• Energy Research

Due to the increasing relevance and importance of sustainable development pursuit, it can be assumed that organizations are striving to develop in a green direction. This is not only related to raising awareness of modern society but also to legal regulation and strategic documents for achieving the goals of sustainable development at the international level, especially affecting certain fields of activity such as energy or manufacturing. It is noticed that there is still a lack of definition in the scientific literature of what kind of organization is considered green. Therefore, it is appropriate to create a green organization benchmark against which organizations can assess their current level of greenness and identify areas for improvement. This research aimed to choose the most suitable approach for developing a green organization benchmark by examining the methods for evaluating an organization’s performance in terms of greenness according to defined attributes. Applying the methods of systematic and comparative analysis of scientific literature and strategic documents, content analysis, grouping, and synthesis, it was determined that the approach of resources of an organization can be considered the most suitable for creating a green organization benchmark. However, it is reasonable to supplement it with an evaluation of external environmental factors.

The rapid changes in the services sector encourage companies to improve the processes for developing and delivering new services. An effective new service development process is not possible without planning. Business entities can plan their time, organise activities, and prioritise tasks according to the complexity or the total duration of the process. However, in the context of new service development, the planning aspect is still not sufficiently emphasised. It is noted that the aim is often to identify the factors that could reduce the duration of this process. However, there is a lack of relevant data based on certain expressions of time. The lack of such research limits the improvement of the planning processes for new service development projects. In order to evaluate the possibilities of application of the proposed new service development model for companies providing services, an empirical evaluation was conducted, using methods of expert survey, program evaluation and review, and Monte Carlo simulation. Guidelines for further research were formulated based on the obtained results.

With the rising concern for environmental issues, there is an ever-increasing demand for sustainable actions to minimize the damage to ecosystems. Seeking to meet such a demand, energy companies worldwide embrace green marketing solutions. This article aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of green marketing and its impact on customers’ purchasing behavior to develop a research agenda that helps to identify promising areas for future research. We conducted a systematic literature review to fill in the lack of conceptual clarity on the relationship between green marketing solutions and customers’ purchasing behavior. After compiling a candidate pool of 2604 papers and applying a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria, the final sample comprised 166 articles published between 1995 and 2022. The results demonstrate that scholars frequently chose the energy sector to research green marketing’s impact on purchasing behavior. The review indicates that the theory of planned behavior with its progenitor theory of reasoned action seems to be highly featured. The literature emphasizes green marketing at the tactical level as impacting customer behavior measures at the purchase and post-purchase stages. Our study helps marketers to identify the best practices in the area to influence customers’ behavior effectively.

This study sheds light on customer loyalty based on three groups of factors (customer, service provider, and environment). Noting the diversity of the effects of customer loyalty factors, this research investigates the impact of every factor upon customer loyalty. This paper provides an innovative insight into how a variety of customer loyalty factors might be combined into a single measure of customer loyalty. Finally, this study examines phases of customer loyalty and identifies the factors that prevent a peak of customer loyalty. The factors determining customer loyalty explain why customers move across different loyalty phases over time. The results of the empirical testing confirmed the practical applicability of the suggested approach for evaluating customer loyalty based on these factors. An innovative approach to the evaluation of customer loyalty is essential for marketers because it will help them to evaluate loyalty in cases where data about customer behavior are not collected. The findings of the research contribute to a better understanding of which factors are a viable basis for increasing customer loyalty, specifically in the catering and beauty markets, and offer guidance to marketing managers on how to shift customers to more desirable loyalty phases.

Academics and practitioners are paying increasing attention to green marketing as lesser damage to the environment and future generations become a priority in a current complex business environment. Despite the expanding studies in this field, there is still a lack of psychometrically sound scales to measure green marketing practices. To fill this gap, the research aimed to develop and evaluate a multifaceted green marketing scale. First, we draw on theoretical evidence to define and conceptualize the construct of green marketing. Then, we use a multistudy scale development process to create and validate the Green Marketing Scale (GMaS). Two groups of participants were used for the validation of the scale. Study 1 (n = 102), with the help of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), refined and reduced the items, proposed the factor structure. Study 2 (n = 155) established the validity of the construct and the reliability of the scale. The authors have tested the six-factor model against the four-factor models using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a sample of marketing managers. The results of the CFA have indicated that the revised version of the four-factor model appears to be the most tenable solution, as it shows the best fit for the data. The resulting 14-item GMaS captures a variety of green marketing manifestations across organizational settings and involves the dimensions of Strategy, Internal Marketing, Product, and Marketing Communication. In general, the research confirms the validity and reliability of the GMaS scale and can be used to measure green marketing in organizational settings in the energy industry.

Purpose – the purpose of the research is to examine possibilities of practical implementation of the guidelines provided in the publicly available strategic documents and initiatives to assess the current situation of an organization in the aspect of greenness. Research methodology – methods of analysis of the scientific literature, review of strategic documents, bibliometric analysis, and critical evaluation have been applied. Findings – the need to develop guidelines to assess the greenness of an organization in the scope of the entire organization was identified. Research limitations – the limited selection of documents for the analysis, because the search of strategic documents relevant to the analyzed topic performed among the publicly available sources in English. Further studies could incorporate an analysis of guidelines and good practices used in different countries presented in other languages. Practical implications – the results of the research can be used to justify the need to develop guidelines to assess greenness at the scope of the entire organization. Originality/Value – can be defined by examination guidelines provided in the strategic documents from the perspective of practical applicability in organizations.