Doctoral Student
Chonnikarn (Fern) Jira is a doctoral candidate in Technology and Operations Management. Fern's research interest lies at the intersection of operations management and corporate environmental strategy. Her topics of interest include climate change information sharing in the supply chain, design of sustainability standards and their effects on supply chain members, and enabling greater adoption of energy-efficient projects within firms.
Fern graduated from Stanford University in 2008 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (with distinction) and a secondary major in Mathematical and Computational Sciences. Fern is a native of Bangkok, Thailand. She enjoys playing the piano, photography, reading, and painting in her free time.
Publications
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2012
Engaging Supply Chains in Climate Change
Chonnikarn Fern Jira and Michael W. Toffel
Suppliers are increasingly being asked to share information about their vulnerability to climate change and their strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their responses vary widely. We theorize and empirically identify several factors associated with suppliers being especially willing to share this information with buyers, focusing on attributes of the buyers seeking this information and of the suppliers being asked to provide it. We test our hypotheses using data from the Carbon Disclosure Project's Supply Chain Program, a collaboration of multinational corporations requesting such information from thousands of suppliers in 49 countries. We find evidence that suppliers are more likely to share this information when requests from buyers are more prevalent, when buyers appear committed to using the information, when suppliers belong to more profitable industries, and when suppliers are located in countries with greenhouse gas regulations. We find evidence that these factors also influence the comprehensiveness of the information suppliers share and their willingness to share the information publicly.
Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Information;
Knowledge Sharing;
Supply Chain;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Environmental Sustainability;
Weather and Climate Change;
Competitive Advantage;
Citation:
Jira, Chonnikarn Fern, and Michael W. Toffel. "
Engaging Supply Chains in Climate Change." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12–026, October 2011. (Revised October 2012. Forthcoming at
Manufacturing and Service Operations Management.)
Research Summary
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Research Summary
Engaging supply chains in climate change and sustainability issues
by
Chonnikarn Fern Jira
This research aims to develop a better understanding of the dynamics between supply chain partners in issues regarding climate change and sustainability. I am particularly interested in better understanding factors that motivate suppliers to share climate change information with their buyers when the buyers request such information. I am also interested in studying the development of standards used to guage performance in sustainability of supply chain partners, and how the design of such standards affects behaviors of supply chain partners.
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Research Summary
Promoting greater organizational adoption of energy efficiency projects
by
Chonnikarn Fern Jira
This research examines why firms fail to capitalize on apparently cost-effective investments in energy efficiency, with particular attention to waste heat recovery projects, in which heat from industrial processes are recovered in the form of thermal or electrical power. Agenda include developing a better understanding of how energy efficiency projects fit into the capital budgeting process of firms, and how organizational- and policy-level initiatives can help increase the adoption of such projects.