COMPETITIVE STRATEGY AND SUSTAINABLE PRODUCT: BRASKEM'S GREEN POLYETHYLENE

摘要

Development of a sustainable new product is now frequent in companies that not long ago ignored its importance. However, sustainable development is not concerned only with the environment, but also with economical rationality, where ecologically-oriented speeches join a vision of nature specified by profit and social wellbeing. The investments in sustainability are to become a source of competitive advantage and profitability, so the administrators have to identify the circumstances favoring this scenario. The challenge is to identify in which situations the companies might profit from investments that are also socially and environmentally beneficial. The central aim of this article is to verify which factors determine the acquisition of a competitive advantage and profitability as a result of the development of a sustainable new product. A case study whose unit of analysis is the Green Polyethylene, a sustainable product developed by Braskem, a Brazilian petrochemical company. The primary source of data was in depth interviews made with three managers of the company sectors directly involved with the development of the product. The data analysis revealed the importance of the external environment opportunities in guaranteeing competitive advantage and higher profitability, regarding easily-accessible and low-cost raw material, but mainly regarding the demand. The life cycle of a product that is the least damaging to the environment in all its stages and the attributes of the product are very important for its successful acceptability. The firm's resources and capacities, as well as the absorptive capacity, revealed to be of great influence on assuring competitive advantage and, consequently, profitability. The absorptive capacity also collaborated so that the company could renew its knowledge and abilities necessary to compete in dynamic markets with lower costs, which demonstrates the importance of the flexibility in using and reconfiguring resources based on knowledge, very important for the development of innovations aimed at sustainability. The success in the development of a sustainable new product is based on a strategy clearly defined and aligned to the company's macro strategy, which exercised influence over its competitiveness and profitability, while it allowed the company to grow facing the international markets, strengthen its image and tighten its relationship with strategic sources of knowledge, raw material and clients.