Green product deletion decisions. An integrated sustainable production and consumption approach
| Published date | 12 March 2018 |
| Pages | 349-389 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-05-2017-0175 |
| Date | 12 March 2018 |
| Author | Chunguang Bai,Purvi Shah,Qingyun Zhu,Joseph Sarkis |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
Green product deletion decisions
An integrated sustainable production and
consumption approach
Chunguang Bai
School of Management and Economics,
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, PR China, and
Purvi Shah, Qingyun Zhu and Joseph Sarkis
Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester,
Massachusetts, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to identify how organizations can evaluate the green product deletion
decision within an environmentally sustainable consumption and production environment through a hybrid
multistage multiple criteria evaluation approach.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper proposes a decision-making model by integrating “soft
computation”using neighborhood rough set theory, fuzzy cluster means, and cumulative prospect theory.
Literature is used to identify various factors for the decision environment. An illustrative problem provides
insights into the methodology and application.
Findings –The results indicate that green products can be evaluated from both their relative environmental
burdens and benefits. Sustainable consumption and production factors that play a role in this multifactor
decision are identified. The results show that a comprehensive evaluation can capture an effective overall
picture on which green product(s) to delete.
Research limitations/implications –The opaqueness of the proposed methodology may cause less
acceptance by management. The methodology made a number of assumptions related to the data. An actual
application of the tool rather than just an illustrative example is needed.
Originality/value –The main contribution of this study is the novel integration of supply chain
perspectives, both upstream (supply and production) and downstream (demand/usage), with green product
deletion decision making. The hybrid multistage technique has advantages of being able to incorporate many
factors that have a variety of quantitative and qualitative characteristics to help managers address green
product deletion issues as well as its impact on greening of supply chains and organizational environmental
sustainability. This paper adds value to product deletion, supply chain management, and sustainable
production and consumption literatures.
Keywords Sustainability, Supply chain management, Cumulative prospect theory,
Fuzzy cluster means (FCM), Green product deletion, Rough set theory (RST)
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Organizations have focused a significant amount of effort and resources on product
innovations and product introductions in the product life cycle. This focus has also occurred
when introducing new “green”or environmentally sound products. Almost every product
has a life cycle which will eventually end with its decline and ultimately its deletion from an
organization’s product portfolio.
Product deletion is as critical as new product introduction to many organizations.
Deletion of a product has operational and strategic implications for the organization that
need to be carefully considered (Shah et al., 2016/2017). Green products add more layers of
complexity to this decision. While deleting green products, environmental sustainability
dimensions play a much broader role and incorporate social and regulatory dimensions and
considerations in a way that other products do not. For example, when deleting a product
based only on business decisions, customers and stakeholders may understand the financial
motivations to keep the organization healthy. Green products typically will carry more
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 118 No. 2, 2018
pp. 349-389
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-05-2017-0175
Received 5 May 2017
Revised 1 August 2017
12 August 2017
Accepted 31 August 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
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Green product
deletion
decisions
emotional and social weight. If a company decides to delete a green product there may be
cries of greenwashing or the potential perceptions of greater harm to the environment.
The broader social implications of these goods, which may or may not occur as extensively
in regular products, makes the decision more complex. Green product deletion has very
rarely, if at all, been investigated in the literature.
A green product may be green for different reasons. For example, the product may have
been produced, in the upstream supply chain, using green materials and processes. Yet, its
usage may not be very green.For example, recycled paper and packagingmay still be used in
an environmentally unsustainable way although it was produced in a green way.
Alternatively, some products, such as photovoltaic solar panels, may be green because they
are consumedin a green manner, although production may not have beenvery green. Thus, if
an organizationis to consider which greenproduct to delete, a broader perspective is required.
In this paper, using a general systems theoretical lens, a comprehensive set of factors
affecting the green or regular product deletion decision is considered. The factors focus on
environmental performance, but also include business, consumer, and overall product
deletion decision-specific characteristics. Clearly many soft computational tools can aid in
this complex systems decision process (Devezas, 2005; Gupta, 1999). In the context of
product deletion, a three-step hybrid multiple criteria decision process to help evaluate the
green product deletion decision is introduced.
The major contribution of this paper is introducing green product deletion decisions asan
important area for investigation by researchers in thesupply chain managementfield. This is
implemented from a uniquesustainable production and consumption (SPC) perspective in this
paper. This joint perspective is a better balance for product decisions, especially product
deletion decisions, and is relatively neglected in the literature. This approach gets closer to the
environmental life cycle perspective that is recommended when evaluating products and
materials,with a linkage to supply chain sustainability. Another importantcontribution is the
integration of environmental sustainability, business, and product deletion metrics into the
decision.Although each methodologicalsoft computationstage of the decisionapproach in this
paper has been developed in the literature, the contribution is the unique way they are
integrated to help organizations arrive at a decision. The hybrid multiple criteria soft
computational approach utilizes neighborhood rough set theory (NRST) to help develop
relativeimportance weightsof the attributes(factors). The secondstage of the hybridapproach
is the use of fuzzy cluster means (FCM) methodology to determine reference points andtheir
probabilities. This information is generated for use in a cumulative prospect theory (CPT)
process thatcalculates the final evaluation of greenproduct performance onall the attributes.
The remainder of this paper provides theoretical background that helps provide
an overview of factors in the supply chain, including SPC, for consideration in the green
product deletion decision. General business related and organizational product deletion
decision factors are also introduced. These factors are used in the hybrid multiple criteria
soft computing methodology. The methodological tools including NRST, FCM, and CPT are
then introduced. How these soft computing tools can be used together and synergistically is
described with a detailed illustrative example of a green product deletion decision.
The results are discussed from the perspective of an overall evaluation (i.e. integrating
SPC factors) and partial factors (i.e. isolating SPC factors) evaluation. The conclusion
discusses research limitations and directions for future research.
2. Background
In this section, a number of related topics are reviewed to set the theoretical foundation for
making green product deletion decisions. These topics include a brief review of product
deletion in general, SPC, green products and factors influencing green product deletion
including building sustainability into supply chains.
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Theoretically, there are a number of activities within organizations and their supply
chain influenced by the production deletion decision. Supply chain sustainability from both
upstream ( production) and downstream (consumption) perspectives are critical in this
examination. Systems theory, and its offshoot complex systems theory, is an underlying
theoretical framework that helps to understand the implications of decisions in this realm
(Chang et al., 2017; Rotmans and Loorbach, 2009). Systems theory, from the broader
sustainability perspective, seeks to understand various natural, social, technological and
organizational systems and their interactions. In this situation, the various systems include
natural systems through environmental impact; social systems through social sustainability
dimensions and consumer consumption; technological systems through product deletion
decisions within organizations; and organizational systems that focus on materials and
product flows across and within organizational boundaries. These interactions are not
trivial or simple, and thus need for consideration of complexity; and the use of soft
computing methodologies (Devezas, 2005).
2.1 Product deletion
Product deletion (elimination or pruning) is defined as discontinuing or removing a product
from an organization’s product portfolio (Avlonitis and Argouslidis, 2012). Firms consider
products for deletion when they become weak, are poorly fitting, or suffer from
underperformance on various financial and strategic parameters (Argouslidis et al., 2015).
Such weak products exhaust firms’resources and amplify the complexity of internal
processes across functional areas, such as external sourcing, logistics, marketing, and
human resources (Putsis and Bayus, 2001; Thonemann and Brandeau, 2000). Deleting these
products alleviate operational costs and augment organizational profits (Bayus and
Putsis, 1999). Firms can re-channel the resources released from deleted products to other
stronger products in their product portfolio, or in improving their sustainability facets
(Stadtler, 2015).
Several organizational, financial, operational, marketing, and strategic benefits can be
gained from deleting underperforming products. However, product deletion is also a
challenging and complex decision with critical consequences (Argouslidis et al., 2014).
For example, if product deletion is not executed appropriately, there could be customer
dissatisfaction, loss of market share and revenue, poorer operational activities, and loss of
competitiveness (Harness and Mackay, 1997; Shah, 2017a, b). For green products, which
require extra resources and considerations for design, materials selection, manufacturing,
processing, transportation, service, and end-of-life management, and a broader base of
stakeholders to consider, this decision becomes even more daunting. Therefore, important
strategic and operational factors need to be meticulously incorporated into the green
product deletion process (Maniatis, 2016).
The product deletion process encompasses four stages: identification of candidates for
elimination, analysis and revitalization/modification, evaluation and decision making, and
implementation (Avlonitis and Argouslidis, 2012). The proposed model presented in this
paper facilitates the evaluation and decision-making phase. Eight important product
deletion evaluation factors tested by Avlonitis (1984, 1985) namely., capital reallocation,
release of executive time, full-line strategy, corporate image, competitive moves,
sales, profitability, and fixed and working capital are included in the proposed model.
These factors are explained in detail in Section 2.3.3.
2.2 SPC
Businesses fuel economic growth, employment, social prosperity, and improving peoples’
lives by providing good quality affordable products and services (Kindström and
Kowalkowski, 2014). However, though businesses create value for various stakeholders,
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