Impediments to Social Sustainability Adoption in the Supply Chain: An ISM and MICMAC Analysis in Indian Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

Although sustainability and its adoption have been talked about for many years, attention to social sustainability in the literature as well as practice has been rather limited. In the developing countries, glaring social issues, such as inequality, poor living conditions, child and bonded labour, inappropriate wages and gender discrimination, combined with increased stakeholder awareness, are exerting pressure on the corporates for social sustainability. This research identifies the social sustainability barriers and their inter-relationships, so as to determine the practices that can lead to the adoption of social sustainability in the supply chain of manufacturing industries. The barriers to social sustainability have been identified through an extensive literature review and their relevance has been ascertained through a questionnaire survey and interviews with the experts. The interpretive structural modelling approach has been used to model the contextual relationships among the barriers. The findings show that lack of pressure from the employees’ unions, with high driving power and low dependence, leads at the bottom of the digraph. Lack of pressure by stakeholders occupies the second level, while lack of customer requirements, lack of pressure from social organisations and lack of zeal on the part of the skilful policy entrepreneurs are positioned at the middle level. The fourth level is occupied by lack of social concern and inadequate competitive pressure, while at the top of the digraph come lack of regulatory compliance and lack of awareness of social sustainability. The model has been developed based on the opinions of the academics and industry experts, yielding a hierarchical structure of the social barriers and their interrelationships, which is expected to help the supply chain practitioners and policy makers to address the problems in the adoption of social sustainability in manufacturing supply chain.