Abstract

     Although many firms are aggressively deploying diverse digital technologies (DTs) at inter- and intra-organizational levels, not all firms have achieved the anticipated resilience, especially in the face of supply chain disruptions caused by “black swan” events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. To demystify this phenomenon, we draw on the asset orchestration perspective to investigate how breadth (i.e., the scope) and depth (i.e., the scale) of DT deployment influence a firm’s resilience to supply chain disruptions. Survey data from 162 Chinese manufacturing firms show that the depth of DT deployment exerts a positive effect on firm resilience. Interestingly, the breadth has a non-significant effect on firm resilience. Moreover, while the breadth and depth of DT deployment both enhance supply chain coordination, supply chain coordination mediates only the relationship between DT deployment depth and firm resilience. Finally, market acuity positively moderates the relationship between supply chain coordination and firm resilience. We contribute to the literature by providing new theoretical explanations for the inconsistency in the reported relationship between technology deployment and resilience. Our study also helps firms reevaluate their DT deployment.

Introduction

     In today’s volatile and unpredictable environment, every firm is vulnerable to disruption in the supply chain (Kalubanga & Gudergan, 2022; Kumar & Sharma, 2021). For example, over 86% of global supply chains were disrupted and 94% of the global top 1000 firms suffered supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak (Singh, Kumar, Panchal, & Tiwari, 2020). Given that supply chain disruptions impair the flow of products or services along a supply chain and further incurs negative consequences on operational, financial, and market performance (Kalubanga & Gudergan, 2022), firms need to be able to deal with them effectively (Blessley & Mudambi, 2022). A firm’s resilience to supply chain disruptions refers to the ability of a firm to sense, adapt to, and quickly respond to the changes imposed in the supply chain (Ambulkar, Blackhurst, & Grawe, 2015), and it is widely regarded as an effective way to manage risk and recover (Gölgeci & Kuivalainen, 2020).

Conclusion

     Drawing on the asset orchestration perspective, we investigate how the breadth and depth of DT deployment may affect a firm’s resilience to supply chain disruptions. The empirical results from 162 Chinese manufacturing firms show that DT deployment depth, rather than breadth, has a positive effect on a firm’s resilience to supply chain disruptions. Moreover, although the breadth and depth of DT deployment both enhance supply chain coordination, supply chain coordination mediates only the relationship between DT deployment depth and firm resilience. Lastly, market acuity positively moderates the relationship between supply chain coordination and firm resilience. Our findings provide new explanations for the inconsistency in the reported relationship between technology deployment and resilience, thus making theoretical contributions to the existing literature. Our findings also provide managerial guidance for firms on how to effectively deploy their DTs at inter- and intra-organizational levels.

This paper facilitates an in-depth view of the transformation needed for the transition from traditional to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM)—by delineating its elemental aspects. Taking an organizational unit of analysis perspective, this conceptual review seeks to characterize the fundamental nature of complexities inherent in the transformation, and thereby seeks to explicate the elemental nature of organizational efforts responsible for shaping sustainable supply chains. The findings outline intriguing mechanisms for explaining the complex and endless nature of the transformation for organizations. This discourse also involves the proposition of two novel concepts applied in this context: the SSCM Forcefield and Differential Efforts in SSCM. While the former represents the intricate interplay between organizational efforts and organizational complexities in absorbing SSCM practices in the supply chain routines of an organization, the latter reflects the value of additional efforts above and beyond what is required in existing supply chain routines, to facilitate the integration of a desired SSCM practice into routines. The findings show how the force-field impedes an organization’s progress in SSCM and how differential effort allows an organization to overcome the force-field, extending theoretical frameworks and offering valuable guidance for practicing managers. Overall, the research strengthens the conceptual foundation of SSCM theory by explicating the under-explored aspects involved in an organization’s progressive journey toward SSCM. Further, it is a first attempt to outline the organizational implications of the SSCM journey.

Introduction

With sustainability having become a mainstay in our contemporary business environment, the transformation of an organization’s traditional supply chain management (SCM) approaches into sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is a journey that has become paramount. However, some organizations have yet to undertake this journey, while others that have started it are underestimating its complexity. This calls for the need to further strengthen the conceptual foundation of SSCM theory, so as to better understand the complex dynamics ingrained in the journey of SSCM (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Gold and Schleper, 2017; Markman and Krause, 2016; Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014; Quarshie et al., 2016; Roy et al., 2018b). Within this context, complexity can be defined as the ambiguity encountered in deriving schemata to encapsulate regularities associated with an emerging subject that advocates a paradigm shift (Anderson, 1999). The complexities associated with SSCM have been emphasized by a few select works in the SSCM literature. It was most explicitly called out by Silvestre (2015), who notes that “sustainable supply chains are not a destination, but rather a journey because as supply chains move toward more sustainable practices they go through a complex, dynamic, and evolutionary learning process” (p. 157). Despite this realization, the literature lacks an in-depth understanding of the complex nature associated with the transformation toward SSCM.

1- Introduction

2- Sustainable supply chain management in global supply chains

3- Methodology

4- Results

5- Discussion and future research directions

6- Conclusion

References

Abstract

Recurring controversies involving supply chain-related sustainability incidents suggest that firms with a global presence struggle to improve environmental, social and economic outcomes in global supply chains. Sustainable supply chain management has been suggested for improving sustainability outcomes in supply chains, yet global supply chains pose unique challenges. This paper aims to provide a synthesis of the key elements of sustainable supply chain management in global supply chains. To achieve this goal, we conduct a rigorous systematic literature review of articles focused on sustainable supply chain management in global supply chains and apply structured content analysis to * mentioned articles spanning 15 years of research published in English-language, peer-reviewed journals. The research contributes by identifying configurations and governance mechanisms as key elements characterizing sustainable supply chain management in global supply chains and synthesizing their relationship with sustainability outcomes. Overall configurations characterized by a greater connection between the focal firm and multi-tier suppliers, managed directly or through third parties, are increasing trends suggested to better serve sustainability development and offer several areas for future research. The research also contributes to practice by providing managers of focal firms with global supply chains directions for improving sustainable outcomes in their supply chains.

Introduction

Firms are increasingly considered accountable for the environmental, social and economic outcomes caused by their internal operations and by their suppliers’ operations (Hartmann and Moeller, 2014). Over the past two decades, sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), which is concerned with integrating environmental, social and economic goals across a focal firm’s supply chain processes, has emerged as an approach for firms to improve sustainable (i.e. environmental, social and economic) outcomes in their supply chains (Carter and Rogers, 2008; Seuring and Muller, 2008). Managing sustainability, however, continues to be challenging in Global Supply Chains (GSCs). From Nike struggling with child labor at supplier factories in the 1990’s (Lim and Phillips, 2008) to Apple besieged by employee suicides at supplier Foxconn in the early 2000’s (Clarke and Boersma, 2017) to pharmaceutical companies coming under pressure for the waste management practices of their Indian suppliers in 2016 (Marriage, 2016), supply chain-related sustainability scandals are recurring for firms with GSCs. GSCs are complex, composed of different organizations dispersed across multiple tiers and different geographies (Choi and Hong, 2002). Distance between buyers and suppliers in GSCs poses challenges for managing sustainability. Environmental and social outcomes frequently need to be evaluated at the production site (Grimm et al., 2014), and cultural elements can cause divergent expectations regarding sustainability between buyers and suppliers (Wu and Pullman, 2015). Moreover, managers may have no visibility of the supply base beyond the first tier of suppliers and of suppliers located in developing economies where environmental and labor laws are lax or, where laws exist, enforcement is dubious (Carter et al., 2015).

We consider supply chain (SC) contracts in a new setting, the medical equipment industry, where concern for patient benefits is essential and quality efforts are critical for profits compared with supply chains (SCs) in other industries. It remains unclear how quality efforts and patient concern levels affect SC performance and how medical equipment manufacturers’ quality effort levels are linked to their patient concern levels. This study focuses on the impact of a manufacturer’s and a retailer’s patient concern levels on optimal pricing and quality decisions in an SC consisting of a manufacturer facing quality effort-dependent demand and a retailer in the medical equipment industry. We use the Stackelberg game to characterize and determine the optimal operational decisions in five scenarios and address the effects of patient concern levels under above five scenarios. A real case is studied and shows that optimized quality efforts can improve SC profits. The parameters settings are derived from the real data. Our findings bridge the gap between SC quality management and patient benefits and help to understand contract design in relation to patient concerns in different SC structures. This paper is among the earliest to investigate quality efforts for SC contract design in relation to patient concerns and to study SC contract design in the medical equipment industry. Our managerial insights are expected to help manufacturers move toward better quality effort decisions considering patient benefits and are also applicable to other SCs with effort-dependent demand and the effect of altruistic preferences.

Introduction

This research was mainly motivated by quality effort decisions faced by a medical equipment supply chain (SC) comprising a medical equipment manufacturer in Asia and a healthcare equipment retailer in Europe selling products to North America and Europe that provide diagnostic solutions (reagents, instruments, software, etc.) for determining the source of disease and contamination to improve patient health and ensure consumer safety. The products are focused on diagnosing infectious diseases, providing high medical value results for cancer screening, and monitoring cardiovascular emergencies. The medical equipment manufacturer strives to fulfill its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by serving public health, which is critical for all players in healthcare supply chains (SCs). However, the manufacturer’s products have suffered from quality problems, which impacted sales in 2013 and led to recalls in March 2014. Subsequently, the manufacturer invested in product quality, but this came with a tradeoff: too little quality effort decreases patient concern levels, while too much quality effort may hurt profits. Therefore, a critical problem for practitioners in the medical equipment industry is how to determine the optimal quality effort for SCs with patient concerns. The issue of quality goes beyond the medical equipment industry. In 2016, the batteries of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 devices exploded in South Korea and other markets. These battery explosions caused significant environmental concerns and evolved into a public safety issue. The above incident affected Samsung’s operations in many countries and resulted in profit reductions. Most of the batteries used in Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 were made by Samsung SDI, which needed to optimize quality efforts to handle the challenges of financial performance and social concerns.

The concern about environmental and social impacts of business activities has led to introducing a new paradigm called, sustainable development. It can help to build a low-carbon high-growth global economy and guarantee the global well-being of people. In this paper, three pillars of sustainable development, i.e., economic, environmental, and social, are considered and discussed to design a supply chain network. The proposed model tries to maximize profit primarily while capturing societal community development by prioritizing the less developed regions. Moreover, the model ensures that the environmentally friendly facilities can operate in the supply chain network while others have to be repaired. Furthermore, quantifying the benefits of transportation decisions in terms of both cost and environmental impact savings to improve the sustainability of logistics systems is considered. In addition, the model is regarded as robust programming for the problem to approximate real situations. The proposed model is implemented in some numerical examples and in a real case study. Numerical results and computational analysis are indicative of the significance of the model and through conducting the case study, it is demonstrated that the proposed model can be implemented successfully in practice and it would be beneficial to all the three pillars of sustainable development. Moreover, the managerial insights for the managers of the supply chain networks are provided to make the most appropriate decisions.

Introduction

Nowadays, growing environmental concerns and social legislations have enforced the enterprises to consider them along with economic performance as three pillars of sustainability (Kannegiesser et al., 2015). This issue has been emphasized by 2030 Agenda approved by UNCTAD Secretary General’s Report (2011) as well as the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document (Mahtaney, 2013 and Basera, 2013). For the first time in 1987, the concept of “Sustainable Development” was introduced in the Brundtland Report and it was discussed with problems such as population growth and lack of sufficient resources in the future. Sustainable development means “meeting the requirements of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to fulfill their own needs” (Brundland Report, 1987) and it considers triple bottom line concept (3Ps “people, planet, profit”) (Elkington and Rowlands, 1999). Promoting sustainable development is the only way to resolve most of the global concerns such as water scarcity, inequality, hunger, poverty, and climate change. According to the previous related studies like Pishvaee et al. (2014) and Arampantzi and Minis (2017), estimating and formulating environmental and social impacts are sophisticated efforts; however, they are valuable and can play a significant role in mitigating the worldwide concerns (Zhalechian et al., 2016). Govindan et al. (2015b) reviewed 328 papers about supply chain network and emphasized that designing this network was a remarkable gap and future research opportunity.

 The current sustainability concern is causing food supply chains to extend their focus beyond traditional economic goals to the triple bottom line approach that considers the environmental, social and economic domains. The sustainable supply chain implies that the activities from farm-to-fork (Weiss, 2012) meet the needs of the stakeholders in the food chain while protecting, sustaining and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be needed in the future (Erol et al., 2009; Ortiz-Miranda and Moragues-Faus, 2015; Passel, 2013; Reefke and Sundaram, 2017). Many authors indicate that intermediary stakeholders´ organisations in the supply chain play a key role in the development of a sustainable supply chain (Dubey et al., 2016; Trauger, 2014). Esfahbodi et al. (2016) emphasise the importance of inter-organisational links to promote trust, reduce risk and in turn increase innovation and profitability. Moreover,  special attention is given to sustainable food supply chains in developing countries due  to the urgency for improvement (Ras and Vermeulen, 2009) and the need for further research (Erol et al., 2009). While sustainable supply chain management has been largely researched by scholars (Rimmington et al., 2006; Tseng and Chu, 2013; Zhu et al., 2008), little empirical research has been found concerning the contribution of the supplies market in developing countries to the sustainability of the value chain. In the current framework, the sustainable supply chain in developing countries must meet domestic expectations, and also permit competition in the global market (Esfahbodi et al., 2016). In this sense, we found that there is a lack of research about the sustainable development of the supplies market in developing countries from the theoretical lens of glocalisation. Beck (1999) indicated that the market is a glocal example in which global and local coexist. This theoretical lens was chosen for this study because Robertson (2005) marked out that developing countries are lacking protection for their identity.

Corporate sustainability is about addressing and managing business decisions with regard to economic, social, and environmental dimensions in a balanced and integrated manner (Elkington, 1998). Supply chains (SC) are integral to almost all commercial activities nowadays and often involve global interactions as well as unknown and potentially adverse impacts. Hence, SCs need to be at the very core of sustainability developments (Kleindorfer, Singhal, & Van Wassenhove, 2005). External forces such as competitors, regulations, globalization effects, as well as stakeholder and customer demands pressure SCs to integrate sustainability principles into their strategy and daily operations (Carter & Rogers, 2008; Jayaraman, Klassen, & Linton, 2007; McIntyre, 2007; Seuring & Müller, 2008b). Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has emerged as a field of research and practice to address related challenges. Decision makers in SCs are increasingly required to initialize operational shifts and strategic re-orientations or even undertake complete SC re-designs (Sarkis, 1998). However, sustainability remains difficult to operationalize as SCs involve various parties with different business requirements, cultures and opinions. This study makes a contribution in this context and provides theoretical as well as procedural decision support for SSCM. This paper firstly outlines the motivation for this research along with specific objectives. A review of the literature provides an introduction to SSCM and summarizes approaches for business transformation and maturity development. Based on this background, the focus then turns to an exploratory Delphi study, leveraging the insights of domain experts in order to design, evaluate, and validate decision models in SSCM. Discussion and concluding comments show how the findings can be utilized as a resource for academic research and SC practice.

1- Introduction

2- Research methodology and initial data statistics

3- Related literature reviews published recently (2006 onwards)

4- Sample description and main characteristics

5- How have OR methods been used to support sustainable supply chain decisions?

6- How have the three pillars of sustainability been modeled in sustainable supply chain?

7- Industrial applications

8- Critical analysis and future research agenda

9- Conclusions

References

Abstract

Sustainable Supply Chain have become a cornerstone to any company that seeks to achieve sustainable goals. A company’s image is no longer related to the old paradigm of being sustainable in its own activities, but instead is associated with a strong collaboration between all supply chain stakeholders, towards a sustainable activity. It is then critical to create new methods and tools to account for the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social, in a multi-stakeholder chain. In this context, operational research (OR) methods play a key role in supporting sustainable supply chain activities. This paper aims to review the trends and directions of OR methods applications towards the achievement of sustainable supply chain. A set of 220 papers has been reviewed to identify the OR methods being employed, the levels of decision considered and how sustainability practices were treated through OR. We found that optimization models applied to strategic level decisions are the most preponderant studies. Moreover, it was verified that sustainability has been mainly tackled by assessing economic and environmental aspects, leaving behind the social aspects. Additionally, OR-based studies do not yet present a clear definition of sustainability, a fact that is proven by the number of environmental and social methodologies explored. Based on the major trends identified in the literature, a research framework is derived, pointing towards a future research agenda in the area.

Introduction

Supply Chain (SC) have appeared for the first time in the literature more than thirty years ago when Oliver and Weber (Oliver & Webber, 1982) proposed the first definition for the management of such systems. Since then, the SC management (SCM) area has grown considerably at both research and industrial levels, and SC are nowadays bedrock systems in any organization. SC, in its classical form – forward supply chain, are viewed as a combination of processes aimed at fulfilling customers’ requests, that include all possible network entities such as suppliers, manufacturers, transporters, warehouses, retailers and customers, whose main purpose is the customer´s satisfaction at a minimum cost (Simchi-Levi et al., 2007). However, such a purpose has enlarged over time, and SC have been expanding their activities towards the goal of integrating not only economic, but also environmental aspects. Reverse logistics activities have been incorporated within the existing networks, and the collection and treatment of end of life products through recycling, or remanufacturing, repairing, and/or finally disposing of some used parts, have been considered within those networks (Cardoso et al. 2013; Fleischmann et al., 1997). This led to the dawn of the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) (Guide & Van Wassenhove, 2002). CLSC are logistic systems whose design, planning and operation aim to maximize value creation over the entire life cycle of a product, pursuing a dynamic recovery of the product value from different types and volumes of returns. Savaskan & Van Wassenhove (2006) highlighted the benefits of an integrated CLSC, and such systems have been explored in several published works, namely by Salema et al. (2010); Cardoso et al. (2013); and Zeballos et al. (2014).

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Methodological development

4- Results and discussions

5- Conclusions

References

Abstract

The development of robust mechanisms for supply chain performance measurement have been identified as an integral step needed for the transition towards sustainable supply chain systems and a greener global economy. However, measuring the environmental performance of supply chains is a challenging task, due to several factors, such as the lack of standardised methodologies and the inherent multi-criteria nature of the problem. By leveraging the capability of a Multi-Regional Input–Output framework to handle the complex and global nature of supply chains, the current work presents a robust environmental sustainable performance measurement model underpinned by industrial lifecycle thinking. As a result, some theoretical insights are provided and an empirical application of the model to the Metal Products industry of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nations undertaken in an attempt to address some of the methodological and applied measurement challenges. In particular, this allowed the modelling of carbon emissions trends within, and between the BRICS nations and with the Rest-of-the-World over a 20-year period (1992–2011) as well as providing an opportunity to hypothesis on their future carbon emissions performances. Specific analyses of the Metal Product industry showed that demand represents the main driver for the increasing carbon footprint. However, the overall decline in reported carbon footprint was due to improvements in emissions intensity and efficiency gains induced by technology. The study further assesses the effects of imports and economic growth on carbon footprint and discusses the implications of the study to sustainability transition processes in the BRICS nations.

Introduction

The transition towards sustainable supply chains (Ding et al., 2016) has encouraged businesses to align their operations to practices that are judged to be environmentally sustainable (Dey et al. 2011; Hassini et al. 2012, Jaehn, 2016). The development of models and their application to production and supply networks in order to measure environmental performance has therefore been identified as a key element towards such transition. Environmental performance measurement as used in this paper draws on the concept of the natural resource based-view proposed by Hart (1995); a concept that examines the use of natural resources and their resultant impact. Taticchi et al. (2015) and Ahi and Searcy (2015) have reported on the importance of performance measurement for supply chain sustainability given the opportunities for continuous improvement (Zhu, 2014). Despite the reported importance, measuring the environmental performance of supply chains has become a challenge as reiterated by Lehtinen and Ahola (2010) and Hassini et al. (2012) who reported that incompatibilities exist between the known principles of performance measures and supply chains. The performance measurement literature appears to be biased towards intra-organizational measures of performance (Lehtinen and Ahola, 2010) as opposed to the extended, complex and dynamic network nature, which characterises supply chains (Gunasekaran et al., 2004; Varsei et al, 2014). All these issues imply that performance measurement models for sustainable supply chains focus only on direct impacts, and thus do not take a holistic view of the supply chain. Other issues that pose challenges for building reliable sustainable supply chain performance measurement approaches include, the multiple measures that must be employed to characterize the performance driven by data (Afful-Dadzie et al. 2016) and the focus on reporting green supply chain management initiatives implementation rather than outcomes (Zhu et al., 2008).

There is growing interest in integration of sustainability into business planning decisions under a sustainable development framework. Environmental accounting methodologies for collection, measurement, and disclosure of financial and environmental impacts of strategic and operational managerial decisions are developed and utilized by business entities worldwide for effective management of both organizational and operational environmental protection policies. At the operational level, while extant literature has primarily focused on managerial decision making under different voluntary and regulatory emission pricing schemes, the intersection of economic (monetary) and environmental impact (non-monetary/physical) dimensions of sustainable development goals has received scant attention. This paper examines the intersection of the environmental and economic goals of sustainable development initiatives of a focal firm, which is engaged in the primary activities of production and/or transportation and storage of a single product within a forward supply chain. This paper assumes the presence of a responsive “green market ” through modeling of consumer awareness and response induced by the firms’ environmental footprint disclosures. Through quantitative modeling approach, normative conclusions are derived on the compatibility of economic and environmental goals of sustainable development initiative. The results indicate the presence of convergence, divergence, and avoidance decision zones in balancing the environmental and economical goals of the firm’s sustainable development for production and storage efficiency. The paper explicitly establishes the boundaries of the operational zones within the domain of the firm’s environmental reduction and operational efficiency efforts. The results demonstrate that the efficacy of voluntary or regulated emission reduction targets depends on the firm’s existing environmental and operational cost structures, and hence emission reduction targets must be well planned to avoid adverse environmental impact or operational inefficiencies. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that in a green responsive market, there may exist critical emission reduction thresholds below which the economic and environmental benefits of sustainable development initiatives diverge.

Introduction

More companies world-wide are incorporating sustainability into their strategic and operational goals and business planning decisions. According to CDP North America, Inc. (2016) globally over 1200 companies either are currently using or plan to apply an internal proxy carbon price in their business decisions for assessing the financial impact of environmental emissions in company’s operation and supply chain, making emission a factor of production, assessing sustainability initiatives for financial and environmental viability, allocating resources toward lower emission activities, research and development investment prioritization, and mitigation of risk from future emission pricing regulations. The list of over 100 North American corporations, across different business sectors, that have embedded carbon pricing in their decision processes include General Motors (Consumer Discretionary), Colgate-Palmolive (Consumer Staples), Exxon-Mobil (Energy), BNY Mellon (Financial), Allergan (Healthcare), General Electric (Industrials), Microsoft Corporation (Information Technology), and Eastman Chemical (Materials). The growing trend in integration of sustainability in corporate decision making and embedding carbon price to quantify financial and environmental impact of firm’s activities is also supported by research and development of financial and managerial environmental accounting and protocols for collection and measurement of scope 1 and scope 2 emissions at organizational and product levels and the economic and environmental performance of the firm (Stechemesser and Guenther (2012) and Tsai et al. (2012)). Cornin et al. (2011), Chabowski and Gonzales-Pardon (2011), Kleindorfer, Kaylan, and Van Wassenhove (2005), Corbett and Kliendorfer (2001), Seuring and Muller (2008), Seuring (2013), Ashby, Leat, and Hudson-Smith (2012),Jaehn (2016) provide recent surveys on sustainability related literature in strategy, management, marketing, and operations, indicating a proliferation of both academic and practitioner research in this area over the past two decades.

In the sustainable supply chain management literature, the social dimension has been insufficiently investigated. The aim of this research is to analyse why and how focus companies implement and manage social sustainability in their supply chains. To do this, we adopted a multiple case study research strategy in six focal companies which had implemented 34 supply chain social initiatives. We draw from the constructs of motivation and supply chain engagement to develop a typology that improves our understanding of the complex interactions between the management of supply chains and their social sustainability performance. This research also explored a third concept, social relationship level, which helps us to understand which relationship levels focal companies often use to operationalize such initiatives. Results suggest that intrinsically motivated social sustainability initiatives in supply chains led focal companies to adopt supply chain structural collaborations, while extrinsically motivated social initiatives were more strongly connected with information exchange only. The involvement of primary stakeholder groups (e.g., consumers and suppliers) occurs usually in extrinsically motivated social initiatives, while the involvement of secondary stakeholders (e.g., NGOs and community) seems to be the norm for intrinsically motivated social initiatives.

Introduction

An increasing number of companies are considering sustainability as a key strategic issue (Burritt and Schaltegger, 2014; Gold et al., 2010; Hassini et al., 2012); as a consequence, the literature on the subject has been growing significantly (Bansal and DesJardine, 2014). The sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) perspective suggests that the focus on individual organizations tells us little about sustainability since sustainability issues can only be evident if the entire supply chain is analysed (Silvestre, 2016). This is because sometimes focal companies hide unsustainable operations in distant parts of the supply chain in order to avoid public backlash and loss of reputation (Chan and Pun, 2010). As supply chains (SC) become increasingly complex and difficult to manage, researchers have been searching for useful approaches to deal with this complexity. Sustainability and SSCM perspectives are primarily centred on the notion of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), which indicates that all three dimensions of performance—economic, social, and environmental—are interconnected and are equally important (Elkington, 2002). The social dimension, however, has often been neglected in SSCM studies (Abbasi, 2017; Ashby et al., 2012; Wu and Pagell, 2011), and it is therefore under-valued, under-explored, and under-theorized (Pullman et al., 2009; Silvestre, 2015a). Perhaps this neglect can be justified because companies find the social issues more challenging to address than the environmental ones (Ashby et al., 2012), or because sustainability in the broad TBL definition represents a theoretical construct with limited practical relevance (Brandenburg et al., 2014). The research presented here addresses the following question: Why and how do focal companies implement and manage social sustainability in their supply chains? A focal company is the member of the supply chain that provides leadership and exercises the greatest control over supply chain decisions and activities (Cooper and Ellram, 1993). This study makes a contribution to the field of SSCM by responding to the numerous calls to address social sustainability in supply chains (e.g., Ashby et al., 2012; Touboulic and Walker, 2015; Mani et al., 2018), and by providing empirical evidence on why and how focal companies actually implement and manage the social dimension in practice. The research explores these initiatives in the context of emerging economies, where empirical studies investigating drivers and outcomes of social sustainability adoption are still rare (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018). In this context, pressing social problems exist (Yawar and Seuring, 2015) amplified by a higher level of complexity and environmental turbulence (Silvestre, 2015a). This setting is particularly important for studies on supply chain management since in the current globalized economy supply chains often operate in countries where governments and suppliers may have lower social standards than the ones operating in developed countries (Busse, 2016; McCarthy et al., 2013).

This article aims to evaluate whether the enablers top and middle management support and strategic purchasing facilitate the development of sustainable supply chain practices, as well as the effect of the latter on competitive advantage. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was applied to test the proposed model based on a sample from companies operating in Colombia. The main hypotheses of the research were supported, implying that a suitable combination between internal enablers and the adoption of sustainable supply chain practices is important to pursue competitive advantage. However, the hypothesis for the expected effect of environmental practices wasn’t supported, suggesting that there is a win-win perspective between social practices in supply chains and competitive advantage in the context of emerging economies. And the analysis of the non-supported hypothesis is one of the contributions of the article.

Introduction

Currently, businesses and their supply chains are challenged to pursue their objectives and conduct their operations in an increasingly open and unstable world (Winston, 2014). This scenario is particularly demanding when considering stakeholders’ requests for economic, social and environmental performance within focal firms’ supply chains (Seuring and Muller, 2008). These requests are relative to the application of sustainability to supply chains, that is, sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) (Carter and Rogers, 2008). Recent literature suggests that in response to these requests, companies need to develop new specific capabilities (Bowen et al., 2001; Liu et al., 2013; Meixell and Luoma, 2015; Paulraj, 2011; Sarkis, 2012; Shi et al., 2012). The above considerations are particularly important for developing or emerging economies, where SSCM practices and corporate social performance have not been widely addressed by the academic and business communities, in comparison to studies conducted in developed countries (Jabbour et al., 2017; Fahimnia et al., 2015; Kusi-Sarpong and Sarkis, 2017; Mani et al., 2018; Silvestre, 2015a, b). Some of the factors that hinder the adoption of SSCM practices in developing countries are the high complexity and uncertainty of the business environment. In turn, these factors can be associated with institutional voids, corruption, poor infrastructure, poverty, inequality, and informal employment (Silvestre, 2015a). Thus, the study of SSCM in Latin America can address the need for empirical and theoretical work in a context that lacks proper research on the subject (de Morais, 2017, p. 33). In particular, empirical studies of specific enablers and outcomes of social sustainability adoption in developing countries remain rare (Köksal et al., 2018; Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018, p. 150). Consequently, this article aims to evaluate whether two enablers – top and middle management support, and strategic purchasing – facilitate the development of SSCM practices (considered organizational capabilities), as well as the effect of the latter on the CA of focal firms located in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. We intend to achieve these objectives by addressing the following research questions: RQ1: Do top and middle management support and strategic purchasing affect the adoption of SSCM practices in the context of a developing economy? RQ2: Does any competitive advantage accrue for firms that implement social and environmental supply chain management practices in the context of a developing economy?