Sustainability in supply chain management (SSCM) has become established in both academia and increasingly in practice. As stakeholders continue to require focal companies (FCs) to take more responsibility for their entire supply chains (SCs), this has led to the development of multi-tier SSCM (MT-SSCM). Much extant research has focused on simple supply chains from certain industries. Recently, a comprehensive traceability for sustainability (TfS) framework has been proposed, which outlines how companies could achieve MT-SSCM through traceability. Our research builds on this and responds to calls for cases from the automotive industry by abductively analysing a multi-tier supply chain (MT-SC) transparency case study. This research analyses a raw material SC that is particularly renowned for sustainability problems—the cobalt supply chain for electric vehicles—and finds that the extant literature has oversimplified the operationalisation of transparency in MT-SSCM. We compare the supply chain maps of the MT-SC before and after an auditing and mapping project to demonstrate the transparency achieved. Our findings identify challenges to the operationalisation of SC transparency and we outline how FCs might set to increase MT-SC transparency for sustainability.

Global focal companies are increasingly required and expected to monitor the sustainability risks and activities in their supply chains, which has resulted in increasing supplier sustainability audit activity and growth in the number of sustainability initiatives/associations. While common, shared audit standards were originally conceived to reduce audit fatigue; with overlapping and converging supply chains there could be a need for cross-recognition or standardisation of supplier audit standards. This research aims to provide empirically grounded insight into sustainability audit activity, audit processes and standards for suppliers and the extent to which they overlap. Audit standards employed by eight multi-brand, voluntary sustainability initiatives/associations, focusing on supply chain sustainability (SMETA, PSCI, ICTI, FWF, ASI, JAC, amforiBSCI and RBA) were inductively analysed. This research compares the audit processes and standards, detecting common audit categories, analysing points of overlap and difference. We find empirical evidence of significant growth in supplier sustainability audit activity. We also find overlap among the standards in terms of audit process and steps, as well as at the level of audit focus categories. Deeper analysis reveals large differences at the granular level in terms of questions asked to assess specific topics. We conclude that there is potential for standardisation and cross-recognition but that significant barriers to agreement at the level of audit questions and how topics are evaluated remain. This research provides a first empirical overview of this important tool and its application in various industries for sustainable supply chain management.

This article analyses one of the most common tools employed by global focal companies in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) across all industries: supplier sustainability self-assessment questionnaires. Extant research has moved beyond the questions of whether and which suppliers should be assessed. Current research is already focussing on how to share and standardise such assessment data. Despite mounting general research on SSCM, we identified that specific tools such as self-assessment questionnaires have not been empirically analysed in SSCM literature. Thus, this paper addresses the research questions of what differences there are among supplier self-assessment questionnaires and how supplier responses to such questionnaires might be influenced. Our research involves an abductive multiple-case study design and an analysis of over 25,000 responses from globally dispersed suppliers to two types of supplier sustainability self-assessment questionnaires administered and requested by a global automotive focal company.Although the two questionnaires covered similar areas of sustainability practices and were administered to suppliers of the same focal company, the suppliers’ responses demonstrated various observable differences in average sustainability scores.Social desirability bias and supplier assessment fatigue were identified as issues confronting such questionnaires. We find that questionnaire design, how the questionnaire is embedded in the focal company’s processes and institutional settings are factors that potentially influence suppliers’ responses and could counteract social desirability bias and supplier assessment fatigue. Based on these findings we make suggestions for improving these SSCM tools and provide recommendations for further research.