Process Innovation:Impacts on Organization's Performance : A Qualitative Study of Four Swedish Municipalities

Abstract: Nowadays, industrialization has had strong negative effects on our surrounding environment. Therefore, all the societies around the world are trying to achieve sustainable development and cleaner surrounding. "Living well, within the limits of our planet" is the new action program for the European Union (EU). One area which has been raising great concern as a consequence of urbanization is the waste management, how waste can be recycled and be useful again. In 2001, a law was passed in Sweden for banning the landfill of combustible waste. Because of this, the municipalities applied innovation in their organization and processes to improve their waste management processes. Understanding how this new processes were developed and implemented by the municipalities, can lead to the understanding of the success factors of the process and how it impacts on the municipalities waste management departments and eventually the whole organizations.This study has investigated how different municipalities in Sweden applied process innovation in the waste management department. The purpose of this qualitative study of four municipalities in Sweden was to investigate the impacts of process innovation in waste collection processes on municipalities' performances in Sweden by the use of grounded theories method.During this study, it was discovered that, the application of process innovation have a positive impact on the municipalities financial and customers performances. Also, the importance of process innovation as a step by step process and not a big bang change was discovered to be crucial for a successful process innovation.Applying corporate social responsibility as a self-regulation mechanism inside an organization, which contribute to environmetal sustainibility for organization; also showed positive relation with municipalities’ performances.