Sustainability In Global Supply Chains Research Articles

Stability And Risk Management of Global Supply Chains in Foreign Trade Economy

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the key role of global supply chain stability in the international trade economy and the core role of efficient risk management in this process. Driven by the wave of globalization, supply chains have become a key link connecting the economies of various countries. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the current status of global supply chains and an in-depth exploration of the many factors affecting supply chain stability, including supplier reliability, logistics system efficiency, demand forecast accuracy, and inventory management effectiveness. It further delves into many aspects of supply chain risk management, including risk identification, assessment, mitigation and monitoring. Analyze and formulate contingency plans for emergencies as well as regular monitoring and evaluation strategies and measures to improve the effectiveness and value of risk management. Finally, this study emphasizes the importance of supply chain stability and efficient risk management in the global foreign trade economic system, and provides suggestions for future research directions and possible improvement strategies. This research has far-reaching significance for enhancing the transparency, resilience and sustainability of global supply chains, and is crucial to the stable development of the global economy.

Stringent sustainability regulations for global supply chains are supported across middle-income democracies

Expanded international trade and globalised production networks are increasing the environmental and social impacts in middle-income countries (GNI per capita $1,136-$13,845). High-income countries (>$13,845) are seeking to mitigate the negative impacts of domestic consumption by imposing new sustainability regulations on global supply chains. Recent evidence suggests that these regulations are broadly supported across high-income countries. However, it remains unclear whether citizens of middle-income countries support aligning domestic sustainability regulations with the measures developed by high-income countries. Concerns about economic competitiveness and foreign imposition could increase public resistance toward such alignment. Alternatively, desires for continued market access in high-income countries and aspirations for strengthening local environmental and labour regulations could foster support for alignment. Based on survey-embedded experiments in the three largest democratic non-OECD economies (Brazil, India, Indonesia), we find surprisingly strong support for domestic-based measures that are aligned with emerging global supply chain sustainability regulations. Our findings suggest that support is largely driven by positive impact expectations, where the future benefits of alignment are perceived as outweighing concerns about increased costs. These results bode well for initiatives to install stricter sustainability regulations for global supply chains that are acceptable not only in high-income economies but also in non-OECD countries.

How Digital Thrift Shops Escalate Global Supply Chain Sustainability in Indonesia

The intentions of the research were to explore and analyze youngsters’ behavior toward digital shopping in particular their awareness of clothing sustainability. The research also reconfirms the trends that the latest generations were able to contribute to green business sustainability in particular the way they spend on clothing and its accessories. The shopping was done digitally through youngsters’ social media networks and they simply endorse it in their feed and timeline to let their networks know what they had done related to clothing style and where they could buy it, and even they could exchange it with each other to seek the experiences. The data were collected from major forwarder logistics, transporters and couriers specifically delivered the thrift shops’ products within capital cities in Indonesia. Considering it was a new trend, the quantity was not as massive as the products shopped from the first official stores in the marketplace or e-commerce. Nevertheless, the trends were growing each month in 2022 with a growth of between 12% and 19% each month in 2022. The trends would continue growing as well as the sustainability both in clothing and supply chains.

How Digital Thrift Shops Escalate Global Supply Chain Sustainability in Indonesia

The intentions of the research were to explore and analyze youngsters’ behavior toward digital shopping in particular their awareness of clothing sustainability. The research also reconfirms the trends that the latest generations were able to contribute to green business sustainability in particular the way they spend on clothing and its accessories. The shopping was done digitally through youngsters’ social media networks and they simply endorse it in their feed and timeline to let their networks know what they had done related to clothing style and where they could buy it, and even they could exchange it with each other to seek the experiences. The data were collected from major forwarder logistics, transporters and couriers specifically delivered the thrift shops’ products within capital cities in Indonesia. Considering it was a new trend, the quantity was not as massive as the products shopped from the first official stores in the marketplace or e-commerce. Nevertheless, the trends were growing each month in 2022 with a growth of between 12% and 19% each month in 2022. The trends would continue growing as well as the sustainability both in clothing and supply chains.

Guest editorial: The social sustainability of global supply chains – a critical perspective on current practices and its transformative potential

Guest editorial: The social sustainability of global supply chains – a critical perspective on current practices and its transformative potential

Social Life Cycle Analysis of Textile Industry Impacts for Greater Social Sustainability of Global Supply Chains

Solutions will be effective if they are aligned with the problems that they are trying to solve. This paper studied the most relevant social impacts of the textile industry and how appropriately textile companies manage these social impacts, in order to achieve greater social sustainability in global supply chains. Therefore, we attempted to determine whether companies belonging to the textile product lifecycle identify and manage social impacts in keeping with the most relevant social hotspots in the supply chain of the textile industry. A consistency analysis was conducted based on the management of social indicators at the company level (identified through the analysis of contents of their sustainability reporting) connected with social impact categories defined in the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of products provided by the United Nations Environment Programme, and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and on the technical results obtained by the textile sector through the Social Hotspots Database. The results showed a predominant inconsistency between the main social hotspots of the textile industry showed in the footprint analysis and the social indicators specifically reported by the sector. This paper contributes to the literature about what sustainability management implies along global supply chains, emphasizing the need to advance in a consistent and science-based integration of social hotspots at the sectoral level and social management practices at the company level. In addition, the study could be relevant for companies belonging to complex and global supply chains, since it contributes towards enhancing the knowledge of science-based methodologies, as social life cycle assessments, for identifying, managing, and reporting their social hotspots.

Retail Firm Social Compliance Integration as a Precondition for Supply Chain Effectiveness

Global supply chains research has shown that advanced economy retail firms using codes of conduct to enforce suppliers’ compliance with labor standards has had limited effects on working conditions in developing economies. However, it is not known whether the management and organizational context within the retail firm itself may be responsible for their ineffective social compliance enforcement. In fact, recent evidence suggests that retailers’ social compliance enforcement may be undermined by conflicting demands originating from siloed functions within the retail firm. We adopt a management and organizations perspective to describe social compliance integration among supplier-facing functional units within the retail firm as a prerequisite for effective social compliance enforcement and subsequently for supply chain effectiveness and social responsibility. We develop a theoretical framework that defines the cross-functional components of social compliance integration and its organizational determinants, and explains how it creates more effective and responsible supply chains. Our work uncovers necessary organizational conditions for the effectiveness and sustainability of global supply chains, emphasizes the importance of cross-functional coordination in the management of an organization’s business ecosystem, and explains how socially conscious organizations can minimize decoupling of non-financial sustainability goals.

Understanding the dynamics of global supply chain sustainability initiatives: The role of institutional distance from the buyer's perspective

Research points to sustainable supply chain management as a core strategic goal for most global firms. However, managers continue to struggle with implementing successful sustainability initiatives both internally and throughout their globally dispersed supply chains. Using grounded theory, our findings uncover a potential explanation for how firms manage sustainability initiatives in the context of global supply chain management, from a buyer's perspective. Institutional theory of the firm is applied to help explain the challenges of developing and implementing global supply chain sustainability-related initiatives within buyer-supplier relationships. Analysis of the data from qualitative interviews show that institutional distance is an influential factor that produces mixed effects on the global buyer-supplier relationships in our sample in the context of buyer and supplier strategic orientation toward sustainability. The findings can help guide managers when approaching sustainability-related initiatives in the context of global supply chains. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed as well as areas for future research.

Combatting illegal fishing through transparency initiatives : Lessons learned from comparative analysis of transparency initiatives in seafood, apparel, extractive, and timber supply chains

Over the last two decades, efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing have led to an expansion of initiatives to enhance transparency across the seafood industry through international agreements, national government regulations, and voluntary private initiatives. Understanding of the effects of these initiatives remains limited, and approaches contested among stakeholders. Yet similar transparency initiatives introduced in recent decades across other sectors whose goal is to expand sustainability in global supply chains, may offer applicable lessons for seafood sustainability. Through a comparative review of transparency initiatives adopted in apparel, extractives, and timber supply chains, this study draws out lessons to inform efforts to expand transparency in seafood supply chains in order to combat illegal fishing. Across the literature reviewed on these three industries and seafood, there was mixed consensus that the initiatives met their intended sustainability goals or significantly affected costs and revenues, based on the evidence available. The review finds a trend across the three industries for increased transparency initiatives in international supply chains, which are often voluntary or state-based initiatives. This trend was commonly motivated by expanded trade and reputational risks from consumer demand, and external pressure from civil society. Transparency initiatives were often driven by governments, lead firms, and markets from developed countries. Conversely the resources and/or producers targeted by the transparency activities have been more widely dispersed worldwide, with many located in developing countries. Comparing across the sectors, lessons learned are distilled to inform efforts aiming to expand transparency in seafood supply chains.

Sustainability in Global Supply Chains Under the CISG

Sustainability in Global Supply Chains Under the CISG

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Female Workers’ Social Sustainability in Global Supply Chains

This review article investigates the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on female workers in the global supply chain context. To this end, we reviewed and critically examined emerging scholarly literature as well as policy documents and reports published by international development organizations concerning female workers’ social sustainability, livelihood, and health and wellbeing issues in global supply chain operations. Thus, this article focuses on female workers’ issues in emerging and developing economies where the ongoing pandemic continues to devastate and create multidimensional social and economic challenges for the wellbeing and social sustainability of female workers. Our analysis suggests that female workers are facing serious socioeconomic challenges that continue to affect their wellbeing, mental health, and livelihoods. Accordingly, it is imperative that international development organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), trade associations, governments, and most importantly the corporate sector not only consider individual responsibility for promoting female workforce social sustainability in global supply chains but also actively collaborate to address pressing social sustainability issues vis à vis female workers. Building on these findings, the implications for future research, practice, and policies are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic, social sustainability and global supply chain resilience: a review

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on global supply chain sustainability and provide an important pathway to develop an initial understanding of how organizations can develop more resilient and socially sustainable supply chains in a post-COVID world. Design/methodology/approach To gain fresh insights on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain social sustainability and resilience issues, an extensive literature review was conducted. To this end, recent scholarly research articles, articles from practitioner journals, magazine articles and policy documents and reports, as well as blogs and briefings published by international organizations were critically reviewed. Findings The findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with a major shake-up of global supply chain operations and has contributed to varied sustainability outcomes. While the pandemic caused reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, it has had serious social implications for the livelihoods and well-being of workers and their families. The findings further suggested that it is imperative for companies to build resilience in their global supply chain operations to better respond to future shocks and disruptions by adopting strategies such as employee protection schemes, advanced digital technologies, diversification, localization and regionalization and stakeholder collaboration. Originality/value This review paper contributes to emerging global supply chain sustainability literature and practice by synthesizing and explicating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain social sustainability and resilience. In addition, this paper offers some practical recommendations to enhance the social sustainability impacts and resilience of global supply chains in a post-COVID world.

How to govern a sustainable supply chain: Standards, standardizers, and the political ecology of (in)advertence

There is an ambivalence within political ecology about whether the unequal power relations that emerge from many development projects are intended or unintended. This ambivalence is a result of an empirical focus on the effects of these programs on target communities, as opposed to an empirical focus on the people who are responsible for developing those programs. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork among people tasked with designing, promoting, and enforcing sustainability standards in global agricultural supply chains, I argue that the empowerment of multinational corporations and well-funded environmental NGOs that characterizes market-oriented sustainability programs is, in fact, intentional. This intention reflects the belief among sustainability professionals that the intersection of western scientific expertise with the dynamics of “the market” is the most effective way to promote sustainability in global supply chains, and to generate global sustainability in a more general sense. Concepts like “stakeholder engagement” and a commitment to flexibility and accommodation in the development and adoption of social and environmental standards are examples of what I call euphemistic sustainability, which shifts critical attention away from a balance of power that is increasingly tilted toward private interests, even as that imbalance remains an intended outcome of non-state market-driven governance systems like ostensibly voluntary sustainability standards.

Balancing cybersecurity in a supply chain under direct and indirect cyber risks

Cybersecurity is an essential requirement for the sustainability of global supply chains. In this paper, a stochastic programming formulation is presented for optimisation of cybersecurity investment and selection of security controls to mitigate and balance the impact of direct and indirect (propagated) cyber risks in a multi-tier supply chain. Using a network transformation combined with the first-order Taylor series approximation of natural logarithm to linearise the nonlinear constraints, a nonlinear stochastic combinatorial optimisation model is approximated by its linear equivalent. The problem objective is to determine an optimal cybersecurity investment under limited budget and portfolio of security controls for each supply chain node to balance the cybersecurity over the entire supply chain. The minmax objective functions are applied to minimise either the maximum breach probability or the maximum loss of supply chain nodes. Alternatively, maxmin objectives are used to maximise either the minimum non-breach probability or the minimum saving of loss. The proposed integrated modelling approach is illustrated with results of computational study and a comparison of approximated and exact solution values is presented. The decision-making insights are provided and discussed.

Challenges in Managing Interorganizational Relationships

The advantages of interorganizational relationships have received ample attention, but prior research has paid much less attention to the challenges in managing these relationships and how managers might overcome these challenges. This symposium thus aims at advancing the debate about a number of challenges related to integrity issues (e.g., opportunism) as well as ability issues (e.g., bounded rationality) in managing interorganizational relationships. It includes five studies that examine conceptual and empirical issues across a range of industries, levels of analysis, theories, and research methods. The discussant, Ed Zajac, will comment on the state-of-the-art in research about the challenges in interorganizational relationships, and suggest directions for future research. The team of contributors will highlight opportunities for empirical and conceptual contributions about the challenges in managing interorganizational relationships. Understanding these challenges supports managers in leveraging interorganizational relationships to address grand challenges (e.g., sustainability in global supply chains). Burn Me Once: Governance Changes Following Contract Violations Presenter: Kyle J. Mayer; U. of Southern California Presenter: Medha Raj; U. of Southern California Presenter: Beverly Rich; U. of Southern California Stick Together or Break Apart: Unplanned Alliance Dissolution in Light of Adverse Events Presenter: Olga Bruyaka; West Virginia U. Presenter: Gulnara Zaynutdinova; West Virginia U. Presenter: Miles A. Zachary; Auburn U. Eliciting Carbon Transparency in Supply Chains Presenter: Veronica Haydee Villena; Pennsylvania State U. Robustness and Resilience of Informational Networks in Organizations Presenter: Maxim Sytch; U. of Michigan Presenter: Mijeong Kwon; U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor The Role of Strategy in Orchestrating Execution-Oriented Projects Presenter: Nuno Oliveira; Tilburg U. Presenter: Nicholas Argyres; Washington U. in St. Louis Presenter: Fabrice Lumineau; Purdue U.

Game—Rolling the Dice on Global Supply Chain Sustainability: A Total Cost of Ownership Simulation

Sustainability in management education is a potential solution to societal challenges, influencing students’ worldviews and attitudes to contribute to a more profound social change. Through this innovative dice-based classroom simulation, students are exposed to supply chain sustainability, total cost of ownership (TCO), and risk management while also understanding their linkages through effective instructor debrief. Student teams compete by selecting sourcing options such as supplier location, transportation methods, and sustainability reputation from a menu, then see how their decisions fare as the product-line life cycle is simulated with a dice. The debrief facilitated by the instructor compares and contrasts results across the teams, generating insights into the interrelationships between supply chain sustainability choices, TCO, and risk management. Successfully conducted by multiple instructors, in multiple countries, and across all levels of management education (undergraduate, master of science, and executive master of business administration), survey results (n = 350) plus a pilot study (n = 31) confirm that this dice-based simulation accomplishes multiple learning objectives while also providing a highly engaging experiential learning classroom environment for this sample.

From Suspicion to Sustainability in Global Supply Chains

Global supply chains power 80% of world trade, but also host widespread environmental, labor, and human rights abuses in developing countries. Most scholarship focuses on some form of sanction to motivate supply chain members, but we propose that the fundamental problem is not insufficient punishment, but a lack of trust. Fickle tastes, incessant demands for lower prices, and spot market indifference force suppliers into a constant struggle for economic survival. No trust can grow in such an environment, and few sustainability practices can take meaningful root. Responding to multiple calls for scholarship in the supply chain literature, we propose a trust-building process by which supply chains can evolve from indifference and hostility to a relational partnership that produces joint investments in sustainable practices. The result is a supply chain that is more efficient, more humane, and embeds sustainability in the supply chain for the long-term.

Strategizing Nature in Cross-Sector Partnerships: Can Plantation Revitalization Enable Living Wages?

Strengthening sustainability in global supply chains requires producers, buyers, and nonprofit organizations to collaborate in transformative cross-sector partnerships (CSPs). However, the role played by nature in such partnerships has been left largely unattended in literature on CSPs. This article shows how strategizing nature helps CSPs reach their transformative potential. Strategizing nature entails the progressive revealing and reconciling of temporal tensions between “plants, profits, and people.” We show how a CSP took a parallel approach—recognizing the divergent temporalities of plants, people, and profits as interlaced and mutually determined—toward realizing their objective of implementing living wages in a sub-Saharan African country’s the tea industry, simultaneously driven by the revitalization of tea plantations. The promise of better quality tea leaves allowed partners to take a “leap of faith” and to tackle pressing issues before the market would follow. Our findings thus show the potential of CSPs in driving regenerative organizing.

The Invisible Side of Managing Sustainability in Global Supply Chains: Evidence from Multitier Apparel Suppliers

Supply chain scholars, industry leaders, and policy makers have begun to recognize the importance of managing sustainability in global extended supply chains. However, scant attention has been paid to investigating the implementation of sustainable supply management practices from the perspective of multitier suppliers located in challenging institutional contexts. Drawing on institutional theory, this qualitative study examines how institutional pressures, mechanisms, and challenges influence the sustainability implementation of a developing country’s multitier apparel suppliers. The study not only captures the viewpoints of 46 owner–managers across 33 multitier suppliers, but also provides complementary evidence from a wide range of institutional actors. The findings show that first‐tier and second‐tier suppliers experience more collective coercive pressures than mimetic and normative pressures toward sustainability implementation. However, only coercive pressure from second‐tier suppliers influences third‐tier suppliers’ sustainability implementation. The identified key collective coercive pressures were stemming from the selection and assessment requirements of direct buyers, followed by third‐party auditors, governments, and newly emerged collective buyers’ consortia. Finally, building on empirical findings, this study presents a framework and research propositions for understanding the diffusion of sustainability to multitier suppliers.

Business-to-Business Conflicts and Environmental Governance in Global Supply Chains

Among the governance innovations to improve environmental sustainability of global supply chains, collaborative initiatives receive the most attention. While collaborative initiatives can be an eff...