Sustainability priorities across the strategic and operational level in packaging development: A set-theoretic approach to actor involvement

Sustainability has become well-established in many companies’ strategic postures. However, executing sustainability-related goals often lags at the operational level. This study analyzes how decision-making processes in packaging development at different hierarchical levels are characterized in achieving a sustainability consensus. For data analysis, we use a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) – a set-theoretic method – with empirical data derived from packaging expert surveys. Involvement and decision making by internal actors, involvement of external actors, and strategic and operational sustainability target setting act as attributes causing the outcome of interest: the levels of sustainability implementation on both the strategic and the operational level of packaging development. Most of the configurations that lead to high levels of sustainability integration differ between the strategic and the operational level. The insights on the sustainability-related configurations of internal and external actors provide guidance for managing projects across the strategic and operational levels in improving sustainable packaging development.