Traversing between the arcs of environmental collaboration: Implications for dyadic environmental performance

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That environmental sustainability is an important ethical issue for firms is an irrefutable fact. Proactive firms are increasingly tackling environmental problems through environmental collaboration with supply chain partners. Going above and beyond the current environmental expectations and collaboratively engaging in sustainability initiatives with partners signals the highest ethical standard of a firm. Additionally, product design that incorporates sustainability concerns is also a key step in this direction. Therefore, drawing on the well-known “arcs of integration” framework, the different configurations of supply chain environmental collaboration and their effect on dyadic environmental performance are investigated. Subsequently, we also assess the moderating effect of product stewardship on this relationship. We argue that dyadic environmental performance will be different across the five different configurations of supply chain environmental collaboration. Our results indicate that outward-facing environmental collaboration performs the best regardless of the level of product stewardship. Interestingly, a higher level of product stewardship requires a deeper environmental collaboration with suppliers rather than customers when it comes to dyadic environmental performance.