Strategic ambidexterity in green product innovation:Obstacles and implications

Scholars and managers routinely point to various uncertainties in explaining why manufacturing firms struggle with green product innovation and why green product innovation is different from conventional product innovation. This explanation is yet unsatisfactory as a thorough understanding of how a firm deals with uncertainty exists in conventional innovation literature. At the same time, there is a lack of agreement and understanding how a firm's capabilities shape its green product innovation practices, which could contribute to this gap. Based on a case study at five multinational manufacturers, this paper sets out to contribute to the capability perspective on green product innovation by understanding how manufacturing firms learn and innovate in order to make and sell greener products. A powerful and favored way for firms to learn and innovate under uncertainty is through strategic ambidexterity. With this learning strategy, firms rely on existing competences in one area (exploitation) while they simultaneously explore new competences in another area (exploration). However, our results show that strategic ambidexterity is oftentimes unachievable due to several factors, and as result, firms are forced to choose between a highly uncertain and risky alternative strategy and a more conservative but also less green strategy based on exploitation only, which is often the preferred option. In addition, our findings shed a new light on the role of uncertainty in green product innovation as we conclude that uncertainties firms face in green product innovation are indeed abundant, but are fundamentally not new nor caused by external sources only

Policy approaches for placing parcel lockers in public space

This paper explores policy approaches for parcel lockers in public space. While last- mile delivery service providers primarily focus on the economic and customer service benefits of parcel lockers, securing approval from local governments to place lockers in public spaces requires justification of their public value. Our study identifies six factors that decisionmakers can consider when evaluating requests for parcel locker placement: carbon emissions, nuisances of the delivery vehicle, nuisances at a locker location, customer preferences, innovation, and the pull effect of parcel lockers. Through a series of semi-structured interviews and a workshop with public decisionmakers in cities across the Netherlands and Europe, we find that delivery vehicle nuisances and potential new nuisances at the locker location are important factors for decisionmakers at local government. Our study reveals two distinct approaches taken by local governments when facing requests for parcel locker placement in public spaces: reactive and proactive. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of the policy perspective on parcel lockers in public spaces and provides insights for sustainable urban logistics planning

A greener last mile:Analyzing the carbon emission impact of pickup points in last-mile parcel delivery

This paper analyzes the carbon emission impact of pickup points in last-mile parcel delivery. Pickup points provide customers and delivery companies with an alternative to attended home delivery. The delivery company can drop a parcel off at the pickup point, such as a service desk in a grocery store or a parcel locker, from where the customer collects the parcel. Because of the potential efficiency gains for the delivery vehicle, pickup points are often presented as a sustainable alternative to home delivery. The efficiency gains for the delivery vehicle need to be weighed against customers traveling to the pickup point by car, however. The mathematical analysis presented in this paper integrates continuous approximation techniques to assess the potential for improved delivery route efficiency with multinomial logistic regression for estimating the travel distance and mode choice of customers collecting their parcels. The results challenge the suggestion that pickup points are a universally sustainable alternative to home delivery. The potential for a net positive carbon emission impact is greatest when pickup points are established in urban settings, while in rural settings, the carbon emission benefits derived from improved delivery route efficiency are quickly offset by the carbon footprint associated with customer travel