The influence of technology innovation on SME performance through environmental sustainability practices in Kenya

This paper evaluates the association between technology innovation, environmental sustainability and its impact on small business performance. Samples of 204 small businesses and hierarchical regression models were used in the analysis. The results of the survey show that technological innovation affects environmentally friendly owners who have a positive impact on the performance of the company. Successful companies that support environmental community projects and social well-being beyond their economic responsibilities can bring greater financial success. Innovation from management and employee participation in environmental protection practices can improve the company's performance and enhance its image to stakeholders. The findings of this paper enhance existing theories and contribute to the establishment of sustainable practices in developed and developing countries.     

Does sustainable supplier co-operation affect performance? Examining implications for the triple bottom line

The increasing importance of sustainable behaviour in business has enhanced its impact on supply chain management. Firms foster sustainability in their supplier base in reaction to growing sustainability requirements in various ways, including sustainable supplier co-operation. Knowledge about the effects of sustainable supplier co-operation on firm performance is limited; therefore, this study tests antecedents and implications of sustainable supplier co-operation according to the triple bottom line. A survey of Western European firms reveals that sustainable supplier co-operation has generally positive effects on firm performance across social, green and economic dimensions. However, only green practices have positive significant effects on economic performance, not social practices (e.g., child labour rules). In contrast to practitioner perceptions, investments in sustainability, for example through sustainable supplier co-operation does indeed result in sufficient returns.     

Intelligent automation implementation and corporate sustainability performance: The enabling role of corporate social responsibility strategy

Although Intelligent Automation (IA) represents the future of business automation, the organizational implementation and sustainability performance of this emerging technological innovation is vastly understudied. Understanding the implications of IA for sustainability is critical since leveraging these technologies shapes operations and policies that can promote sustainable digitalization and automation practices. We study how firms' technological, organizational, environmental, and human resource contexts impact IA implementation. The study further explains how IA may associate with the firm's triple bottom line while accounting for the moderating role of corporate social responsibility strategy. The study surveyed 207 multinational firms in 2022 and used partial least square-structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships. Results showed that IA implementation is mainly determined by the characteristics of the firm's internal environment, such as absorptive capacity, employee socio-behavioral concerns, and social capital competency. IA may offer valuable opportunities for boosting the firm's economic and environmental sustainability performance. Nonetheless, IA is a double-edged sword for social sustainability, harming social values in implementing firms with informal corporate social sustainability strategies. Conversely, firms with formal corporate social sustainability strategy have a significantly higher opportunity to transform the value of IA into social sustainability performance. Findings are expected to assist managers and decision-makers with streamlining an impartial and sustainable transition of organizations toward automation.     

Suppliers’ green performance evaluation using fuzzy extended ELECTRE approach

In the present context of the globalized market, sustainable manufacturing has become a major concern for all organizations. The sustainable manufacturing system includes economic, environmental, and social sustainabilities. Green manufacturing enhances the environmental sustainability but, it also affects the economic and social sustainabilities. The compulsion to follow the environmental rules and regulation in any business activity has increased the awareness for the use of green products, recyclable materials for packaging, reduction of carbon emission, etc. Due to the involvement of extra costs in green manufacturing, some ignorance in the implementation of green practices may be observed. To ensure sustainable systems, selection of suppliers based on green performance measures is very important. This study evaluates the suppliers’ performances based on Green Practices as follows: environmental management and pollution control, cost, quality, and flexibility using the fuzzy-extended Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality approach. This approach helps the managers to incorporate the linguistic decision of the decision makers and convert it into quantitative scale. This method is used to eliminate and outrank the poor performers. As poor performers are outranked, this approach helps to select the most suitable green suppliers as per organization’s requirement.     

How Do Packaging Material,Colour and Environmental Claim Influence Package,Brand and Product Evaluations?

The success of environment‐friendly packages is highly dependent on consumers' understanding and acceptance of these packages. In an experiment using a 3 × 2 between‐subject design, this study tests how style elements (i.e. the material and the colour) influence perceptions of packaging environment‐friendliness when an environmental claim is either absent from or displayed on the package. Next, the study tests the effects of the style elements and environmental claim on the evaluation of the social responsibility of the brand as well as on the inferences about product environment‐friendliness. Based on the responses of 207 participants from a Dutch consumer panel, the results show that the style elements and environmental claim influenced both the evaluations of packaging eco‐friendliness and the social responsibility of the brand. When an environmental claim about the package was displayed on the package, the results show that the material is worth a thousand words as the credibility of the claim was always significantly higher when the package was made of a fibre‐based material. Finally, the effect of the material on the inferences about product environment‐friendliness is underlined and implications for designers, managers and policy‐makers are highlighted. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sustainability and branchless banking: The development and validation of a distinct measurement scale

This study aimed to develop and validate a new scale for measuring the sustainability and development of branchless banking. The study followed the scale development procedure based on Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using SPSS 22 and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analyses through SmartPLS. The data was collected from 150 respondents from different stakeholders of branchless banking. The EFA reported with the seven-factor solution including social sustainability, product responsibility, economic sustainability, labor practices and decent work, environmental sustainability, human rights and ethics, and branchless banking development. The structural model further validated the positive impact of human rights and ethics, labor practice and decent work, product responsibility, and social sustainability on the development of branchless banking. The study has a novelty to develop and validate the first-ever scale for measuring sustainable branchless banking. Besides, the study also provides many theoretical and practical implications for different stakeholders including academia, researchers, top management of the banks, and practitioners.     

Incorporating sustainability in decision-making for medical device development

The development and commercialization of contemporary medical devices are inherently multidisciplinary. Consequently, they have to undergo a stringent regulatory compliance procedure in conformity with an ever increasingly fierce and competitive business environment. Throughout the product life cycle, medical devices would significantly consume renewable as well as non-renewable resources and as a result exert a substantial social, economic and environmental impact(s). Sustainability from an overall perspective in terms of social, economic and environmental domains is crucial for decision-making during product development; nevertheless they have rarely been incorporated simultaneously. Both public and private institutions only focused towards economic and environmental sustainability without acknowledging the critical role of social sustainability that needs to be addressed concurrently so as to uphold the other two. Accordingly, it is imperative to consider the criteria of the aforementioned domains of sustainability in the initial phases of product development. The proposed conceptual multifaceted framework comprehensively explores a broader scope of sustainable product development, mainly from the pragmatic standpoint of systems engineering in comparison to the contemporary evaluation and development approaches. The underpinnings of the proposed framework encompass the critical role of a MultiCriteria Hierarchical Model (MCHM), which is in fact an extensive revision of the analytical hierarchy process decision making model. The MCHM mainly functions across the idea screening phase (Stage 2) up to the business and feasibility analysis phase (Stage 4). Moreover, unlike its predecessors, the MultiCriteria Hierarchical Model is less dependent upon numerical scores allotted by expert opinion and apparently broader in its scope of application. Furthermore, the proposed framework elucidates the active participation of the MCHM in product design and development by conjoining with an artificial intelligence based computer system known as expert systems. The principal objective of the proposed conceptual framework is to deliver a thorough assessment and a feasible roadmap for the development of sustainable medical devices.     

Environmental impact minimisation in an automotive component using alternative materials and manufacturing processes

Sustainable development is seeking to meet the needs of the present without compromising those of future generations. The need to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of manufacturing, in order to address the social, economic, cultural and environmental problems is felt widely among the industrialized society. Selecting or identifying a suitable material or manufacturing processes is one way of achieving sustainability of a product by reducing its end of life impacts to a possible extent. But technological changes are unpredictable and so predicting future possible environmental impacts are highly difficult. This paper tries to explore the potential of environmental impact minimisation using alternative materials and alternative manufacturing processes. A case study has been carried out to in this regard in an Indian automotive component manufacturing organization. The results indicate that change in material has higher impact over the manufacturing process in reducing the environmental impact.     

基于用户共情的旅游产品包装设计

目的 针对目前旅游产品包装中未能充分重视及满足用户情感诉求等问题,从用户的视角出发,探索用户共情在旅游产品包装设计中的具体应用,以此提升旅游产品的情感价值和市场经济价值。方法利用诺曼情感层次法,对用户共情在包装设计中的应用方式进行分析,通过文本数据挖掘提取设计所需的文化元素,运用KJ法、语意差分法、SPSS分析等方法提取出影响包装设计的主要感性词汇。根据文化元素和感性词汇完成方案设计,并结合Likert量表进行方案评价。结果 通过碧潭飘雪茶叶包装设计案例,验证了基于用户共情的包装设计方法的可行性。结论 基于用户共情的包装设计方法,是一种充分利用用户感性需求及文化认知来指导设计实践的方法,能够有效适应消费者对旅游产品包装的情感诉求和体验需要。     

Selection of Packaging Systems in Supply Chains from a Sustainability Perspective: The Case of Volvo

The purpose of this article is to develop an evaluation model for the selection of packaging systems in supply chains from a sustainability perspective. A theoretical evaluation model for comparing cost efficiency and the environmental impact of packaging systems in supply chains are developed from literature. The model is tested in a case study of a supply chain involving Volvo Car Corporation and Volvo Logistics Corporation, comparing the use of newly developed, one‐way packaging with the sustainability of returnable packaging. The model compares the environmental and economic impacts of two packaging systems in a specific supply chain. The criteria used in the model are (i) packaging fill rate, (ii) packaging material, (iii) transport, (iv) material handling, (v) waste handling and (vi) administration. In the case study, the one‐way packaging resulted in fewer economic and environmental impacts, thereby indicating the importance for companies to question their packaging systems. The model has been tested on one component in a case study. It provides a comparison of the packaging choices included using comparative, but not absolute, figures for the economic and environmental impacts. Managers can use the model to compare packaging systems for component supply and determine the most sustainable packaging from environmental and economic perspectives. The case study indicated that the returnable packaging system commonly used in the automotive industry is not always preferable in terms of sustainability. The article fulfils the need to evaluate the impact of packaging systems on supply chain sustainability in terms of economic and environmental criteria. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

乡村振兴战略下特色农产品包装设计研究

目的 为了促进社会的全面发展、提升我国广大农村的发展速度,党中央提出了乡村振兴战略。在乡村振兴战略背景下,如何有效推动农村经济的健康发展是各方面重点关注的问题。方法 农村经济的发展大部分依赖于特色农产品生产、加工与销售产生的经济效益。因此为了充分提升农村经济的发展速度,应大力发展地方特色农产品种植与销售。结果 在此过程中,独具匠心的特色农产品包装设计不仅能够吸引广大消费者的注意力,还能够增强消费者的情感体验。结论 因此在特色农产品包装设计过程中,不仅要进行思维创新,构建特色农产品品牌意识,还应当充分融入地方特色文化元素,从而形成具有地方文化特色的产品包装设计,提升特色农产品市场经济效益,助力乡村振兴。     

SMS for decision making of SMEs

To pursue the high environmental performance, economic and social effectiveness of the companies, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs), is the key goal of the sustainable development concept. Sustainable development is based on preventive management principles, and their application in SMEs has become an important issue for enhancing competitiveness. Unfortunately, most of the sustainable development-related research is focused on large companies rather than SMEs, especially in the industrial sector. The importance of SMEs often remains unnoticed. Besides, SMEs themselves often have inadequate knowledge about their environmental and social impacts and management, and apply voluntary preventive measures less frequently than large companies. To make sustainable decisions and to improve the environmental performance, economic and social effectiveness of SMEs, an integrated sustainable management system (SMS) based on financial analysis is necessary, oriented to strategic sustainability goals, not requiring significant financial and human resources. Integration of sustainability management accounting and composite sustainable development index methodologies forms the basis of SMS for SMEs decision making. SMS was applied in three pilot SMEs (small-scale wood parquet, medium-scale wood pallets, medium-scale beverage producing companies). In this article, an extensive analysis of a small-scale wood parquet manufacturing company’s case is presented. The application of SMS enabled to identify key sustainability problems and to find solutions to improve the companies’ sustainability performance. SMS application resulted in reduced input materials consumption and the reduction of sustainability costs.     

A four-phase AHP–QFD approach for supplier assessment: a sustainability perspective

Recently, companies have become increasingly aware of the need to evaluate suppliers from a sustainability perspective. Introducing the triple bottom line (economic, social, and environmental performance) into supplier assessment and selection decisions embeds a new set of trade-offs, complicating the decision-making process. Although many tools have been developed to help purchasing managers make more effective decisions, decision support tools, and methodologies which integrate sustainability (triple bottom line) into supplier assessment and selection are still sparse in the literature. Moreover, most approaches have not taken into consideration the impact of business objectives and requirements of company stakeholders on the supplier evaluation criteria. To help advance this area of research and further integrate sustainability into the supplier selection modelling area, we develop an integrated analytical approach, combining Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Quality Function Deployment (QFD), to enable the ‘voice’ of company stakeholders in the process. Drawing on the sustainable purchasing strategy development process, our AHP–QFD approach comprises four hierarchical phases: linking customer requirements with the company's sustainability strategy, determining the sustainable purchasing competitive priority, developing sustainable supplier assessment criteria, and lastly assessing the suppliers. An illustrative example is provided to demonstrate the application of the proposed approach.     

An analytical technique to model and assess sustainable development index in manufacturing enterprises

Sustainable development (SD) will be the driving force to Twenty-first Century as automation was to the Twentieth Century and stream was to Nineteenth Century. There are two levels of sustainability: Macro-Level (country, cities) and Micro-Level (manufacturing enterprises and its town and regional areas). In this paper, Micro-Level of sustainability will be discussed. The major challenge of manufacturing enterprises is modelling and assessing the sustainable development performance. Introducing indexes for sustainable development assessment in manufacturing enterprises is important not only to enable them to quantitatively estimate SD, but also to determine the requirements of components for these enterprises to survive. The main objectives addressed in this paper is how to model the required components and how to introduce a new assessment framework for assessing sustainability from lowest levels, dimensions up to sustainable development level according to Micro-Level. The three pillars of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) are modelled, estimated and incorporated into a concept, the so-called ‘general sustainable development index’. Based on these concepts, the sustainable models will be analysed and presented through covering all aspects/issues of sustainability. The ultimate goal of this paper is considering the needs of manufacturing enterprise to be sustainable as well as to be globalised through introducing the concept of economic-social-environmental sustainable development and basic attitudes related to creating sustainable development value in engineering practices (economic), social (political) and environmental community. An industry-based case study is used to represent sustainability through aspects, performance metrics, indicators and pillars.     

Investigating customer perceptions of refillable packaging and assessing business drivers and barriers to their use

A collaborative UK government‐funded research project drawing on the design and sustainability expertise of the Department of Design and Technology at Loughborough University and the sustainability and product bank functions at The Boots Company set out to investigate the potential that refillable packaging systems can offer the consumer and the environment. In the past, refills have generally been categorized under one general heading and often branded as a failure. However, early in the project, the team identified that by taking a creative approach to interpreting refills, there are actually a wide range of different types of refills that can be differentiated with respect to their delivery approach and level of consumer/business interaction. Once these had been identified, collated and categorized, the team set out to investigate the consumer perceptions, and the business barriers and drivers found to influence the adoption and success of a number of different types of refillable packaging. This paper reports on those findings. It concludes that differentiating between refill types holds the key to developing more suitable and more successful refillable packaging systems as positive and negative attributes can be more accurately identified and responded to. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social sustainable supplier evaluation and selection: a group decision-support approach

Organisational and managerial decisions are influenced by corporate sustainability pressures. Organisations need to consider economic, environmental and social sustainability dimensions in their decisions to become sustainable. Supply chain decisions play a distinct and critical role in organisational good and service outputs sustainability. Sustainable supplier selection influences the supply chain sustainability allowing many organisations to build competitive advantage. Within this context, the social sustainability dimension has received relatively minor investigation; with emphasis typically on economic and environmental sustainability. Neglecting social sustainability can have serious repercussions for organisational supply chains. This study proposes a social sustainability attribute decision framework to evaluate and select socially sustainable suppliers. A grey-based multi-criteria decision-support tool composed of the ‘best-worst method’ (BWM) and TODIM (TOmada de Decisão Interativa e Multicritério – in Portuguese ‘Interactive and Multicriteria Decision Making’) is introduced. A grey-BWM approach is used to determine social sustainability attribute weights, and a grey-TODIM method is utilised to rank suppliers. This process is completed in a group decision setting. A case study of an Iranian manufacturing company is used to exemplify the applicability and suitability of the proposed social sustainability decision framework. Managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are introduced after the application of the model.     

Sustainable new product development: a longitudinal review

Traditional new product development aims to integrate people, tools, and technology to shorten time-to-market and boost economic gains. Under the triple bottom line of sustainability, the integration with the environment brings an additional layer of complexity. Sustainable new product development (SNPD) is a new and ever-growing research area. This paper offers a novel combination of systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of themes in SNPD in the past 25 years. The search for the relevant literature in Scopus citation database returned 1541 peer-reviewed papers. The analysis of co-occurrence of keywords identified the main themes of product life cycle, product design, sustainable products, production and environmental standards, innovation, human component of sustainability, supply chains, polymer, and renewable resource. Concerns with economic and environmental sustainability were present since the early research on SNPD. However, there is a growing concern with a holistic approach to SNDP integrating people, the economy, and the planet. The evolution of themes showed a need to integrate further the social aspects of sustainability into SNDP. A research agenda closes the paper proposing themes that deserve further scrutiny, related to sustainable products, product life cycle, and product design.     

绿色包装的消费者接受意愿影响机制研究

目的 探索心理因素如何影响消费者对绿色包装的接受意愿。方法 首先,参考计划行为理论构建绿色包装的消费者接受意愿模型,然后依据模型假设开发调查问卷,并展开调查,最后对调查所得的417份有效调查问卷进行信度、效度检验,并用AMOS 17.0软件对样本数据和假设模型进行结构方程模型拟合检验。结果 消费者对绿色包装的感知有用性、知觉行为控制和环保责任意识对消费者接受意愿有显著影响;绿色包装的感知易用性、消费者对环保的后果意识以及知觉行为控制三者之间相互影响显著。结论 绿色包装的有用性、易用性,消费者的环保责任意识以及充分的宣传教育是提升消费者接受意愿的关键。     

Framework for Sustainable Food Packaging Design

The environmental impacts of packages have been found to be relatively small compared with the food items they contain. Furthermore, from the environmental and operational point of view, the most significant task of the package is to protect the product, which is important to acknowledge in the packaging design process. This study introduces a guiding framework for designing sustainable food packaging. In this approach, the entire life cycle of the product–package combination is taken into consideration. The emphasis is on the prevention of food losses in packaging design as a major environmental criterion. Consideration of the properties of both the package and the product itself when designing the final package will lead to a better end result with smaller product losses and environmental impacts. By using different assessment methods in the different stages of the packaging design, the sustainability of the package can be enhanced. The decision making of the packaging designer is facilitated with methods that are introduced step by step and in a certain order that will also allow for corrective measures through back‐loops in the design process. The purpose is to integrate sustainability aspects at all stages firmly into the design process. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

乡村振兴战略下农产品包装健康生态设计研究

目的 在乡村振兴战略背景下,研究农产品包装健康生态设计的发展现状和策略。方法 通过问卷调查法和数据调研法等,分析农产品包装健康生态设计对于乡村振兴的必要性;运用文献分析法与网络调研法,从理论层和实践层两个方面了解农产品包装健康生态设计的发展现状,针对当前农产品包装设计存在的问题,提出解决方法;结合农产品的特点,从健康生态理念的物质层、意识层、体验层三个维度,探索农产品包装健康生态设计的路径模式,提出具体的设计策略,并以山海关大樱桃为例进行包装设计实践。结论 将健康生态理念融入农产品包装设计中,从消费情景、生命周期、地域文化三个维度赋予农产品包装独特的识别性和文化内涵,满足消费者对个性和美的追求;以包装为媒介,传播地域文化与健康生态的生活方式,对促进乡村经济振兴与地域文化振兴具有重要的现实意义。