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Purpose – This paper aims to examine what drives the adoption of different social sustainability supply chain practices. Research has shown that certain factors drive the adoption of environmental sustainability practices but few focus on social supply chain practices, delineate which practices are adopted or what drives their adoption. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examine the facilitative role of sustainability culture to explain the adoption of social sustainability supply chain practices: basic practices, consisting of monitoring and management systems and advanced practices, which are new product and process development and strategic redefinition. The authors then explore the role played by a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation in shaping and reinforcing the adoption of social sustainability supply chain practices. A survey of 156 supply chain managers in multiple industries in Ireland was conducted to test the relationship between the variables. Findings – The findings show that sustainability culture is positively related to all the practices, and entrepreneurial orientation impacts and moderates social sustainability culture in advanced social sustainability supply chain adoption. Research limitations/implications – As with any survey, this is a single point in time with a single respondent. Implications for managers include finding the right culture in the organisation to implement social sustainability supply chain management practices that go beyond monitoring to behavioural changes in the supply chain with implications beyond the dyad of buyer and supplier to lower tier suppliers and the community surrounding the supply chain. Practical implications – The implications for managers include developing and fostering cultural attributes in the organisation to implement social sustainability supply chain management practices that go beyond monitoring suppliers to behavioural changes in the supply chain with implications beyond the dyad of buyer and supplier to lower tier suppliers and the community surrounding the supply chain. Originality/value – This is the first time, to the authors’ knowledge, that cultural and entrepreneurial variables have been tested for social sustainability supply chain practices, giving them new insights into how and why social sustainability supply chain practices are adopted.

Consumer adoption of renewable energies is an important step towards less carbon-intensive and more sustainable energy systems. But despite growing ecological awareness and articulated preferences for green products, renewable energies face slow rates of diffusion in consumer markets. This has been hard to explain given consumers’ favorability to the concept of products that lower one’s impact on the natural environment. This study uses data from 254 homeowners in Ireland to investigate the psychological process of adopting a renewable energy system – solar energy panels. Applying Behavioral Reasoning Theory (BRT), this research examines a proposed model in which reasons both for and against adopting solar panels mediate the relationship between consumers’ attitudes, values and adoption intentions. Results suggest the model is generally supported with both reasons for adoption and reasons against adoption having countervailing influences in the psychological processing of adoption intentions. These findings suggest that researchers and marketers should include mediating constructs, such as (i) reasons for adoption, (ii) reasons against adoption, and (iii) attitudes toward a technology when attempting to explain how consumers think about the adoption of renewable energy systems.

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