The relationships between economic orientation, sustainable product design and innovation performance : empirical evidence from the US manufacturing firms

Growing corporate social responsibility requirements have compelled manufacturing organizations to embed sustainability in their business models. Consequently, firms focus on designing and producing products using sustainable means to bring new products to the market that are environmentally sustainable and socially responsible. However, to satisfy investors, it is also necessary to focus on financial priorities. This research presents a model with relationships between an organization's economic orientation, sustainable product design activities, and firm innovation performance to study how financial priorities affect sustainability initiatives in new product development and innovation outcomes. The empirical evidence is drawn from a panel survey of 282 US manufacturing firms. The results suggest strong interrelationships among the three constructs under investigation. The practitioners can pursue economic orientation and still focus on sustainable product design to achieve innovation performance.