Stakeholders' Contribution to the Green New Product Development Process

The intricacies of environmental issues require that marketers involve a broad set of stakeholders in the green new product development (NPD) process. These stakeholders often have information and expertise that are outside the organisation's core domain. While these stakeholders can cooperate with the firm and assist organisations in developing green products, they can also threaten the green NPD process and/or indirectly influence the firm's activities via motivating others to act. Using a sample of Australian and US marketers, this study found that both groups' perceived that a range of stakeholders could impact (i.e. cooperate, threaten, and indirectly influence) the green NPD process, although there were some differences in the samples' views. A preliminary examination of the strategies/approaches used to involve stakeholders in the green NPD process identified that marketers failed to actively include stakeholders with environmental expertise in this process. They may, therefore, be missing opportunities to more effectively green their products.