Corporate Social Sustainability in Supply Chains: A Thematic Analysis of the Literature

Forthcoming: International Journal of Production Research

40 Pages Posted: 3 Oct 2017 Last revised: 31 Oct 2017

See all articles by ManMohan S. Sodhi

ManMohan S. Sodhi

City, University of London - Bayes Business School

Christopher S. Tang

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Decisions, Operations, and Technology Management (DOTM) Area

Date Written: September 25, 2017

Abstract

This paper maps out different research strands by using thematic analysis on the literature pertaining to large companies’ efforts on social sustainability in their supply chains. The data corpus for this thematic analysis is a broad sample of the literature with articles from different journals and employing different research methodologies. Each of the high-level themes is identified at a level high enough to apply to research into not only social but also economic or environmental sustainability. These eight themes – stakeholder pressure; governance; contingencies; practices; partnerships; barriers and enablers; performance; and optimisation for performance improvement and trade-off – are then woven into a thematic map. We call this map the ‘4P’ model as it suggests that pressure and partnerships influence practices, which in turn impact performance. Researchers can use this thematic classification not only to position their research within the social sustainability literature but also to integrate research on economic, environmental and social sustainability.

Keywords: Supply Chain Management, Sustainability, Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Stakeholders, Review, Thematic Analysis, Conceptual Model, Integration

Suggested Citation

Sodhi, ManMohan S. and Tang, Christopher S., Corporate Social Sustainability in Supply Chains: A Thematic Analysis of the Literature (September 25, 2017). Forthcoming: International Journal of Production Research, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3046422 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3046422

ManMohan S. Sodhi (Contact Author)

City, University of London - Bayes Business School ( email )

United Kingdom

Christopher S. Tang

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Decisions, Operations, and Technology Management (DOTM) Area ( email )

110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x980.xml

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