Purpose
Companies are increasingly challenged by sustainability-related supply chain risks. Research has developed linking supply chain sustainability priorities, practices and triple bottom line ...performance; however, risk is rarely included in these models. The purpose of this paper is to understand the link between sustainable supply chain strategies, practices and performance, and to test the importance of risk management practices in this relationship focusing on the product category level.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper includes a survey of supply managers in four countries with 305 responses, with a focus on upstream supply chain strategies at the product category level.
Findings
The environmental and social sustainability strategies lead to sustainable supply sustainable performance, through focused practices in either area, but the effect on operational and cost performance is not significant. Social supply chain strategies positively impact environmental and cost performance when mediated by risk assessment practices.
Originality/value
This paper shows a more nuanced view of the impact of supply chain practices on the strategy–performance link. It is one of the first papers to empirically test the role of risk practices in sustainable supply chain management and emphasize the importance of alignment across the main dimensions of sustainability to achieve positive sustainable performance outcomes, but not necessarily cost and operational performance. Unlike other studies, social sustainability priorities may positively impact environmental and social performance and is linked to cost advantage when implemented with risk assessment practices.
Circular modes of production, known as the circular economy, are welcomed in political and business circles to overcome the shortcomings of traditional linear operating models. This article presents ...preliminary propositions concerning implications for the development of what we term 'circular supply chains', defined here as the embodiment of circular economy principles within supply chain management. Our propositions are based on the following arguments: a shift from product ownership to leasing and access in supply chain relationships; the relevance of structural flexibility and start-ups in regional or local loops; open and closed material loops in technical and biological cycles; closer collaboration within and beyond immediate industry boundaries and public and private procurement in the service industry as a lever for the scaling up of circular business models. We discuss what these circular economy principles mean in terms of supply chain challenges and conclude with limitations and future research agenda.
There are widely differing experiences and practices in the development of indicators to monitor, report and communicate progress towards the implementation of the circular economy (CE). We present a ...framework for developing CE indicators which link to the core goals, principles and building blocks of a CE. To do this we utilise the Ellen MacArthur Foundation butterfly model as a coherent systems overview of key material stocks and flows, and representation of relationships between inputs, outputs, recovery processes, emissions, energy and value loops in physical and financial measures which constitute the CE supply chain. Based on nine multinational organisations and four cases of leading companies engaged with CE activity, we address the types of indicators being used and make recommendations for indicators to reflect key goals and principles of CE. Our research on the development and expansion of circular practices leads to the question of what new opportunities and challenges CE raises for such companies in terms of competitive business advantage and resultant requirements for supply chain redesign and indicator development, over and above pre-existing closed-loop production.
Purpose This research studies circularity brokers, the economic actors facilitating the transition of companies towards circular operations. The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding ...of “circular brokerage”, deriving from the concept of brokerage existing in network theory and applied to the specific context of the circular supply network. Recent papers have been devoted to particular facets of circular brokerage, with studies dedicated to circular incubators or platforms. This study proposes how these new actors can have a significant role in facilitating circular economy in general. Design/methodology/approach The methodology is qualitative using 17 semi-directed interviews with circularity brokers. The theoretical approach draws on the network view and builds on recent developments of the theory in the context of circular economy. Findings Circularity brokers support organisations and their networks, helping them to overcome the problems that stand in their way of adopting circular economy at different levels (micro, meso and macro). To do this, circularity brokers deploy a wide range of activities involving technical, methodological and relational skills. The study extends previous research by elaborating on the relationship between the position these actors occupy within their network and the benefits they can bring in terms of circularity. Originality/value This research provides evidence on the role of circularity brokers and moves the state of knowledge from a specific sector or cases to other sectors and a broader role beyond network position specifics. Network theory, with the constructs of broker exchanges and the influence of embeddedness, is used to develop theoretical implications.
Supply chain network design (SCND) models and methods have been the subject of several recent literature review surveys, but none of them explicitly includes sustainable development as a main ...characteristic of the problem considered. The aim of this review is to bridge this gap. The paper analyzes 87 papers in the field of supply chain network design, covering mathematical models that include economic factors as well as environmental and/or social dimensions. The review is organized along four research questions asking (i) which environmental and social objectives are included, (ii) how are they integrated into the models, (iii) which methods and tool are used and finally (iv) which industrial applications and contexts are covered in these models. The review finds that there are a number of limitations to the current research in sustainable SCND. The narrow scope of environmental and social measures in current models should go beyond limited greenhouse gas indicators to broader life-cycle approaches including new social metrics. The more effective inclusion of uncertainty and risk in models with improved multi-objective approaches is also needed. There are also significant gaps in the sectors used to test models limiting more general applicability. The paper concludes with promising new avenues of research to more effectively include sustainability into SCND models.
•We review 87 papers in the field of sustainable supply chain network design.•The papers reviewed address at least two dimensions of sustainable development.•We give a special focus on Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) based models.•We review modeling, solution techniques and fields of application.
This paper evaluates and compares the theoretical lenses that underpin sustainable purchasing and supply management research. In particular, our interest is on evaluating the extent to which the IMP ...Interaction Approach is used to underpin or influence the focus of existing research and exploring the opportunities for further research into sustainable purchasing and supply guided by an IMP perspective. The methodology employed is a systematic literature review (Tranfield et al., 2003). A systematic search process is used to identify 1899 papers that are gradually reduced through a filtering process to 276 papers. The theoretical perspective of each paper is identified and recorded in a database along with methodology, unit of analysis and reported findings. We find that a significant proportion of sustainable purchasing and supply management papers adopt stakeholder theory, institutional theory and resource-based perspectives, however, relatively few papers rely on an IMP Interaction Approach. We evaluate the rationale for the typical theoretical perspectives adopted and discuss the potential for the IMP Interaction Approach to underpin studies of sustainable purchasing and supply management. The paper concludes by outlining future avenues of research that specify how the IMP Interaction Approach can underpin and further advance sustainable purchasing and supply research.
•Identifies and analyzes the dominant theoretical perspectives underpinning sustainable purchasing and supply management research•Presents an extensive systematic literature review of 276 journal papers•Discusses how the IMP Interaction Approach could provide a useful theoretical perspective•Outlines future avenues of research for IMP-based research in sustainable purchasing and supply management
This state-of-the-art review paper aims to provide an overview of the current research in supply chain and management on cross-industrial collaborations. It also formulates a theoretical proposition ...to study them. This research on cross-industrial collaborations is carried out in the more specific context of the circular economy, as the scale-up of this economic model has the particularity of requiring collaborations between organisations from different industrial sectors, a subject that remains to date relatively unexplored. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part is a literature review. A presentation on current knowledge on supply-chain collaborations for the circular economy is realised, followed by a literature gap exploration of cross-industrial collaborations. The second part is a theoretical proposition. Concepts of the network theory and of the inter-organisational proximity framework and their relevance are explained, followed by a proposition of a combination of the two views to conceptualise cross-industrial collaborations. The objective of this concept paper is to provide a thematic and theoretical background for future studies to understand how to connect non-traditional actors within a supply network, how companies from different industries manage to collaborate, and to assess the opportunities and pitfalls of these collaborations for the scale-up of the circular economy.
The aim of this paper is to explore the implications of the institutional environment on end-of-life product recovery capabilities of manufacturing firms. The research takes an exploratory case study ...approach focusing on three producers and two firms in each of their recovery supply chains. The research finds that process capabilities for product recovery are linked to, but distinct from, capabilities for managing the institutional environment. Coercive pressure to adopt product recovery constrains the choices firms can make in terms of network structure and the development of capabilities. Where manufactures face uncertainty in their institutional environments and adopt a mimetic approach, the outcomes can be suboptimal.
Purpose
Companies are increasingly challenged by sustainability-related supply chain risks. Research has developed linking supply chain sustainability priorities, practices and triple bottom line ...performance; however, risk is rarely included in these models. The purpose of this paper is to understand the link between sustainable supply chain strategies, practices and performance, and to test the importance of risk management practices in this relationship focusing on the product category level.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper includes a survey of supply managers in four countries with 305 responses, with a focus on upstream supply chain strategies at the product category level.
Findings
The environmental and social sustainability strategies lead to sustainable supply sustainable performance, through focused practices in either area, but the effect on operational and cost performance is not significant. Social supply chain strategies positively impact environmental and cost performance when mediated by risk assessment practices.
Originality/value
This paper shows a more nuanced view of the impact of supply chain practices on the strategy–performance link. It is one of the first papers to empirically test the role of risk practices in sustainable supply chain management and emphasize the importance of alignment across the main dimensions of sustainability to achieve positive sustainable performance outcomes, but not necessarily cost and operational performance. Unlike other studies, social sustainability priorities may positively impact environmental and social performance and is linked to cost advantage when implemented with risk assessment practices.
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