همانطور که مقررات برای ایجاد ثبات فشار می آورد، سازمان ها نیز ممکن است تصمیم بگیرند سریع به گرایش استراتژیک شان برسند به جای اینکه به سمت بازده بیشتر و بیشتر حرکت کنند. طراحی و توسعه محصولات برای دستیابی به ثبات، هسته مرکزی عملیات سازمان ها است و می تواند تغییرات قابل ملاحظه ای را در راستای ثبات در بلند مدت ایجاد کند.

خود محصول و چگونگی درک کاربر نهایی در مورد محصول می تواند به صورت قابل توجهی این حرکت به سمت ثبات را برای سازمان تحت تاثیر قرار دهد. این تحقیق به صورت تجربی ارتباط بین گرایش سازمانی و ثبات، صفات محصولات پایدار و تاثیر آن بر عملکرد در دو مکان جغرافیایی جداگانه با اقتصاد های مختلف، را مورد بررسی قرار می دهد. ارزش این مقاله نه فقط در مفاهیم معتبر تجربی بر مبنای دیدگاه توسعه تجربی محصولات جدید آن است بلکه این مقاله یک بینش را در مورد ذهنیت فعلی در مورد ثبات ارائه می دهد

Abstract

As regulation pushes for sustainability, organizations may choose to strategically orient themselves sooner rather than later for the inevitable move for more promising returns. Design and development of products for sustainability reaches the core of organizational operations and those that can orchestrate a meaningful shift to sustainability may gain in the long-run. The product itself and how it is perceived by the end-user may also significantly affect this move to sustainability for the organization.

This research empirically tests the relationship between organizational orientation toward sustainability, attributes of sustainable products and the effect these have on performance in two separate geographical locations with differing economies. The value of this paper lies not only in empirically validating concepts from traditional new product development literature perspective in the context of sustainability but also in providing an insight into the current ‘mindset’ toward sustainability.

Introduction

Increasing regulation in a post-crises global economy finds business and product sustainability to be an inevitable reality [1-5]. For survival in the long term, organizations should consider orienting themselves toward sustainability at the strategic level. Yet, more than this, the focus should now be on introducing processes that support the design and development of sustainable products that improve the performance of the organization without negatively impacting society and the environment at large [6-8]. With respect to meaningful performance for an organization, a sustainable product must be able to compete with – or rather be more attractive than – “regular” varieties of the same currently on market [4], [9-13].

Though work has been done on unitary levels of organization or industry, the question on whether the product itself can attract the consumer’s attention via its characteristic has also not yet been tested empirically in the sustainability context. Moreover, literature on sustainability can be described as formative at best and somewhat nebulous at present, a precise and standardized definition of a ‘sustainable product’ has not, at the time of this research, been widely agreed upon in research published in peer-reviewed journals As a starting point, the ability of a sustainable product to competitively perform in the market is an important point of study. This study empirically tests whether the connections between strategic organizational as well as product sustainability and the triple bottom line of performance hold true in the real world. More specifically, this research explores whether organizational orientations leading to sustainable product attributes have meaningfully begun to affect organizational performance, both for the triple bottom line as well as strategically.

Literature Review

Research on sustainable development has evolved and found enthusiastic researchers within the field of management, questions have been raised as to what exactly differentiates the sustainable system, the sustainable organization, the sustainable supply chain and so on from the regular varieties of the same [1], [4], [6], [10-13]. Previous studies have researched the meaning and consequences of product life-cycles and arrived at the conclusion that social and environmental responsibility mandates closing life-cycle loops either by strengthening reverse logistics or by redesigning products that are more amenable to disassembly and reuse at multiple fronts, using strategies such as life-cycle assessment (LCA) [13-17].

With the addition of sustainability concerns, the concept of the closed life-cycle loop has advanced in research to reflect social, environmental and financial needs of the system each product exists within. This includes the organization handling its product conceptualisation, modification, development, production and marketing in a more sustainable way. Sustainability as related to society is very much different than the sustainability of a business.

Both of these are fundamentally different when the level of their operations; their impact as well as their scope is considered [25-26]. Over time, as perception and ability evolve, the attributes of a product that make it sustainable also change. However, it is first incumbent to perform a primary assessment of whether a sustainable product can successfully ‘make its mark’ in the market as a stand-alone option for the buyer.