This article describes how action research can advance sustainable supply chain management research. Most sustainable supply chain management research is empirical and little attention has been paid ...to reflecting upon how research is conducted in the field. Current research fails to make links with ideas of relationality, change and engagement proposed in broader sustainability research. We propose to address this gap by discussing how action research could help address current challenges in sustainable supply chain management. The article explores the proponents and application of action research as a relevant methodology for knowledge development in the field, based upon a critical analysis of sustainable supply chain management and action research, including a review of previous action research studies and insights from a research project in which action research was applied. Particular emphasis is put on exploring the links between the sustainability dimension of sustainable supply chain management and the foundations and practice of action research. The article does not reject other methodological approaches, but it shows that the pragmatic orientation of action research is particularly suitable for an applied field such as sustainable supply chain management where problems are often messy, cross-disciplinary and essentially concerned with the flourishing of individuals and organizations. Our article has broader implications for inter-organizational research.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate theoretical perspectives in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and contributes to understanding the current state of research in the ...field and its future development.
Design/methodology/approach
– This paper conducts a structured literature review and aims at mapping the use of theories in the field. The authors assess the current state of research, looking in more details at popular theories, and propose possible future avenues for the field to develop.
Findings
– Theory-building efforts in SSCM remain scarce, with the predominance of a few popular imported macro theories (resource-based view (RBV), stakeholder theory and institutional theory) having implications on the conceptualisation of SSCM and the topics researched to date. More theoretical contributions can potentially emerge from the adoption of original methodologies, the investigation of under-explored aspects of SSCM and the testing of recently developed frameworks.
Research limitations/implications
– Drawing on the analysis the authors propose an overarching map of popular theories in SSCM and define potential avenues towards the maturation of the discipline. A number of propositions are offered to guide future research. This study constitutes a first step towards understanding how theories in SSCM are developing and how SSCM has been conceptualised.
Originality/value
– The originality of this paper lies in its analytical focus on theories in SSCM, which have not been mapped to date.
ABSTRACT
This study adopts a power perspective to investigate sustainable supply chain relationships and specifically uses resource‐dependence theory (RDT) to critically analyze ...buyer–supplier–supplier relationships. Empirical evidence is provided, extending the RDT model in this context. The concept of power relationships is explored through a qualitative study of a multinational company and agricultural growers in the UK food industry that work together to implement sustainable practices. We look at multiple triadic relationships involving a large buyer and its small suppliers to investigate how relative power affects the implementation of sustainable supply‐management practices. The study highlights that power as dependence is relevant to understanding compliance in sustainable supply chains and to identifying appropriate relationship‐management strategies to build more sustainable supply chains. We show the influences of power on how players manage their relationships and how it affects organizational responses to the implementation of sustainability initiatives. Power notably influences the sharing of sustainability‐related risks and value between supply chain partners. From a managerial perspective, the study contributes to developing a better understanding of how power can become an effective way to achieve sustainability goals. This article offers insights into the way in which a large organization works with small and medium size enterprises to implement sustainable practices and shows how power management—that is, the way in which power is used—can support or hinder effective cooperation around sustainability in the supply chain.
There have been calls for a shift of focus toward the political and power-laden aspects of transitioning toward socially equitable global supply chains. This article offers an empirically grounded ...response to these calls from a critical realist stance in the context of global food supply chains. We examine how an imaginary for sustainable farming structured around an instrumental construction of empowerment limits what is viewed as permissible, desirable, and possible in global food supply chains. We adopt a multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine the sustainable farming imaginary for smallholder farmers constructed by one large organization, Unilever, in a series of videos produced and disseminated on YouTube. We expose the underlying mechanisms of power and marginalization at work within the sustainability imaginary and show how ‘empowerment’ has the potential to create new dependencies for these farmers. We recontextualize the representations to show that while the imaginary may be commercially feasible, it is less achievable in terms of empowering smallholder farmers.
This article explores representations of food labour at different stages in the supply chain through a labour process theory perspective. Employing multi-modal critical discourse analysis it analyses ...visual data collected from three television programmes focused on dairy production and consumption. The research sheds light on the power relations inherent to food production and the devaluing of manual food labour in supply chains, which are shaped by the current capitalist socio-political environment. The findings expose ways in which media can reinforce dominant understandings of food supply chains, while making aspects of food labour invisible.
In this paper we investigate the collaborative paradigm in Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM). The depth and quality of the relationship between a firm and its suppliers is widely recognised ...as a critical facilitator of SSCM. Many authors in the field have argued that a collaborative approach to SC relationship management was likely to be more fruitful in achieving sustainable development goals. However, little research has offered a more nuanced perspective on collaborative SSCM and specifically assessed its feasibility outside the context of large companies collaborating on environmental activities. In this paper, we explore collaboration in SSCs through a qualitative study of a large multinational in the food sector working with small agricultural suppliers. We show that there are both supporting and hindering factors to collaborative SSCM. The study reveals the dynamic nature of SC relationships for sustainability and that collaboration can be developed through time thanks to investment in both formal relationship building mechanisms and more relational aspects. The main contributions of the paper lie in its nuanced view of collaboration for SSCM and systematic application of relational theory (Dyer and Singh, 1998) in SSCM.
•There are both supporting and hindering factors to collaborative SSCM.•The study reveals the changing nature of SC relationships for sustainability.•Implementing SSCM with legacy suppliers may be challenging.•The differential in resources between large buyers and small suppliers is critical.•SSCM requires an understanding of behavioural aspects.
•We focus on the consequences of large corporations’ environmental CSR hypocrisy.•We show the operational and emotional consequences of CSR as hypocritical practice.•Through a power lens and ...hypocrisy, we contribute to the sustainable SCM literature.•Our research showcases farmers’ experiences and voices, which remain seldom heard.•Farmers’ agency is removed by MNCs through ‘passing the environmental buck’.
Using a critical power lens and the concept of organisational hypocrisy, we explore how actors across the supply chain have been able to pass risk and responsibility for environmental impacts down the supply chain, in addition to associated economic costs. We use vignettes to relay farmers’ experiences and voices, which remain seldom heard in both practice and research. We argue that the main effect of the hypocritical practice of ‘passing the environmental buck’ is a removal of the farmers’ agency, paradoxically coupled with an increase in their responsibilities. We see this approach by large corporations as a mechanism that helps to mask their increasing dependence on this group to achieve their environmental goals.
Multistakeholder Meta-Organisations (MS-MOs) are often perceived as a ‘magic bullet’ that can tackle societal grand challenges in global supply chains. In this paper, we consider the case of the ...Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and we investigate the extent to which an MS-MO reshapes the attribution of responsibility for sustainability in supply chains, especially in relation to underlying power dynamics. We conduct a multimodal critical discourse analysis of a broad range of sources, including videos and interviews. We show that through its discursive strategies, the RSPO allocates the responsibility for social and environmental issues to the two extremes of the supply chain: objectifying consumers at one end and smallholders at the other, hence reproducing and even exacerbating the traditional imbalanced power dynamics in supply chains. Our work contributes to the emerging, more critical strand of research investigating meta-organisations (MOs) and sustainable supply chain management.
Parmi les Dialogues des jeunesse d’Augustin, les trois Dialogues philosophiques dits ‘de Cassiciacum’ (386 apr. J.-C.) portent sur trois questions majeures : la possibilité de la connaissance, le ...bonheur et l’ordre du monde. Or, ces Dialogues « scéniques » entre Augustin, des disciples et des proches, mettent en place un certain nombre de jeux et de performances littéraires et poétiques destinés à exercer les disciples dans le but de les éduquer. On étudie comment la notion de jeu liée à ces exercices pédagogiques est associée à la production de fictions (anecdotes, fabulae), de la part du maître comme des disciples, en cherchant à déterminer également la couleur rhétorique de ces fictions. On examine enfin quel rôle elles tiennent dans la démonstration philosophique, et si celle-ci est destinée à les absorber en les dépassant, ou bien si elles acquièrent une fonction propédeutique relevant d’un certain cadre herméneutique.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the current focus of supply chain management (SCM) research; it considers field level and societal constraints and consequently the potential for ...change. It details the underlying assumptions in the field, considering the dominant paradigms and stakeholders, and how this has shaped the research we have engaged in as a community of scholars.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a reflective inquiry that seeks to deconstruct the dominant discourses and paradigms in SCM. It offers alternative avenues of inquiry to “traditional” research, considering how different questions, perspectives and approaches might yield different learning for the field. offering alternative avenues to traditional research.
Findings
This is a call for collective action, for solidarity, for a re-imagining of what research in SCM could look like. Research activism is challenging and potentially risky but necessary for the research community to engage in, particularly in light of the global societal grand challenges. Change can take place in the SCM field through collective action and solidarity. Three levels of activism are explored here – acting to solve the grand challenges, acting to change the field and acting as individuals.
Originality/value
This is a “speak-out” piece, which embraces and encourages reflexivity, new methods of doing and writing research as well as different perspectives, and especially a consideration for context and multiple players in the supply chain. The authors contend that it is urgent to re-appropriate our own agency as SCM researchers.
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