Organizational antecedents of environmental responsiveness in industrial new product development

The greening of new product development process has been under scrutiny by researchers, but the attention has been limited to consumer products. Based on a survey, this paper investigates the environmental responsiveness in industrial new product development in 82 industrial firms. In comparison to traditional NPD process in the extant literature, the findings revealed additional activities in the greening of industrial NPD. These activities fall under the broader scope of life cycle assessment (LCA) for environmental impact including supplier evaluation and design for environment issues. The paper also investigates the relative impact of organizational antecedents on greening of industrial NPD activities. Organizational antecedents include functional interface of environmental specialists with design and product managers, environmental product policy, and top management support.