial publication by Charnes et al. (1978b) to the current state of the art (SOA). The state of development of DEA is characterized at four points in time to provide a perspective in both directions—past and future. An evolution map is provided which illustrates DEA growth during the 17-year period, the timing of the major events, and the interconnections and influences between topics. An extensive DEA bibliography is provided.

Data envelopment analysis: The evolution of the state of the art (1978–1995)

This special edition of Health at a Glance focuses on health issues across the 27 European Union member states, three European Free Trade Association countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and Turkey. It gives readers a better understanding of the factors that affect the health of populations and the performance of health systems in these countries.Its 42 indicators present comparable data covering a wide range of topics, including health status, risk factors,  health workforce and health expenditure. 
Each indicator in the book is presented in a user-friendly format, consisting of charts illustrating variations across countries and over time, brief descriptive analyses highlighting the major findings conveyed by the data, and a methodological box on the definition of the indicators and any limitations in data comparability. An annex provides additional information on the demographic and economic context within which health systems operate.   
This publication is the result of collaboration between the OECD and the European Commission, with the help of national data correspondents from the 31 countries.

Health at a Glance: Europe 2010

Technical efficiency in the use of health care resources: a comparison of OECD countries.

Designing a reverse logistics operation for short cycle time repair services

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Discriminant Analysis (DA) are similar in that both may be used to classify units as exhibiting either good or poor performance. Both use linear programming to select a set of factor weights that determines group membership relative to a "threshold" or hyperplane. This similarity was pointed out in an earlier paper, in which several methods which combine aspects of DA and DEA were suggested. This paper further develops one of these hybrid methods, which can be described as an efficiency approach to Discriminant Analysis. The various formulation options are considered with respect to their effects on solution quality and stability. The stability issue is raised by the fact that solution equivalence under data transformation (including both translation and rotation) is considered important in DA, and has significantly affected model formulation. Thus, the data transformation issue is studied for the hybrid method, and also for DEA. The hybrid method is applied to an insurance data set, where some firms are solvent and others in financial distress, to further evaluate the method and its possible formulations. DA methods are applied to the same data set to provide a basis for comparison. The hybrid method is shown to outperform the general discriminant models.

A Data Envelopment Analysis approach to Discriminant Analysis

We introduce a methodology for generalizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to incorporate the role and impact of constituencies in the classification of the model's attributes. Constituencies determine whether entities' attributes in a DEA study are treated as desirable or undesirable. This extension of DEA is the basis for a methodology to answer questions that arise such as: Which constituencies find what entities efficient? Which entities are in the efficient frontier for a specified constituency? and What benchmarking prescriptions apply to inefficient entities for a given constituency? Constituencies allow new applications for DEA analyses of public projects to determine their impact on voters and marketing studies where a product defined by multiple attributes is analysed with respect to diverse markets, are two examples of the type of application for the new methodology. We introduce a DEA LP especially formulated for this new framework with many desirable properties. The new methodology is motivated and validated with a cost–benefit analysis application for a public project.

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Nonparametric frontier analysis with multiple constituencies

Benefit-cost analysis is required by law and regulation throughout the federal government. Robert Dorfman (1996) declares ‘Three prominent shortcomings of benefit-cost analysis as currently practiced are (1) it does not identify the population segments that the proposed measure benefits or harms (2) it attempts to reduce all comparisons to a single dimension, generally dollars and cents and (3) it conceals the degree of inaccuracy or uncertainty in its estimates.’ The paper develops an approach for conducting benefit-cost analysis derived from data envelopment analysis (DEA) that overcomes each of Dorfman's objections. The models and methodology proposed give decision makers a tool for evaluating alternative policies and projects where there are multiple constituencies who may have conflicting perspectives. This method incorporates multiple incommensurate attributes while allowing for measures of uncertainty. An application is used to illustrate the method.

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Donna Retzlaff-Roberts

Papers

Technical efficiency in the use of health care resources: a comparison of OECD countries.

Designing a reverse logistics operation for short cycle time repair services

A Data Envelopment Analysis approach to Discriminant Analysis

Nonparametric frontier analysis with multiple constituencies

Benefit-cost analysis using data envelopment analysis