A plithogenic based neutrosophic analytic hierarchy process framework to analyse the barriers hindering adoption of eco-innovation practices in supply chain

Figures & data

Table 1. Summary of previous literature

Reference	Subject	Method	Industry type	Country context
Wilts et al. 2013	Eco-innovation barriers in the waste prevention field	Case-studies	Not-mentioned	Germany
Marin, Marzucchi, and Zoboli (2015)	Factors hindering eco-innovation and its integration	Survey and cluster analysis	SMEs	European
Ravi (2015)	Challenges that hinder eco-efficiency	ISM	Electronics	India
Polzin, von Flotow, and Klerkx (2016)	Role of institutional innovation intermediaries to address the eco-innovation barriers	MaxQDA 11 software	Project-managing organisations	Germany
Aloise and Macke (2017)	Eco-innovation adoption challenges	Content analysis	Multiple industries	Brazil
Ghisetti et al. (2017)	Role of financial barriers on adoption of environmental innovations	Bivariate probit model	SMEs	European nations
Gupta and Barua (2018)	Rank the green innovation barriers solutions	BWM-fuzzy TOPSIS	SMEs	India
Arranz et al. (2019)	Factors hampering eco-innovation initiatives	Exploratory factor analysis	SMEs	Spain
Simms et al. (2020)	Factors impeding waste-reducing eco-innovations	Cross-case analysis	Food industry	UK and Netherlands
Kiefer, Del Rio Gonzalez, and Carrillo‐Hermosilla (2019)	Role of firm’s internal factors on different eco-innovations	Exploratory factor analysis	SMEs	Spain
Orji et al. (2019)	Eco-innovation adoption challenges	BWM	Freight logistics industry	Nigeria
Karuppiah et al. (2020)	Green manufacturing adoption initiatives	DEMATEL-ANP-TOPSIS	SMEs	India
Mitchell, O’Dowd, and Dimache (2020)	Eco-innovation framework to mitigate the barriers	NVivo software	SMEs	European nations

Table 2. List of eco-innovation barriers with description

Sr. No.	Eco-innovation barriers with code	Description	Reference
Organizational and Management Barriers (OMB)
1	Lack of management models to acquire novel information on markets and technologies (OMB1)	Organization fails to gather the information regarding the novel necessities of the market and availability of new environmental technologies due to lack of management system models	Arranz et al. (2019)
2	Lack of in-house technical capacity, skilled technicians/engineers to operate eco-innovation technologies (OMB2)	Unavailability of in-house expertise and trained technician presents a challenge for effective adoption novel and clean technologies	Luken and Van Rompaey (2008); Orji et al. (2019)
3	Lack of sustainable management strategies in corporate strategy planning (OMB3)	The diffusion of sustainability dimensions in the existing corporate strategy as well as the necessity to undergo changes in organisational structure is challenging for the organisations	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009)
4	Lack of communication network between the manufacturer and consumer (OMB4)	Due to communication gap between the producer and consumer, the manufacturer fails to understand what the consumer needs and hence affects the marketability of eco-innovative products	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009); Orji et al. (2019)
5	Uncertainties of innovation outcomes and time consuming process (OMB5)	Because the innovation process requires more time than what is expected and further the outcomes realised from it are also uncertain and hence organisations show less interest in this process	Tidd and Bessant (2020); Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009)
6	Short-term thinking of the management (OMB6)	In developing economies organisations mainly focus on short-term financial gains which hinder the adoption of eco-innovation initiatives as its pay-back periods are longer	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009)
Economic and Financial Barriers (EFB)
7	High costs involved in the transition to new technologies (EFB1)	High capital investment to procure advanced and environmentally friendly technologies act as an important barrier for adoption of eco-innovations practices	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009); Gupta and Barua (2018)
8	Lack of internal funds necessary to meet the extra cost and research and development (R&D) cost (EFB2)	Organizations have limited funds to finance the extra costs needed for eco-innovation initiatives implementation in the form of creation of more resources and investment in R&D	Arranz et al. (2019)
9	Lack of financial support from government institutions (EFB3)	Organizations lack the financial assistance from government institutions to develop R&D centres with a highly trained and skilful human capital base at the initial stages of adoption of eco-innovation	Experts opinion
10	Lack of organisational understanding regarding the cost saving potentials of eco-innovation (EFB4)	Organizations negative perception that eco-innovations are costly and failure to understand the cost savings in the form of raw material and energy consumption hinders the adoption of eco-innovation initiatives	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009); Orji et al. (2019)
11	Uncertain returns on eco-innovation investment (EFB5)	The returns on investment made in skill development, cleaner technologies and R&D are uncertain and hence organisation fear to invest in eco-innovations	Marin, Marzucchi, and Zoboli (2015)
12	Lack of incentives to reduce material and energy use (EFB6)	There is lack of policy or regulatory structure from government institutions regarding incentives such subsidies, grants or tax credits on eco-innovation hence organisations are not motivated to adopt eco-innovation initiatives	Marin, Marzucchi, and Zoboli (2015); Polzin, von Flotow, and Klerkx (2016); Gupta and Barua (2018)
Strategic Barriers (SB)
13	Lack of collaboration agreements with other organisations (SB1)	Conflicting objectives of two or more organisations restrict them to collaborate with each other and hence fail to exchange experience, technology and knowledge acquired by each other in their eco-innovation activities	Abdel-Baset et al. (2019)
14	Lack of cooperation agreement with suppliers (SB2)	Greening the material, reduction of waste or pollution and innovations in energy savings is difficult to achieve without collaborative engagements with the suppliers	Abdel-Baset et al. (2019)
15	Absence of complementary assets (such as infrastructure, standards) (SB3)	Organisations failure to understand the complexity of eco-innovation and lack of investment in R&D hinders the development of infrastructure and standards which is usually technology driven and cost challenging	Polzin, von Flotow, and Klerkx (2016)
16	Co-ordination problems between innovators (e.g. entrepreneurs), financiers and government (SB4)	Government institutions, innovators and financiers fail to work in close collaboration and foster knowledge flows with each other and thus fail to reduce the uncertainty and information asymmetries	Polzin, von Flotow, and Klerkx (2016)
17	Lack of inter-departmental co-ordination (SB5)	For effective adoption of eco-innovation practices the environmental initiatives need to be assigned to all the departments. Failure of all the departments to coordinate and work towards the common sustainable objectives hampers eco-innovation adoption	Aloise and Macke (2017)
Social and Market Barriers (SMB)
18	Lack of marketing capabilities (SMB1)	Lack of environmental consciousness among the managerial staff hinders the promotion and marketability of the eco-innovation product as green product to customers and hence fail to increase its demand	Polzin, von Flotow, and Klerkx (2016); Karuppiah et al. (2020)
19	Continuously changing market conditions (SMB2)	High uncertainty in the market especially consumer behaviour towards eco-innovative product affects the diffusion of eco-innovation initiatives. Organisation does not know which type of market conditions are suitable for eco-innovation	Díaz-García, González-Moreno, and Sáez-Martínez (2015)
20	Insufficient pressures from social actors (consumers, policy makers, NGOs, etc.) to eco-innovate (SMB3)	Organisation lacks sufficient pressure from the consumers, policy makers, NGOs, etc., to engage in eco-innovation practices especially in the developing economies	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009); Karuppiah et al. (2020)
21	Poor response of consumer to innovative products (SMB4)	The consumers in developing countries search for good quality cheaper products and hence the costly eco-innovative products fail to attract the consumers	Expert Opinion
22	Cultural resistance to change from the traditional practice (SMB5)	It would be difficult for an organisation to engage in eco-innovation initiatives where employees resist to change from the traditional working system develop nature of adaptation	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009); Orji et al. (2019)
23	Low awareness of consumer/purchaser about the environmental problems (SMB6)	Lack of knowledge among the consumers/purchasers regarding the environmental impact created by non-green products deters the implementation of eco-innovation initiatives	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009); Gupta and Barua (2018)
Environmental and Legal Barriers (ELB)
24	Absence of stringent environmental policies (ELB1)	Inexistence of a strong environmental regulations and policies fails to create sufficient pressure on the organisation to adopt eco-innovation initiatives	Tumpa et al. (2019)
25	Environmental problems are given least priority (ELB2)	Organizations do not view environmental problems as one of their key social responsibility. This holds them back in adoption of eco-innovation initiatives	Carrillo, del Río González, and Könnölä (2009)
26	Poor implementation level of EMS (ELB3)	Organisations fail to effectively monitor and control the environmental impacts of their production operations due to improper implementation of EMS	Wagner (2008)
27	Lack of environmental/sustainability capabilities (ELB4)	Organisations lack the required capabilities to embed the environmental factors or sustainability dimensions in the SC which hinders the adoption of eco-innovation initiatives	Experts opinion
28	Lack of favourable environmental policies on adoption of eco-innovation practices (ELB5)	Highly expensive environmentally cleaner technologies need to be adopted to implement eco-innovation initiatives. Absence of favourable environmental policies that support organisation to procure these technologies deters the adoption of eco-innovation practices	Experts opinion

Table 3. Triangular neutrosophic scale

Linguistic Variable	Triangular Neutrosophic Scale
Very Weakly Important (VWI)	(0.10,0.30,0.35), 0.10,0.20,0.15)
Weakly Important (WI)	(0.15,0.25,0.10), 0.60,0.20,0.30)
Partially Important (PI)	(0.40,0.35,0.50), 0.60,0.10,0.20)
Equally Important (EI)	(0.65,0.60,0.70), 0.80,0.10,0.10)
Strongly Important (SI)	(0.70,0.65,0.80), 0.90,0.20,0.10)
Very Strongly Important (VSI)	(0.90,0.85,0.90), 0.70,0.20,0.20)
Absolutely Important (AI)	(0.95,0.90,0.95), 0.90,0.10,0.10)

Figure 1. Roadmap of the research

Table 4. Demographic profile of the decision-making panel

	Position in organisation	Educational qualification	Experience (years)
Expert 1	Manager (Manufacturing)	B. Tech.	16 Years
Expert 2	Senior Design Engineer (R&D)	M. Tech.	15 Years
Expert 3	Manager (PPC)	DME	15 Years

Figure 2. Hierarchy of the considered problem

Table 5. Pair-wise decision matrix for main barriers

DM1	OMB	EFB	SB	SMB	ELB
OMB	EI	WI	PI	SI	VSI
EFB	VSI	EI	VSI	VSI	AI
SB	SI	WI	EI	VSI	AI
SMB	PI	WI	WI	EI	SI
ELB	WI	VWI	WI	PI	EI
DM2	OMB	EFB	SB	SMB	ELB
OMB	EI	WI	WI	SI	VSI
EFB	VSI	EI	SI	VSI	VSI
SB	VSI	PI	EI	SI	AI
SMB	PI	WI	PI	EI	VSI
ELB	WI	WI	VWI	WI	EI
DM3	OMB	EFB	SB	SMB	ELB
OMB	EI	VWI	PI	EI	SI
EFB	AI	EI	SI	VSI	VSI
SB	SI	PI	EI	VSI	VSI
SMB	EI	WI	WI	EI	SI
ELB	PI	WI	WI	PI	EI

Table 6. Contradiction degree for main barriers

	$c_1$	$c_2$	$c_3$	$c_4$	$c_5$
Contradiction degree	0	0.2	0.4	0.6	0.8

Table 7. Crisp value, local weight and rank of main barriers

	OMB	EFB	SB	SMB	ELB	Weight	Rank
OMB	0.495	0.129	0.283	0.685	0.810	0.192	3
EFB	0.617	0.559	0.686	0.795	0.889	0.283	1
SB	0.538	0.260	0.612	0.779	0.920	0.249	2
SMB	0.332	0.103	0.175	0.653	0.776	0.163	4
ELB	0.165	0.127	0.135	0.314	0.677	0.113	5

Table 8. Local weight, global weight and global rank of sub-barriers

Barriers	Main barrier weight	Sub-barrier	Sub-barrier local weight	Local rank	Global weight	Global rank
OMB	0.1919	OMB1	0.1862	3	0.0357	12
		OMB2	0.2075	2	0.0398	10
		OMB3	0.2352	1	0.0451	7
		OMB4	0.0910	6	0.0175	25
		OMB5	0.1341	5	0.0257	20
		OMB6	0.1459	4	0.0280	19
EFB	0.2834	EFB1	0.2083	2	0.0590	4
		EFB2	0.2395	1	0.0679	1
		EFB3	0.1557	4	0.0441	8
		EFB4	0.1254	5	0.0355	13
		EFB5	0.1884	3	0.0534	5
		EFB6	0.0827	6	0.0234	22
SB	0.2485	SB1	0.2398	2	0.0596	3
		SB2	0.1211	5	0.0301	16
		SB3	0.2703	1	0.0672	2
		SB4	0.2011	3	0.0500	6
		SB5	0.1678	4	0.0417	9
SMB	0.1629	SMB1	0.1224	5	0.0199	24
		SMB2	0.0841	6	0.0137	28
		SMB3	0.1882	3	0.0307	15
		SMB4	0.2344	1	0.0382	11
		SMB5	0.2164	2	0.0352	14
		SMB6	0.1546	4	0.0252	21
ELB	0.1132	ELB1	0.2627	2	0.0297	17
		ELB2	0.1308	5	0.0148	27
		ELB3	0.2519	1	0.0285	18
		ELB4	0.2018	3	0.0228	23
		ELB5	0.1529	4	0.0173	26

Table 9. Changes in the weight of main barriers due to changes in weight of EFB

Main barrier	Normal (0.2834)	Expt. 1	Expt. 2	Expt. 3	Expt. 4	Expt. 5	Expt. 6	Expt. 7	Expt. 8	Expt. 9	Expt. 10	Expt. 11	Expt. 12	Expt. 13	Expt. 14	Expt. 15
		0.05	0.1	0.15	0.2	0.25	0.3	0.35	0.4	0.45	0.5	0.55	0.6	0.65	0.7	0.75
OMG	0.1919	0.2503	0.2378	0.2253	0.2128	0.2003	0.1878	0.1753	0.1628	0.1503	0.1378	0.1253	0.1128	0.1003	0.0878	0.0625
EFB	0.2834	0.05	0.1	0.15	0.2	0.25	0.3	0.35	0.4	0.45	0.5	0.55	0.6	0.65	0.7	0.75
SB	0.2485	0.3069	0.2944	0.2819	0.2694	0.2569	0.2444	0.2319	0.2194	0.2069	0.1944	0.1819	0.1694	0.1569	0.1444	0.0625
SMB	0.1629	0.2213	0.2088	0.1963	0.1838	0.1713	0.1588	0.1463	0.1338	0.1213	0.1088	0.0963	0.0838	0.0713	0.0588	0.0625
ELB	0.1132	0.1716	0.1591	0.1466	0.1341	0.1216	0.1091	0.0966	0.0841	0.0716	0.0591	0.0466	0.0341	0.0216	0.0091	0.0625
Total	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000

Table 10. Global rank of sub-barriers due to changes in EFB from 0.05 to 0.75

	Normal (0.2834)	Expt. 1	Expt. 2	Expt. 3	Expt. 4	Expt. 5	Expt. 6	Expt. 7	Expt. 8	Expt. 9	Expt. 10	Expt. 11	Expt. 12	Expt. 13	Expt. 14	Expt. 15
		0.05	0.1	0.15	0.2	0.25	0.3	0.35	0.4	0.45	0.5	0.55	0.6	0.65	0.7	0.75
OMG1	12	9	9	9	11	12	13	13	14	14	13	13	13	14	14	18
OMG2	10	5	6	6	7	9	10	11	11	12	12	12	12	12	12	14
OMG3	7	4	4	4	4	6	8	9	9	10	11	11	11	11	11	11
OMG4	25	20	21	24	25	26	25	25	25	25	24	24	21	21	21	27
OMG5	20	17	17	18	19	20	20	21	20	19	19	19	19	18	18	23
OMG6	19	14	14	15	18	19	19	18	18	18	18	17	17	17	16	22
EFB1	4	24	22	16	9	4	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
EGB2	1	23	20	13	5	3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
EFB2	8	26	26	22	17	11	7	6	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
EGB3	13	27	27	26	22	16	11	8	7	5	5	5	5	5	5	5
EFB3	5	25	24	20	12	7	5	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
EGB4	22	28	28	28	27	24	21	15	12	9	8	7	6	6	6	6
SB1	3	2	2	2	2	2	4	5	6	7	7	8	8	8	8	10
SB2	16	13	13	14	16	17	16	16	16	16	15	15	14	13	13	26
SB3	2	1	1	1	1	1	2	4	5	6	6	6	7	7	7	7
SB4	6	3	3	3	3	5	6	7	8	8	9	9	9	9	9	16
SB5	9	7	5	5	6	8	9	10	10	11	10	10	10	10	10	19
SMB1	24	18	18	21	23	23	24	24	24	23	23	22	22	22	22	25
SMB2	28	22	25	27	28	28	28	28	27	27	26	26	25	23	23	28
SMB3	15	12	12	12	14	14	15	17	17	17	17	18	18	19	19	17
SMB4	11	6	7	7	8	10	12	12	13	13	14	14	15	15	15	12
SMB5	14	8	8	8	10	13	14	14	15	15	16	16	16	16	17	13
SMB6	21	16	15	17	20	21	22	22	22	21	20	20	20	20	20	20
ELB1	17	10	10	10	13	15	17	19	19	20	21	21	23	24	24	8
ELB2	27	21	23	25	26	27	27	27	28	28	28	28	28	28	28	24
ELB3	18	11	11	11	15	18	18	20	21	22	22	23	24	25	25	9
ELB4	23	15	16	19	21	22	23	23	23	24	25	25	26	26	26	15
ELB5	26	19	19	23	24	25	26	26	26	26	27	27	27	27	27	21

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