GREEN VALUE CHAIN INITIATIVES: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT VIEW OF ANTECEDENT AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE VIEW OF OUTCOME by Yulihasri, Suhaiza Hanim and Tan Teong Jin School of Management UniversitiSains Malaysia Email: yulihasri_eri@yahoo.com ABSTRACT This study serves two main objectives. First, it meant to investigate the effects of sustainable development as the antecedents of green value chain initiatives. Secondly, it is to examine the outcomes of green value chain initiatives in terms of sustainable competitive advantage. The study was conducted on 300 manufacturing firms in Malaysia which are ISO 140001 certified through mailed questionnaires. Out of the 300 mailed questionnaires, 90 questionnaires or equivalent 30.0% was received. Questions for all dimensions will be evaluated by using a 5-point Likert Scale. Subsequently, data obtained from the surveys will be gathered and analyzed by using Statistical Software Package, SPSS 16.0 to find first the significant principal components, and then their correlation and coefficient of determination R 2 , goodness of measures, and follows by the reliability analysis. Green value chain initiatives can be viewed from three dimensions namely waste management, energy management, and resource management. Sustainable competitive advantage, on the other hand, can be measured from three dimensions namely financial performance, environmental performance, and social performance. This findings of this study postulated that risk management, corporate social responsibility, and socio environmental considerations are the three utmost important antecedents of green value chain initiatives, which are being executed through green resource and capability management. In terms of outcome, green value chain initiatives is found to be lead to the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage in terms of financial performance and social environmental performances. The antecedents and outcomes relationship in respect to green value chain initiatives as being established in this study can add considerably novel knowledge towards the extension and enrichment of Michael Porter’s Value Chain Mode. Apart from these, this study also intends to provide insightful information as to how green value chain initiatives can assist firms to achieve competitive advantage from the perspective of resource based view theory. In the face of ever changing business environment due to escalating level of environmental conscious, merely having green value chain is insufficient to ensure sustainable competitive advantage. In order to break through fierce competitive in the red ocean, having a dynamic capability is of paramount important to ensure sustainable green value chain. Hence, future research can further delve into exploring key dynamic capability of sustainable green value chain. KEYWORDS Green, Value Chain, Environmental Management System, ISO INTRODUCTION The roll-out of the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) is in fact driving this type of transition towards a time where environmental friendly practices are no longer be an optional business practice, but rather a competitive necessity for survival. In view of the increasingly wide-spread adoption of the ISO 14001 standards, it is expected that there will be reaching such a time where emphasis on green value chain (GVC) via implementation of the Environmental Management System will sooner or later become a norm among the manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Nonetheless, most of the research studies carried out thus far is in fact merely concentrated on Green Supply Chain management per se and in most of the circumstances, these researches tend to focus on single aspect such as Green Purchasing, Green Design, Green Production, Green Consumption, Reverse Logistics etc., as oppose to investigate from the perspective of green value chain. From the aforementioned findings, it can be inferred that albeit more and more management theorists have begun to consider ecological and green sustainability as a study framework for organization, little prior theories exist to ground testable hypotheses concerning the antecedent and outcome effects in creating the green value chain from the perspective of sustainable development, and the contribution of green value chain in leading towards creation of the sustainable competitive advantage. Lacking understanding of which may culminate in underestimating the important and