Study and Identification of Factors Effective on Sustainability of Supply Chain in Industries of Iran by Applying Meta-Synthesis and Delphi Methods

Abstract

In recent years, the importance of supply chains has been stressed, because only the concentration of the economic performance for optimizing the costs or capital return cannot ensure the development and sustainability of businesses. The management of sustainable supply chain has been created to emphasize on the importance of social and environmental concerns along with the economic factors in planning the supply chain. The present research aims to recognize and study the indexes effective on the supply chain sustainability; for this purpose, the qualitative and quantitative methods were applied. At first, the qualitative data were extracted by the use of the meta-synthesis method and then, the quantitative data were collected by using the connoisseurs’ opinions and Delphi method. In this research, the procedure of researches done during 15 years in case of supply chain sustainability was studied and 26 factors effective on this matter were recognized. The present research is novel in terms of identification of indexes and dimensions of a sustainable supply chain that, for the first time, the qualitative meta-synthesis and Delphi methods were applied. The results reveal that the efficiency of using the recourses, competitive advantage, product quality, product maintenance in life circle, profitability, market share and reduction of costs of economic group and also the social responsibilities of company, business transparency, and the beneficiaries’ coordination with the social group with very near scores have the most importance and effect on the sustainability. The costumers’ satisfaction, production flexibility, capital return speed, logistic optimization, and suppliers are of the economic group and the environmental management system, designing consistent with the environment are of the environmental group. Furthermore, respecting the rights and equality among the employees and public awareness are of the social group and ultimately, bounding to social disciplines and norms are of social group and the reduction of greenhouse gasses emission, wastes, and environmental standards were of the environmental group.