INNOVATIONS OF A GREEN PRODUCT
INNOVATIONS OF A GREEN PRODUCT

Summary/Abstract: These days, differentiating and ecologizing of the products has been gaining moreand more importance. Therefore, green logistics has earned its indisputable position in anenterprise, as an important tool ensuring competitiveness. Small and medium enterprises mayachieve these goals by implementing green innovations into a product as well as into theprocesses in an enterprise. The main objective of this paper is to propose possibilities ofimplementing green innovations of products and processes in Slovak small and mediumenterprises. A survey which has been carried out regarding this topic, focused on the analysisof the perception of green products by customers, and on identifying the factors whichcustomers take into consideration when making purchase decisions related to these products.The research has been evaluated by methods of testing the statistical hypothesis (Chi-squaretest, Friedman test, and the Wilcoxon test), methods of descriptive statistics, and datavisualization. The conducted survey revealed that one of the main reasons why customers ofSlovak small and medium enterprises do not buy green wooden products is their high priceand lack of information related to them. When making purchases, our respondents also takequality and safety of green products into account. Based on the results of our research, theindividual steps in the process of implementing green product innovations in an enterprisewere proposed for Slovak small and medium enterprises. It is suggested that SMEs shouldplace emphasis on responsible approach to the environment, long-term effort to make theiroperations sustainable, and providing green products in order to achieve smoothimplementation of green innovations into their operations

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