Purpose – The authors perform a large‐scale literature review and use conceptual theory building to introduce the concept of sustainability to the field of supply chain management and demonstrate the relationships among environmental, social, and economic performance within a supply chain management context.Design/methodology/approach – Conceptual theory building is used to develop a framework and propositions representing a middle theory of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM).Findings – The authors introduce the concept of sustainability – the integration of environmental, social, and economic criteria that allow an organization to achieve long‐term economic viability – to the logistics literature, and position sustainability within the broader rubric of SSCM. They then present a framework of SSCM and develop research propositions based on resource dependence theory, transaction cost economics, population ecology, and the resource‐based view of the firm. The authors conclude by discussing manageri...

A framework of sustainable supply chain management: moving toward new theory

Globalisation of supply chains makes their management and control more difficult. Blockchain technology, as a distributed digital ledger technology which ensures transparency, traceability, and sec...

Blockchain technology and its relationships to sustainable supply chain management

Supply chain collaboration: Impact on collaborative advantage and firm performance

Purpose – In the emerging disciplines of risk management and supply chain management, resilience is a relatively undefined concept. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated perspective on resilience through an extensive review of the literature in a number of disciplines including developmental psychology and ecosystems. In addition, the paper identifies and addresses some of the current theoretical gaps in the existing research.Design/methodology/approach – Supply chain resilience has been defined by a number of disciplines. An integrative literature review is conducted in an attempt to integrate existing perspectives. This review also serves as the basis for the development of a conceptual model.Findings – The key elements of supply chain resilience and the relationships among them, the links between risks and implications for supply chain management, and the methodologies for managing these key issues are poorly understood. Implications for future research advocate testing the proposed mod...

Understanding the concept of supply chain resilience

The search for a relation between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria and corporate financial performance (CFP) can be traced back to the beginning of the 1970s. Scholars and investors have published more than 2000 empirical studies and several review studies on this relation since then. The largest previous review study analyzes just a fraction of existing primary studies, making findings difficult to generalize. Thus, knowledge on the financial effects of ESG criteria remains fragmented. To overcome this shortcoming, this study extracts all provided primary and secondary data of previous academic review studies. Through doing this, the study combines the findings of about 2200 individual studies. Hence, this study is by far the most exhaustive overview of academic research on this topic and allows for generalizable statements. The results show that the business case for ESG investing is empirically very well founded. Roughly 90% of studies find a nonnegative ESG–CFP relation. More impor...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/20430795.2015.1118917

ESG and financial performance: aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies

A management construct cannot be used effectively by practitioners and researchers if a common agreement on its definition is lacking. Such is the case with the term “supply chain management”—so many definitions are used that there is little consensus on what it means. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the existing research in an effort to understand the concept of “supply chain management.” Various definitions of SCM and “supply chain” are reviewed, categorized, and synthesized. Definitions of supporting constructs of SCM and a framework are then offered to establish a consistent means to conceptualize SCM. Antecedents and consequences of SCM are identified, and the boundaries of SCM in terms of business functions and organizations are proposed. A conceptual model and unified definition of SCM are then presented that indicate the nature, antecedents, and consequences of the phenomena.

Defining supply chain management

Studies linking environmental sustainability to firm performance have been increasing as more companies are contemplating the implementation of sustainable practices internally and in coordination with other firms along their supply chains. However, findings from these studies have found positive and negative associations, leaving practitioners perplexed as to what actions would be beneficial to pursue. With hypotheses grounded in the natural resource–based view of the firm, the current study examines over 20 years of research on environmental supply chain practices using a meta-analysis to determine whether the overall effect of these specific practices on firm performance is, in fact, positive. The results show that the link between environmental supply chain practices and market-based, operational-based and accounting-based forms of firm performance is positive and significant, providing support for the business case that sustainable supply chain management results in increased firm performance. Different operationalizations of supply chain practices — upstream, design, production and downstream — along with industry, sample region, firm size and time are examined as moderators of this relationship with nuanced results that help to extend the discipline's understanding of the relationship between environmentally sustainable supply chain management and firm performance.

Carlo D. Smith

Papers

Defining supply chain management

A Meta‐Analysis of Environmentally Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices and Firm Performance

Defining Supply Chain Management: In the Past, Present, and Future

Conducting a sales forecasting audit

Seven keys to better forecasting