The Effect of Green Design Activities on New Product Strategies and Performance: An Empirical Study among High-Tech Companies

Due to the rise of environmental consciousness and rapid change in market environments, the life cycle of high-tech products is becoming shorter. The enterprises must constantly manage green design activities and select correct development strategies of new products in order to respond to the customers' needs and upgrade operational performance of the industry. New product development is the important activity for the enterprise's survival and growth. This research examined the relationship between green design activities and new product strategies and between green design activities and new product performance by means of an anonymous questionnaire competed by 107 managers from 86 numbers of high tech companies in Taiwan. This research findings reveal that: (1) the companies with higher degree of green design activities implementation have better implementation of development strategies of new products; (2) the companies with better implementation of development strategies of new products have better development performance of new products; (3) the companies with higher degree of implementation of green design activities and better implementation of development strategies of new products have better development performance of new products. 1. Introduction With the advancement of technology and rise of environmental consciousness, life cycle of high-tech products is becoming shorter. Development process of new products and reduction to market are significantly important. Thus, under the environmental pressure of severe competition, how to operate green design activities and development strategies of new products, rapidly introduce new products, reduce the time to market for new products, comply with the requirement of environmental protection and reduce unnecessary resource waste and pollution have become the focus of many enterprises' operational strategies. During the process of new product development, fewer companies involve the concept of green design activities in new product development. This research deals with the empirical study of the correlation between green design activities and development strategies of new products and development performance of new products. The research purposes are as follows: (1) to explore the effect of green design activities on development strategies of new products; (2) to explore the effects of green design activities and development strategies of new products on the development performance of new products; (3) to explore the effect of development strategies of new products on the development performance of new products. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Green design activities Products at different stages in the life cycle (material mining, manufacturing, transportation, sale, use and waste) have an impact on the environment. The design activity which minimizes the impact of product and manufacturing process on the environment, health and security through systematic consideration is called green design activities (Fiksel, 2001). In a narrow sense, improvement in environmental performance is usually limited to reduction or elimination of various emissions or wastes in manufacturing. However, in the whole Product Life Cycle, each stage generates different environmental impacts from material selection, energy consumption, exhaust gas, exhaust water emission and waste. Thus, in order to improve environmental performance, the basic way is to manage green design well, consider the products' impact of each stage on the environment and look for the minimum of total loading (Overby, 1990; SETAC, 1993). The process of design is certainly the activity which affects products the most. Various parameters during the process of design reveal decisive effects on each stage of the product life cycle (Piasecki, 1995). Traditionally, many companies use end-pipe control to solve the environmental problems at each stage. Since more and more regulations require producers to be responsible for environmental costs from production to discard of products, the measure results in the repetitive investment of personnel and facilities and increases in the costs that impact on competitiveness. …