Chasing the moving target:
The role of emotions in strategic packaging
decisions
Presentation based mostly on work in progress:
1.Snellman, K., Bor, S, & O’Shea G. (202x) The role of opportunity confidence
and perceived rightness in sustainable business growth. Selected participant at ’
Academy of Management Perspectives’ (AMP) proposal development workshop,
8.6.-10.6.2021. Target Journal: AMP.
2.Snellman, K., Bor, S. & O’Shea, G. (202x). The complexity of committing
to a particular opportunity in food packaging: a process perspective”
Target Journal: TFSC or Journal of Cleaner Production.
Pack to the future 15.2.2022.
Researcher Kirsi Snellman
LUT University,
School of Business & Management

”There are four table legs in package development: usability, saleability, environmental friendliness and
production effectiveness. If you focus on one, then you will loose something else, and loose the balance.
Package development always causes dissatisfaction for someone. Yet, there is a need to find a decent
combination, which is adequate and profitable, because we don’t exist just to do good.” - Anonymous manager
The challenge: As sustainability is a moving target, the table legs need constant
adjustment!
Packaging dilemma

Satisfaction
Enhanced recyclability of packages
Capacity to create change for the better
Feeling of success
Ability to avoid making a bad decision
Teamwork leads to big positive changes
Joy
Brainstorming solutions with actors in the chain
The solution works and becomes public
Client approves the new product
Long-term joy relates to positive future outlook
Positive
Emotions
Negative
Emotions
Frustration
Clear definition of sustainability is lacking
Confusion related to SUP (e.g.producer responsibility)
Suppliers are not interested in improvements
The laws dictate how the transition can be done
Dissatisfaction
Package design never pleases everyone
Material efficiency vs. recyclability
Decreasing the amount of plastic vs. food waste
Irritation
Past decisions turns out to be wrong
Others misunderstand the battle of price vs. planet
Worry
The new material causes problems in the supply chain
How to innovate if we don’t know how (no rules yet)?
Whether and how emotions are related to solving packaging dilemmas/making strategic
packaging decisions?
Responsibility as feeling
Opportunity to improve packaging solutions
Compass that shows the right direction
Willingness to be a trailblazer
Righteousness as feeling
Sustainability more important than costs
Moral duty to decrease using plastic
Tool for prioritizing packaging features
Ethicality
as a feeling

Opportunity
confidence
Packaging
dilemma
Cognition
Organizational
norms/perceptions
of right/wrong
EU-regulation laws,
(What can be done)
Doubt
Consumers’
perceptions (What
can be sold)
Positive
Emotion
Negative
Emotion
2. Co-creating solutions 3. Making a decision
1. Facing a packaging dilemma
?
Emotion

Contribution
Traditionally managers are assumed to evaluate risks at a cognitive level, based largely on the feasibility
and desirability of packaging opportunities and associated consequences. We add feeling to
the list of tools that can help managers to embrace the risk, evaluate alternatives and make more
responsible strategic packaging decisions. Through its capacity to signal meaning and trigger and
support responsible change in companies, feeling has an impact on commitment. It influences
how the manager sails towards the right direction during sustainable transition, and overcomes
uncertainties and risks when chasing a moving target.

Thank you for
your attention.
Additional reading :
Snellman, K., & Hakala, H. (2020). Emotion as an ethical compass in strategic sustainability
decisions. In Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Kautonen, T., Schillebeeckx, S. J., Gartner, J., Hakala, H., Salmela-Aro, K., & Snellman, K.
(2020). The dark side of sustainability orientation for SME performance. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 14, e00198.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352673420300548