Title: Competitive advantage between global production and environmental impacts: strategy for emerging business firms

Authors: Fabio De Felice; Antonella Petrillo; Claudio Autorino

Addresses: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino FR 03043, Italy ' Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino FR 03043, Italy ' Engineering Department, University of Naples 'Parthenope', Naples NA 80133, Italy

Abstract: In the past two centuries, industrialisation has spread from Europe to the USA, to East Asia, to other world areas and it is still moving. Industrialisation means both technology evolution and great production of waste such as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). From this point of view, the consensus of calling for sustainable development and implementation has emerged. Sustainable development is a global strategic vision that we should address to meet the economic, social, environmental and technological challenges we face. In this paper, we focus our attention on a particular type of problem concerning the end of life (EoL) of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). A systematic and strategic multicriteria approach based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and threats-opportunities-weaknesses-strengths (TOWS) analysis is proposed to identify a decision-making model to improve the environmental sustainability of WEEE and to measure the degree of environmental sustainability.

Keywords: AHP; analytical hierarchy process; TOWS; threats opportunities weaknesses strengths; emerging markets; industrialisation; end of life products; EoL products; waste electrical and electronic equipment; WEEE; multicriteria decision making; MCDM; competitive advantage; global production; environmental impact; sustainable development; sustainability.

DOI: 10.1504/JGBA.2015.069531

Journal for Global Business Advancement, 2015 Vol.8 No.2, pp.216 - 235

Published online: 21 May 2015 *

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