Understanding the relationships of integration capabilities, ecological product design, and manufacturing performance

Organizations increasingly adopt ecological product design techniques to lessen their harmful impacts on the natural environment. Theory about ecological product design remains in an early stage of development though. The present study focuses on organizational integration capabilities and their conceptual relation to ecological product design, such that they can be redeployed, expanded, and leveraged to affect manufacturing performance. Drawing on data collected from 769 Russian manufacturers and using structural equation modeling, this study shows that cross-functional integration and technological integration mediate the relationship between ecological product design and manufacturing performance. In this Russian context though, customer integration does not function as a mediator. These findings have implications for theory and practice related to both ecological product design and environmental operations. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.