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Acknowledgments:An earlier version of this paper was the recipient of the 2015 Chris Voss Best Paper Award granted at the 22 nd European Operations Management Association conference. We are most grateful to the EurOMA Scientific Committee for choosing our paper and encouraging us to consider IJPDLM as a publication outlet for our research. We also acknowledge the helpful feedback received at the conference. Moreover, we would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers at IJPDLM who have provided extremely insightful and constructive suggestions which helped us to improve this paper substantially. Finally, we express our gratitude to the Editor, Alexander E. Ellinger, for facilitating a speedy review process. Design/methodology/approach -A dyadic case study design was adopted with a Western European buyer and six of its Chinese suppliers. The database consists of 41 interviews and 81 documents.Findings -Contextual barriers to SDS in global supply chains derive from complexities in the sustainability concept, socio-economic differences, spatial and linguistic distance, as well as cultural differences between buyers and suppliers. Partial remedies include effective joint communications, an open organizational culture, and the fostering of cross-contextual understanding.Research implications -The findings contribute to theory development at the intersection of sustainable and global supply chain management research. They help to explain why scarce sustainability-related progress in global supply chains has occurred in recent years.Practical implications -The identified barriers facilitate managerial decision making that will expedite SDS progress in global contexts.Social implications -By diffusing knowledge regarding available remedies, the study contributes to improving SDS effectiveness, thereby fostering sustainability capabilities and performance of suppliers.Originality/value -This research highlights the criticality of contextual barriers to SDS. The barrier effects that stem from differing real-world conceptions of sustainability may inform future sustainable supply chain management research within and beyond SDS.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore contextual barriers to supplier development for sustainability (SDS) in global supply chains and managerial remedies to mitigate such barriers. Design/methodology/approach -A dyadic case study design was adopted with a Western European buyer and six of its Chinese suppliers. The database consists of 41 interviews and 81 documents. Findings -Contextual barriers to SDS in global supply chains derive from complexities in the sustainability concept, socio-economic differences, spatial and linguistic distance, as well as cultural differences between buyers and suppliers. Partial remedies include effective joint communications, an open organizational culture, and the fostering of cross-contextual understanding.Research limitations/implications -The findings contribute to theory development at the intersection of sustainable and global supply chain management research. They help to explain why scarce sustainability-related progress in global supply chains has occurred in recent years. Practical implications -The identified barriers facilitate managerial decision making that will expedite SDS progress in global contexts. Social implications -By diffusing knowledge regarding available remedies, the study contributes to improving SDS effectiveness, thereby fostering sustainability capabilities and performance of suppliers. Originality/value -This research highlights the criticality of contextual barriers to SDS. The barrier effects that stem from differing real-world conceptions of sustainability may inform future sustainable supply chain management research within and beyond SDS.

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This study explores the impact of supply chain collaboration on eco‐innovations in the context of 220 Chinese manufacturing supplier firms involved in global supply chain networks. It investigates how supplier and customer collaborations help firms to enhance product eco‐innovations, and/or process eco‐innovations, and how the institutional context (i.e., regulatory, market, and community pressures) influences these relationships. The structural equation modeling approach is used to analyze the data captured from medium and large manufacturing enterprises in three major sectors: automotive, electronics, and textiles. The results show that community pressure has a positive effect on supplier collaboration, which further leads to enhanced process eco‐innovation. On the other hand, the findings indicate that while market pressure enhances customer collaboration, this does not reinforce product eco‐innovation. Contrary to our expectation, regulatory pressures do not impact supplier or customer collaboration for innovation. Overall, different institutional factors indicate divergent effects on supply chain collaboration and product/process eco‐innovation. The importance of normative pressures, such as those applied through the local community and interest groups, for eco‐innovations in production processes is further discussed as a typical feature of the institutional environment of Chinese supplier firms.

PurposeWhile various supply chain (SC) sustainability investigations exist, their connection to supply chain resilience (SCRes) remains largely unexplored. To fill this gap, the authors answer the question: “How do firms' sustainability actions affect their SCs' resilience and sustainability trajectories in turbulent environments?" by exploring the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted 10 case studies in five industries located in six European countries. A total of 19 semi-structured interviews and relevant secondary data were collected and analyzed in reference to SC sustainability learning and the literature on SCRes approaches (i.e. engineering, ecological and social-ecological).Findings31 SC actions referring to different sustainability dimensions were identified to map SCRes learning through a temporal, spatial and functional scale analysis. While five cases are related to an engineering approach focused on “bouncing back” to pre-pandemic goals, three cases were focused on “bouncing forward” as part of an ecological approach. Moreover, the authors identified the existence of two social-ecological resilience cases which developed long-term actions, updating functional set-ups transcending the SC level. The results furthermore illustrate an influence of the SCRes approaches on SC sustainability learning, generating three different paths: flat, flat ascending and ascending SC sustainability trajectories.Research limitations/implicationsThe study develops an overview of the adoption of SCRes approaches due to temporal, spatial and functional scales, and their effect on SC sustainability trajectories through exploitation and exploration capabilities. Future research should elaborate on potential moderators in the proposed relationships.Practical implicationsA better understanding of the link between SC sustainability actions and SCRes will help practitioners to make better informed decisions in turbulent environments.Originality/valueUnlike previous research, this paper provides empirical evidence on engineering, ecological and social-ecological SCRes approaches, as well as SC sustainability trajectories.