Consumer Preferences for Sustainability and its Impacts on Strategic Management Processes in the Chemical Industry: An Exploratory Investigation

The ability to create and implement sustainable business operations has become increasingly important for chemical firms to keep up with ever-growing consumer demands for sustainability. This thesis is an exploratory investigation designed to examine the strategies and decisions made by top management of select chemical firms while dealing with consumer pressures for sustainable products and processes. The implementation of specific structures and processes were studied to measure the extent chemical firms have taken for sustainable operations. These measures of the strategic processes of the firms studies include corporate vision, mission, and goals, sustainability structure, product offerings, supply chain management, reporting, and external recognition. The literature is in agreement that chemical firms and consumer preferences have each significantly shifted towards sustainability in the past two decades. This study seeks to look at the development of key sustainability indicators and the role consumer pressures had in development of more sustainable operations. The indicators were analyzed through qualitative case studies of three chemical firms, each representing a different sector of the chemical industry’s value chain, DowDuPont, Eastman Chemical Company, and Procter & Gamble. The results of the case studies are expected to indicate that consumer preferences have pressured chemical firms to implement sustainable processes into their strategic management operations. The results could be used for further research and quantitative analysis