Retailing is a diverse and dynamic industry offering a wide range of goods and services to consumers.There is also an increasing recognition that this corporate retail power is the driving force for the whole of the supply chain. Due to these facts, it is argued that retailing companies have a huge potential to impact on sustainability performance of national economies. In order to materialize this potential, performance in sustainability should be assessed, and evaluating sustainability performance of an industry requires developing a system of performance evaluation framework. In the context of sustainable development, selecting proper sustainability indicators are one of the most crucial steps to fulfi ll performance evaluations. Since there has been no attempt to develop proper sustainability indicators in retailing industry, this paper aims to select appropriate indicators for future evaluation of industrial sustainability performance for grocery retailing in terms of three sustainability aspects: social, environmental and economic. To this end, (1) a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature was done, (2) and Analytic Hierarchy Process/ Weighted Additive model-based table was developed to rank the indicators for each aspect, (3) the input for the tables was obtained from rapidly growing grocery retailing industry in Turkey by conducting surveys, and (4) using the average values of the tables, sustainability indicators for each aspect were ranked and the most appropriate ones were selected.
PurposeThis paper aims to examine the current state of reverse supply chain management (RSCM) initiatives in several Turkish industries.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on an exploratory research regarding RSCM activities of Turkish automotive, white goods, electric/electronics, and furniture industries. The sample consists of all the companies included in the Top‐500 Industrial Enterprises List of The Assembly of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ISO).FindingsThe research findings show that the RSCM initiatives in the considered industries are still in a very early stage. Companies' involvement in product returns is mostly due to the legislative liabilities, and system inadequacies are emphasized as the most important reason for not being able to implement an efficient RSCM.Research implications/limitationsThis paper investigates the reverse supply chain practices of selected industries in Turkey and aims to enable researchers to use this study as a building block in understanding these practices and related problems. The limitation of this study is to solely include the medium and large‐sized companies in the industries.Practical implicationsReverse supply chain operations contribute to the economic sustainability by reducing waste and saving energy and material. In this research, an empirical study in the electronics, white goods, automotive and furniture industries is conducted, and potential research opportunities are discussed to streamline reverse supply chain activities in the industries. Hence, this study can be viewed as an attempt to increase the level of awareness on reverse supply chain issues.Originality/valueNo field study has been conducted to analyze reverse supply chain activities of the industries in Turkey. This research is a pioneering study and will provide a benchmark for the various research activities on related topics.
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