Measuring sustainability of suppliers: Strategies for competing institutional logics

Abstract

While the growing literature has examined the strategies of buyers to ensure the sustainability of suppliers, the underlying theoretical dynamics and measurement of such strategies have been overlooked. Drawing on institutional logics perspective, this study develops and tests a measurement model of sustainable supply chain strategies. The study identifies three theoretically-driven strategies as performance-oriented strategy for commercial logic, risk avoidance-oriented strategy for public logic, and collaboration-oriented strategy for social-welfare logic. Then, a measurement construct is developed through the review of extant literature and corporate practices as well as using the findings of a semi-structured interview with 21 managers in nine suppliers. The construct is tested based on a survey data drawn from a sample of 131 suppliers of Western companies in Turkey. The analysis confirms a three-dimensional measurement model. Considering the importance of knowing how to strategically approach a supplier to ensure its sustainability, both scholars and managers can use this model to investigate the implications of formulation and implementation of diverse sustainability strategies at supply chain context.