Chialin Chen, an Assistant Professor in Operations Management and Technology in the Queen's School of Business, has found that the success of green product development and its actual benefit to the environment depend heavily on the joint effort by both the private and public sectors. In a paper published in
Management Science, Professor Chen develops a quality-based model for green product development that analyzes the strategic and policy issues concerning the development of products with conflicting traditional and environmental attributes. By jointly considering the interactions among customers' preferences for green products, the producer's product strategies, and the environmental standards imposed by governments, this model provides a robust examination of the management and regulation of green product development. Companies are able to use the model to maximize the total environmental quality of their green product initiative within the constraints of a given profit level. This model is also of use to public policy makers to analyze the important trade-off between the environmental and economic impacts of their environmental policies, helping policy makers to develop environmental regulations that encourage innovative environmental solutions by industry.
For more details on this research, contact the study's author, Professor Chialin Chen, cchen@business.queensu.ca
