5. Discussion and implications
One of the critical aspects of any study is to determine how strategically selected actions affect desired results. The previous analysis enables us to answer how DFP initiatives affect new product development environmental and economic performance metrics. 5.1. Environmental The first four dependent variables listed in Table 1 correspond to the environmental performance measures utilized in the survey: recovery/reuse of components, hazards exposure, waste reduction, and recycling. The regression models for all four environmental measures produced significant results. However, the R2 values for these models are on average lower than the R2 values for the economic performance and NPD variables, with recovery/reuse and hazards exposure being only 0.233 and 0.254 respectively. The support for H1b was extremely strong, with environmental sourcing being a significant predictor in all four models. The impact on hazards exposure and recycling was particularly strong, with significance values for each being near-zero. Among the five other factors in the models, only recovery/reuse could be predicted by one of these factors (core competence focused sourcing), and the rest of the models and factors failed to prove significant. The desire to improve recovery and reuse of these world-class inputs, that result from core competence focuses sourcing, makes logical sense. These are components that have high value and therefore warrant the additional effort required to recover and reuse these components.
