Research Information System
Journal of Engineering and Technology Management - JET-M, vol.79, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, SSCI, Scopus)
We examine the ways in which responsibility and sustainability are built into new product development, and the results of this integration, in the fast-moving consumer goods sector of the UK. This study is based on 84 structured interviews with managers and analyse the data using rough set theory, an approach that can reveal attribute importance and multiple decision configurations without distributional assumptions, and which is suitable for ordinal, manager-rated data. We find that attention to sustainability during the ideation stage is associated with stronger overall performance. Market uncertainty is the most consequential situational barrier to sustainability outcomes, and design cost constrains implementation during development. In terms of economic performance, outsourcing networks are the most influential source of ideas. Responsibility is most often addressed at the design and development stage, although earlier attention is linked to better results. This study advances a contingency view of new product development by distinguishing between short-term choice factors, such as selection criteria and design cost, and longer-term situation factors, for example uncertainty, and by mapping their influence across stages. For managers, we offer a stage-sensitive framework that indicates where to introduce sustainability and which partner networks to activate. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to map stage-based configurations that link responsible choices to both economic and sustainability outcomes in the fast-moving consumer goods sector of the UK using rough set theory.