Adopting and Extending Social Sustainability Practices across the Supply Chain.

• Author: Najjar, Mohammad

INTRODUCTION

Sustainable supply chain management focuses on the management of operations and activities in the supply chain, paying particular emphasis on how all elements of the supply chain interact with the external environment and society (Carter & Jennings, 2002); Marshall, McCarthy, Heavey, & McGrath, 2015; Najjar, Shahwan, & Yasin, 2017). To achieve sustainability, it is important for the management and stakeholders of businesses to observe and promote not only their own sustainable operations, but also the sustainability of operations of all of their partners in the supply chain to ensure that any potential negative effects on society and the environment are eliminated or mitigated. To achieve this end, businesses must be willing to facilitate and encourage the sustainability practices of their suppliers and customers.

The real need for sustainable supply chain management adds another layer to the already complex nature of managing the various components of a multi-echelon supply chain. Business organizations have utilized different approaches to ensure acquiescence to proper social sustainability practices. But there are considerable challenges facing these organizations in achieving this end, including: a) the distribution of global suppliers, especially those in developing countries; b) the size and influential power of suppliers; c) the visibility of the supply chain; and d) the pressure exerted by different stakeholder groups (Cramer, 2008; Jiang, 2009; Awaysheh & Klassen, 2010; Ciliberti, de Haan, de Groot, & Pontrandolfo, 2011; Wu & Pagell, 2011; Walker & Jones, 2012).

For the reasons mentioned above, sustainable supply chain management has added an important stream to research on supply chain management. Limited attention is given to the role of suppliers in ensuring the sustainability practices of their buyers (Nakamba, Chan, & Sharmina, 2017, Klassen & Vereecke, 2012). There has also been a dearth of research on sustainability practices of suppliers located in developing countries (Mani, Gunasekaran, Papadopoulos, Hazen, & Dubey, 2016; Koksal, Strahle, Muller, & Freise, 2017). Moreover, there are still substantial research areas that need to be addressed to investigate how organizations seek to promote and manage social sustainability, both internally and across their downstream supply chain.

Consequently, the objective of this research study is to explore how business organizations adopt and extend social sustainability across the supply chain. We seek to answer the following research questions from a supplier perspective: What are the different social sustainability practices fostered by suppliers to meet their buying organizations' sustainability requirements and expectations? What are the specific factors that influence the adoption of social sustainability practices?

This research study makes several contributions to the growing literature on supply chain sustainability. Firstly, drawing on prior sustainable supply chain management literature, we identify various supply chain sustainability practices and the extent to which these practices have been adopted. Secondly, as suggested by Yin (2009) and Klassen and Vereecke (2012), we adopt a field-based case research study to explore the different driving forces and factors that influence the adoption of social sustainability across the supply chain. Finally, as a consequence of the findings from both the literature and the case studies, we propose a framework for approaching the management of social sustainability in the supply chain.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Our research study focuses on the social rather than economic dimension of sustainability. Consequently, we investigate two themes in the literature. The first theme focuses on the definition of sustainable supply chain management and explores the forces driving the adoption of social sustainability. The second theme focuses on an investigation of different practices identified in the literature and utilized by business organizations to extend social sustainability across the supply chain.

Sustainable Supply Chain Management

The discussion on sustainability across the supply chain is driven by the notion that suppliers' performance should be evaluated not only by economic measures, but also the impact of suppliers' actions and operations on the social and environmental ecosystem (Elkington, 1998; Pagell & Wu, 2009). In the operations management literature, sustainability has been operationalized using the "Triple Bottom Line (TBL)" concept (Elkington, 1998), making environmental, social, and economic dimensions a focus of attention. In fact, the TBL suggests that at the intersection of social, environmental, and economic dimensions, a business organization can commit itself to a set of activities that will positively affect the environment and society, while resulting in its own long-term competitive advantage (Carter & Easton, 2011; Carter & Rogers, 2008).

Sustainable supply chain management is defined as "management of material and information, as well as cooperation among companies along the supply chain, while taking goals from all three dimensions of sustainable development, i.e., economic, environmental, and social, into account which are derived from customer and stakeholder requirements" (Seuring & Muller, 2008, p. 1700). Many business organizations have started to adopt and extend social sustainability across the supply chain in order to protect their reputation and gain competitive advantage in their industry (Amaeshi, Osuji, & Nnodim, 2008; Carter & Rogers, 2008; Salam, 2009; Koksal et al., 2017).

Although customer pressure has been a major driving force for the adoption of social sustainability, an extended set of drivers has recently been identified (Sarkis, Gonzalez-Torre, & Adenso-Diaz, 2010; Foster Jr., Wallin, & Ogden, 2011; Sarkis, Zhu, & Lai, 2011). Several international conventions (e.g., the UN Global Compact) have evolved to protect against violations of human rights. Furthermore, European countries have commenced diverse initiatives and developed new laws and regulations (e.g., related HSE: Health, Safety, and Environment) to ensure appropriate social and environmental practices (Salam, 2009; Tang & Zhou, 2012). Likewise, some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are focused on promoting and monitoring social sustainability practices in business (Campbell, 2007). Although, several research papers have investigated the different stakeholder groups, there is still a lack of research that investigates not only how they influence organizations, but also the extent of their influence, taking into account different perspectives, for example, the differing perspectives of developing vs. developed countries.

MANAGING SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN

In the sustainable supply chain management context, business organizations seek to improve their supply chain performance and efficiency, while at the same time examining the impact of suppliers' activities on workers and the surrounding society. Therefore...