Managerial Commitment to Sustainable Supply Chain Management Projects

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12073
• Author: Wendy L. Tate,Craig R. Carter,Thomas F. Gattiker,Xiaowen Huang
• Date: 01 December 2014
• Published date: 01 December 2014

Managerial Commitment to Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Projects

Thomas F. Gattiker

1

, Craig R. Carter

2

, Xiaowen Huang

3

, and Wendy L. Tate

4

1

Boise State University

2

Arizona State University

3

Miami University

4

University of Tennessee

Most companies are under pressure to improve the environmental sustainability of their supply chains. However, there is considerable vari-

ance in companies’ability to successfully deploy environmental management projects. One important factor, according to articles in the

academic and business press, is the ability of champions of sustainable supply chain management (SCM) projects within organizations to gain

the commitment of colleagues (e.g., other managers from a variety of functions) to help these projects succeed. Therefore, this paper examines

variables that affect a project champion’s ability to gain this commitment from colleagues. In particular, building on existing research, this

research employs a video-based experimental design to examine the effect of the influence approach that the project champion employs, the

values of the person the champion is trying to influence, and the organizational climate. The results suggest that organizational climate and

certain individual values directly affect commitment. There are also interactions between values and influence tactics. The research adds to the

field’s growing knowledge on the antecedents of sustainable SCM within companies while providing valuable guidance for environmental

champions and for top managers.

Keywords: sustainable supply chain management; commitment; intraorganizational influence theory; laboratory experiment

INTRODUCTION

There is mounting evidence that sustainable supply chain man-

agement (SCM) practices can lead to improved firm performance

(Golicic and Smith 2013). However, managers who champion

sustainable supply chain initiatives are not always successful

when it comes to gaining the organizational commitment needed

to bring these initiatives to fruition. This research explores how

champions of sustainable SCM initiatives can more effectively

gain the buy-in of other managers within their organization.

Using an experimental design, this study assesses the effect of

several potential drivers of managerial commitment to such pro-

jects. Based on intraorganizational influence theory (Kipnis et al.

1980; Yukl and Falbe 1990), the process of gaining managerial

commitment is conceptualized as one or more interpersonal inter-

actions, in which a project champion attempts to gain buy-in

from other managers in the company. The antecedents of com-

mitment under investigation are: the influence approach that the

project champion employs, the values of the person the champion

is trying to influence, and the organizational climate. Specifically,

this study attempts to answer the following research questions,

which we explain in more depth below: What is the effectiveness

of specificinfluence tactics for gaining commitment to sustain-

able SCM projects? Does the efficacy of a particular influence

tactic depend on the values of the manager being influenced—

that is, are some tactics particularly effective with certain types

of people and ineffective with others? What is the effect of the

company climate on the commitment-seeking process?

Many companies are increasing their efforts and expenditures

related to environmental management, both internally and in the

supply chain (Haanaes et al. 2011; Makower 2013) in the hope

of enhancing operational and financial performance (Klassen and

McLaughlin 1996; Carter et al. 2000; Melnyk et al. 2003; Golicic

and Smith 2013; Wong 2013) as well as reducing environmental

impacts (Parmigiani et al. 2011; Pagell and Shevchenko 2014).

However, existing research shows a formidable gap between

companies’desire for sustainable supply chains and what they

are actually doing—and doing effectively. For example, a 2007

AT Kearny/Institute for Supply Management survey found that

only about half of the companies that had a corporate-level sus-

tainability policy had in turn created a more specific sustainabil-

ity policy at the supply management-level (Institute for Supply

Management 2007). In a recent study of the consumer goods sec-

tor, CEOs reported large gaps between “companies should”and

“my company does”responses to a wide range of environmental

initiatives with “embedding sustainability into strategy and opera-

tions of supply chains”having the biggest gap of any of the ini-

tiatives (Environmental Leader 2011). Research based on a series

of focus group interviews of supply management executives in

large firms concludes:

Many companies have ambitious high-level environmental

goals and policies; but, companies have not reached the

point where buyers and other primary contributors have

integrated environmental considerations into day-to-day

decision making. Moreover, supply executives are not con-

fident in their ability to reach this end. (Gattiker et al.

2008, 28)

The same research identifies a lack of buy-in across the com-

pany as one of the key barriers to implementing environmental

management projects.

Corresponding author:

Thomas F. Gattiker, Department of Information Technology and

Supply Chain Management, Boise State University, 1910 University

Drive, Boise, ID 83725, USA; E-mail: TomGattiker@boisestate.edu

Journal of Business Logistics, 2014, 35(4): 318–337 doi: 10.1111/jbl.12073

© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals

Indeed, numerous earlier studies have also found that when it

comes to supply chain-related environmental projects, a key suc-

cess factor is the ability of the project advocate or champion to

gain buy-in or commitment of others in the company (Drum-

wright 1994; Handfield et al. 1997; Crane 2000; Carter and

Jennings 2004; Carter et al. 2007; Willard 2008). Cantor et al.

(2012) show that buy-in explains almost 50% of the variance in

frequency of involvement in environmental behaviors. Buy-in is

especially important in the environmental arena because these

projects are often initiated by individuals who lack the positional

power to mandate others’cooperation (Rabin 2004; Cantor et al.

2013).

Although the ability of a change agent to influence others is

an important issue, only a few studies address how project cham-

pions gain the commitment of colleagues to sustainable SCM

projects. Exploratory (Drumwright 1994; Carter and Dresner

2001) and confirmatory (Gattiker and Carter 2010) studies have

yielded insights regarding the processes by which internal cham-

pions work to advocate environmental initiatives. Nevertheless,

significant gaps within this area remain—both theoretical and

methodological. In the next two subsections, we discuss the need

for additional research and we describe how this paper endeavors

to meet this need.

Theoretical motivation

The commitment-building process includes a number of

elements: (1) the champion or change agent; (2) the individual(s)

whose buy-in the agent seeks (such individuals are referred to as

the influence target(s)); (3) the organizational context in which

the influence attempt takes place; and (4) the issue or project

itself (Kipnis et al. 1980; Yukl and Falbe 1990).Any one of

these factors can affect the degree to which individuals give their

backing and cooperation to projects when such support is

requested. However, existing studies examining why individuals

commit to (or do not commit to) environmental projects focus

heavily on the change agent with much less attention paid to the

other three factors. A systematic understanding of what makes

champions successful necessitates studies that take into account

all four key elements of the influence process—either by includ-

ing them in the research model or by holding them constant. To

this end, our research model examines the influence tactics used

by the project champion, the personal values of the influence tar-

get, and the organizational context, while holding the nature of

the project constant.

To examine the influence tactics used by the champion, we

utilize intraorganizational influence theory (Kipnis et al. 1980;

Yukl and Falbe 1990), which is a well-developed body of

knowledge focusing on how individuals within companies gain

the commitment of others for issues that they are advocating.

Building on existing literature, we focus on two tactics that merit

special consideration when it comes to the natural environment:

legitimating and inspirational appeals.

A second key element is the influence target. The target has

received less research attention than the champion. The target is

half of the champion–target dyad, and, as with buyer–supplier

dyads it is essential to understand both halves (Johnston et al.

2004; Nyaga et al. 2010). Characteristics of the target may affect

the target’s tendency to buy-in to particular issues and/or they

may interact with other antecedents of buy-in. To help fill in

some of the picture, we draw on a well-developed body of litera-

ture (e.g., Stern et al. 1993, 1995, 1998, 1999) from the psychol-

ogy and sociology fields dealing with the relationship between

“pro-environmental behavior”outside the work place (e.g., recy-

cling, signing a petition) and several fundamental individual val-

ues. We extend this inquiry to the workplace by investigating

whether there is a systematic relationship between the degree to

which a target possesses these values and the target’s likelihood

of supporting a supply chain environmental project that a cham-

pion is attempting to advance. We then assess whether the effi-

cacy of various influence approaches that champions can use

depends on the values of the influence target (i.e., do tactics and

values interact?). As champions can often make accurate infer-

ences about colleagues’values from prior interaction or reputa-

tion, understanding whether the efficacy of particular influence

tactics is affected by the target’s values is powerful knowledge

for champions to have.

The third key element is the organizational context in which

the influence process occurs. An organizational climate which is

supportive of organizational learning and employee risk taking

has been found to have particularly strong associations with

environmental initiatives within firms (Carter 2005; Paulraj

2011). Individuals interpret organizational cues, such as signals

from their superiors, to make inferences about whether organiza-

tional support for environmental initiatives exists, and this in turn

affects their willingness to become involved (Cantor et al. 2012).

These findings strongly imply that studies on championing envi-

ronmental projects need to take into account the organizational

context in which the championing occurs. Some organizational

cultures are more supportive of environmental management than

others (Linnenluecke et al. 2009). When organizational contexts

are not supportive of particular issues, involvement in those

issues can be personally risky to employees with respect to their

workplace images (Grant and Mayer 2009). Therefore, the model

incorporates the level of image risk (Ashford 1986; Ashford

et al. 1998; Mullen 2005) inherent in the organizational climate.

Finally, environmental projects are not all alike. They differ

from one another on many dimensions—for example, product

focused versus process focused, structural versus infrastructural,

etc.—and the type of project can affect project success and likeli-

hood of project implementation (Klassen and Whybark 1999;

Orsato 2006; Tate et al. 2011). Research using influence theory

has demonstrated that project characteristics can affect the likeli-

hood of target commitment to the project (Kipnis and Schmidt

1985; Yukl et al. 1996). Earlier studies on gaining commitment

for environmental projects have not controlled for the nature of

the project, thus allowing an important source of unexplained

variance. To guard against this possibility, our model controls

for the type of project by holding this variable constant—that is,

we focus on one type of pressing environmental initiative.

Methodological motivation

Sustainable SCM research has relied on field studies (case study

and survey methodologies), thus creating an additional blind spot

—methodological homogeneity. However, researchers as a

Managerial Commitment to Sustainable SCM 319