Proposal of a Holistic Framework to Support Sustainability of New Product Innovation Processes

• Main Authors: Ana S. M. E. Dias, António Abreu, Helena V. G. Navas, Ricardo Santos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: sustainability; innovation; new products; functional framework; SIFSNPIP; case studies
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/8/3450

The survival of companies in globalized and highly competitive markets, heavily depends on their ability to innovate through the creation of new products and/or services, supported by sustainable processes to prevent business failure. There are many factors regarding the interface company/stakeholders/market at all hierarchical levels, which have a major contribution to sustain innovation in processes regarding the creation of new products and services. A holistic approach of all these factors, as a whole, has not been a subject of scientific research conducting to the necessity of creating a proposal of a framework that can be integrated and systemic. Thus, this paper aims to propose a functional holistic model, which integrates the strategic, organizational and operational levels regarding market business and company interaction, as well as the set of factors to take into account to guarantee assurance that innovative processes are sustained, when new products and/or services are created or improved. Conducted through an investigation of the state of the art, by literature review, a comprehensive and integrated conceptual model was built in a deductive-inductive way. Then, the conceptual model was validated through four case studies. Finally, it was found that the conceptual framework became functional, because its applicability has been successfully tested in a business environment. As a result, the tool developed here, can be useful to measure and evaluate projects dedicated to companies that innovate in a sustainable way.