Abstract
In recent years, the interest in sustainable supply chain management has increased significantly in both business and academic areas. This is reflected in the growing number of articles, conferences, special publications and websites devoted to the subject. Nonetheless, sustainable development in emerging economies just started gaining importance. The objective of this article is to review, from a global perspective, the existing literature regarding sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in emerging economies. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was performed, analyzing 56 articles from the year 2010 to April 2020 from a descriptive and content approach. Subsequently, the results are presented, showing the increasing interest in SSCM, however lagging behind in emerging economies’ research versus developed ones. Findings indicate the context in developing countries plays an important role when conducting empirical or case study investigations. Additionally, the integration of the three dimensions of sustainability and how they impact supply chain performance becomes crucial to research from an emerging economy perspective. Consequently, limitations of this work are presented, and opportunities are identified for future lines of research, in particular in key supply chain functions. Finally, the conclusion confirms the need for further research from different supply chain viewpoints, such as collaboration, sustainable practices innovation, sourcing and supplier development from emerging countries’ standpoint and background.
Highlights
Nowadays, organizations are under pressure to demonstrate sustainable development in their operations, and these demands are coming from consumers, government, media, investors and stakeholders [1,2,3,4]
Research on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in emerging economies has begun and advanced in the last years, it is still in its infancy when compared to research on developed countries
It can be concluded that there is a trend to develop and search for integrating the supply chain and its sustainable practices in emerging economies, there are opportunities for research on this subject which is still at its early period of research. Topics such as: collaboration of emerging economies as an essential part of the supply chain; sustainable practices innovation within an emerging market context; sourcing and supplier development in developing countries; and even research on methodologies being used for analysis, comprise some of the new perspectives for study on SSCM in emerging economies
Summary
Organizations are under pressure to demonstrate sustainable development in their operations, and these demands are coming from consumers, government, media, investors and stakeholders [1,2,3,4]. It is becoming clear that a traditional approach towards operations is not sustainable, and organizations must adapt their processes to comply with regulations and achieve sustainability [5] This has resulted in companies being identified as a means to facilitate the implementation of sustainable practices [6], besides the need to meet the interests of stakeholders and generate competitive advantage for their business [7]. Authors like Carter and Rogers [14], Seuring and Müller [15], and Ahi and Searcy [16], have defined SSCM and converged on the importance of integrating sustainable development initiatives with supply chain management (SCM) for present and future improvements of organizations. These definitions help in understanding the concept, which includes environmental aspects, and economic and social ones
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