Companies which manage global supply chains face a high level of complexity with a large number of suppliers in diverse socio‐economic contexts and growing expectations of customers and standardization schemes to control social and environmental aspects. In the context of sustainable development, the effective management of supplier relationships has therefore attracted particular attention in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). This paper investigates two SSCM strategic approaches in Germany's largest stock companies with regard to supplier management. Supplier evaluation and selection adopts a risk‐oriented strategic perspective whereas supplier development represents a business‐opportunity‐oriented approach to managing supplier chains for sustainable products. The survey‐based analysis reveals that large German stock companies mainly implement risk‐oriented SSCM strategies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

This paper compares empirical findings on the implementation of sustainability management with the results of earlier surveys on corporate motivations to deal with sustainability. We analyze the relevance of three different motivations, i.e. seeking corporate legitimacy, market success, and internal improvement. This is accomplished by matching these motivations with empirical findings on the engagement of functional areas. The underlying rationale is that differences in the engagement of functional areas can be expected to depend on the overall corporate motivation for sustainability management. Our analysis shows low engagement in finance and accounting, whereas the public relations department is actively engaged. Since this functional area commonly aims to legitimize corporate activities, this finding contradicts the results of earlier studies which concluded that legitimacy is not an important motivation for sustainability. We discuss reasons for these contradictions and derive implications for future research and business activities.

A large body of literature claims that corporate sustainable development is a cross-functional challenge, which requires all functional units to be involved. However, it remains uncertain to what extent and in which way different corporate functions are actually involved in corporate sustainability management. To bridge this research gap, our paper draws on a concept of involvement introduced in the field of consumer behavior. Based on this previous research, our paper distinguishes two components of involvement: first, a cognitive-affective component, incorporating being affected by sustainability issues and being supportive of corporate sustainability; and second, a behavioral component, represented by the application of sustainability management tools. We use this concept to empirically analyze the involvement of corporate functions in sustainability management and find considerable differences in large German companies. Whereas public relations and strategic management are heavily involved, finance, accounting and management control appear not to be involved. A multinomial logistic regression shows that the cognitive-affective component significantly influences the behavioral component, with a functional unit being affected influencing the application of tools the most. Building on the model proposed, the paper provides implications on how to increase a functional unit's involvement in sustainability management.

ABSTRACT:The purpose of this paper is to discuss mechanisms of intra-organizational knowledge transfer within sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). Through a conceptual study design, the focus of this paper is on the transfer of SSCM-associated information and knowledge between functional units. Furthermore, the external stakeholder perspective is taken into account. To support this conceptual framework, the knowledge-based theory provides a theoretical foundation in order to study a company's ability for knowledge sharing. Within this perspective one approach distinguishes between internal and external structures and the individual competence. These findings will be used as a basis to further develop a framework of intra-organizational SSCM knowledge and information transfer as well as cross-functional integration.

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