Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Lead Research Organisation: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Department Name: Cardiff Business School

Abstract

We are bringing in Anthony who has practical business experience in this area to undertake a three year piece of work to investigate sustainable supply chain management (Sustainable SCM). Organisations often buy and supply goods and services to one another. They do this along a supply chain that stretches upstream from the extraction of raw materials all the way downstream to the end consumer, who uses and disposes of the product. Sustainable SCM entails organizations utilising their purchasing and supply activities to promote sustainable development. This involves trying to minimize negative environmental impacts, whilst ensuring that supply chain partners employ good social practices, and that supply chain partners can make a fair profit.

Looking along the supply chain
This programme aims to explore sustainable supply chain management through case studies with organisations and their suppliers. It will investigate how organisations approach sustainability, and how they engage in sustainable SCM with one of their key suppliers. In turn, we will investigate how the key supplier engages in sustainable SCM with one of it's key suppliers. In this way, we hope to develop a better understanding of how sustainability is perceived and implemented along supply chains.

The three aspects of sustainability
A lot of research has previously focused on the environmental aspects of sustainable SCM. In this research, we aim to explore the 3 elements of sustainable SCM, including social, environmental and economic issues. We aim to understand how the different aspects might be balanced. For example, does a supply chain manager put efforts into reducing carbon emissions and packaging in the supply chain, or should they focus on ensuring the acceptable labour practices of their suppliers? Trying to understand the trade-offs and how they might be balanced will be an important aspect of the research.

Sustainable SCM and performance
The research will also look at whether sustainable SCM influences organisational performance. Do organisations that support sustainability in their supply chains perform better? And in what ways can that be measured? Is the improvement distributed evenly across the supply chain, or do some supply chain partners benefit more than others?

Proposed Research Methods

Literature Review
The nominated candidate will conduct a comprehensive literature review to assess the latest research in sustainable SCM, and to determine the theoretical underpinnings of the research.

Sampling
The research on sustainable SCM is likely to be conducted in several sectors, and the approach to sampling across sectors will be determined by the literature review. Sectors may include construction, food and retail as the candidate and mentor already have contacts in these sectors. The research will entail five in depth intensive case-studies.

Data collection
Data are to be primarily collected via semi-structured, open-ended interviews, and participant observation of supplier meetings. Secondary data (e.g. annual reports, supplier contracts, internal documents) will also be collected to increase the study's reliability. The data will be subject to thematic coding utilising NVivo software.

Workshop
Participating case organisations and practitioners will be invited to a workshop to disseminate the findings.
The case studies will encompass five focal firms and their first and second tier supply chain partner organisations. The informants for each organisation should be supply chain managers, senior buyers and CSR managers well conversant with the sustainable SCM activities of the organisation. The research will entail a total of approximately 75 interviews, composed of a number of focal companies and their primary and secondary suppliers, plus other key stakeholders.

Planned Impact

The research aims to be both scholarly and relevant, addressing an academic knowledge gap and contributing practical solutions to how organisations can work with their suppliers to reduce environmental impacts and have both positive social and economic impacts. The research aims to have reach and significance in its field, and will have a wide variety of beneficiaries, who are listed below:

Academic community
The academic community interested in sustainable SCM research will benefit from the field being advanced by the findings. These will be communicated through Conference papers for EUROMA, IPSERA and AOM, and journal papers for JPSM, IJOPM.

Cardiff Business School
The Logistics and Operations Management (LOM) section where the Fellow will be based, the Business School and the ESRC funded BRASS centre will benefit from the wider programme development in this relatively new area of research for the University, and specifically the new perspectives provided by the research on sustainable SCM. The research will also be incorporated in teaching and learning, and will benefit undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education students.

Participating organisations
The research explores how to improve performance and efficiency in the supply chain, improve competitiveness of the organisations, and impact on the triple bottom line of sustainability. The research activity itself will therefore contribute to commercial practice. The organisations participating in the research will be provided with feedback from the research, as a means to improve sustainable SCM and organisational performance. Participants will be invited to a workshop, to feedback lessons learnt and to ensure knowledge exchange. We will also collect 'before' and 'after' data to assess improvements in performance following the study, as a means of assessing the impact of the research along the supply chain

Practitioner community
Recent studies have shown that sustainability is rising on the agenda of CEOs (Posner, 2009), and is of increasing concern to purchasing supplier managers (Hopkins et al., 2009). The findings of this project will inform the purchasing and supply practitioner community of how to balance a profitable supply chain with sustainability concerns, which is increasingly important to them. We will share the findings of our research through practitioner journals such as 'Chief Procurement Officer' and 'Supply Management', to ensure the findings reach as many practitioners as possible.

BRASS research partners
The findings will be disseminated through the ESRC Research Centre on Business Relationships Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS). BRASS has a variety of research partners. We will disseminate the findings to these research partners via newsletters and seminars.

Broader community
The research investigates how sustainability benefits are experienced along the supply chains of participating organisations, contributing to quality of life for employees, organisations and communities, who will benefit from reduced environmental impacts, improved social impacts, and improved economic performance in the supply chains. We will co-produce summaries of the research with the participating organisations, that they can share on their websites, with their employees, and with the communities they are situated in

Policy makers
The research will also result in practitioner and policy guidance to feed into the DEFRA sustainable procurement policy group (the government lead department on sustainable SCM), the British Standard Committee on Sustainable Procurement, and the Chartered Institute for Purchasing and Supply. All these organisations give guidance to purchasing and supplies managers on sustainable SCM, and our research can contribute to future policy iterations.

Publications

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Alexander A (2022) "Managing the "new normal": the future of operations and supply chain management in unprecedented times" in International Journal of Operations & Production Management

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Alexander A (2018) A decision theory perspective on complexity in performance measurement and management in International Journal of Operations & Production Management

 
Description As sustainable supply chain management is a relatively young topic and hence under-developed in theory, an approach of 'theory elaboration' has been undertaken. An exploratory approach based on qualitative case study methodology has been used. This addresses the different internal and external influences on managerial decision making on the issues. Internal factors are described as the culture and mindset, external factors are stakeholder influences. A comparison of firms against macro-level sustainability criteria is then taken.
Findings are:

1: companies that are privately owned appear less cost-sensitive than publicly listed companies and are able to act on the basis of values-based rather than clearly defined, metric-based arguments. This is important when a values-based approach is able to better deal with uncertainty or ambiguity in the business case for sustainability.

2: Taking a cross-sector analysis of firms has meant being able to model the economic constraints that certain firms and sectors exist in. Regulation is a major driver for change that once introduced can eliminate uncertainty around the business case. Pressure from investors or consumers is a further form of external influence.

3: A further finding from this is that where firms are consumer-facing, the economic argument can be driven by consumer values more strongly than in business-to-business firms. As a result, many high profile firms obtain a competitive advantage by satisfying consumers values.

4: However, when studying the relative impacts of organisations on particular environmental challenges, high profile pro-sustainability companies may have a very low substantive impact, and vice versa, low profile ones may have a very high impact.

A divide can thus be seen between substantive sustainability actions and symbolic sustainability actions and a model is developed to show the alignment between economic outcomes and sustainable & responsible business outcomes.

Where aligned, there is an economic benefit in sustainability practices. The scale of this progress on a macro-scale can then also be considered. However, if there is no alignment, then for privately owned companies it is easier to decide to invest in developing these areas. Or, these are areas where regulators may step in (as in the principle of market failure), or investors or others may push for innovation to address the misalignment.

This is then the basis for a model of sustainable supply chain decision making. A firm's supply chain context and economic context, and influence on managerial decision making, are described. A normative element based on macro-scale sustainability goals (using the 'planetary boundaries' framework, and the UN Rio+20 social indicators), provide an example of what firm-level sustainability policy should or could address. Thirdly, a prescriptive element shows the gap between the firm's context and the macro-scale goals in order to determine the firm's significance and hence recommendations. This establishes whether a firm is making a meaningful contribution to sustainability, or only a relatively meaningless one. Furthermore, by mapping the impacts made by certain sectors and their supply chain links, it is possible to see which companies do play a substantive role both negative but also, more importantly, positive.
Exploitation Route Findings have been presented at various conferences and symposia and professional and personal relationships have been established across these respective communities. A paper summarising the findings was recently published in the ABS 4 ranking International Journal of Operations and Production Management (Earlycite available from March 2018 - http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/IJOPM-10-2016-0632). The findings were also discussed at a recent seminar on decision making under uncertainty held at the Royal Geographical Society and attended by experts from government and industry as well as academia (http://au4dmnetworks.co.uk/). A summary of this paper is being developed for practitioners, and a further findings paper is currently under review.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Agriculture

Food and Drink

Chemicals

Construction

Creative Economy

Electronics

Energy

Environment

Financial Services

and Management Consultancy

Government

Democracy and Justice

Manufacturing

including Industrial Biotechology

Transport

URL http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/IJOPM-10-2016-0632
 
Description Research outputs have been presented and well received at various conferences. To date on paper has been published in Supply Chain Management: An International Journal (an ABS3* journal) with another now published in the International Journal of Operations and Production Management (ABS 4) with further papers under review at present. A research seminar bringing together experts from relevant disciplines (maths, psychology and business) was organised in December 2014 (Cardiff), and results were also presented to the British Academy of Management Responsible Leadership symposium in May 2015 (London) and the British Academy of Management workshop on inter-organisational relationships for sustainability also in May 2015 (Coventry). The first published paper has received a number of citations in other works. A short feature on the topic was published in the ESRC Britain in 2016 magazine. Further outreach and engagement is planned.
First Year Of Impact 2016
 
Description Newton Fund
Amount £1,000 (GBP)
Organisation British Council 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2017 
End 05/2017
 
Description Professor Roger Mansfield Research Fellowship Prize
Amount £25,000 (GBP)
Organisation Cardiff University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2016 
End 06/2017
 
Description Strategic Impact Partnership
Amount £2,500 (GBP)
Organisation Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2013 
End 02/2014
 
Title Sustainable Supply Chain Management data set 
Description Qualitative data set from organisations implementing sustainable supply chain management policies. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Dissemination of data to other researchers in the field via ESRC. 
 
Description B.A.M. Responsible Business Workshop, London 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The British Academy of Management held a workshop in December 2012 to discuss the academic communities response to the current global financial crisis. The Sustainable & Responsible Business Workshop spent the day working in collaborative groups and were then joined by VLearn to share some of the findings and outcomes from the day. The session is introduced by Paul Caulfield of the University of Bath's, School of Management.

The event was recorded and posted on the v-learn website designed to promote sustainable and responsible business topics to management students.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://vlearn.org/b-a-m-workshop-responsible-business-london-2012/
 
Description Sustainable SCM and decision making: A literature review of Decision Analysis, Stakeholders and Systems Theory 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact The research examines peer-reviewed sustainable supply chain management, decision analysis and relationship management literature. Of two main forms of decision analysis, 'alternatives-based' and 'values-focussed', the former is subject to greater formal study, yet is dependent on performance attributes. Relationship attributes remain largely phenomenological, yet relationship management is central to supply chain management, and sustainable development prompts increased need for collaboration, so better understanding of relationships will aid success. Stakeholder theory, systems theory and service-dominant logic are examined for potential theory development. The talk was very well attended and followed by an engaged discussion including from senior academics present.

Relationships with a number of international academics were established as a result of conversations held as a result of the talk.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.ipsera.com/event-1778201
 
Description Sustainable Supply Chain Management in theory and practice. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 500 word summary of Cardiff Sustainable Supply Chain conference (26.06.2012) published on the 2degreesnetwork:



2degrees is the world's leading community for sustainable business; working together to drive efficiency and growth through being more sustainable.



Our membership consists of 30,300 plus individual professionals and businesses who use our online platform and unique events program to share best practice and solve common business problems together.

A response piece was then published by 2degrees, reviewing the event and promoting the use of hot-spot analysis to assist companies in creating or advancing sustainable supply chain management policies.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/supply-chain/resources/bridging-theory-and-practice-sustainabl...