No abstract

PurposeThis study explores the sustainable supply chain trade-offs in the electronics industry.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a social media analytics approach and analyses Twitter posts from August 2017 to December 2021. Thematic analysis is applied to discover the pattern in sustainable supply chain trade-offs based on the consumers' perceptions. In addition, a chi-square test was used to measure whether a relationship exists between product groups and sustainable supply chain perceptions.FindingsThe results indicate that environmental practices are the most frequent topic among consumers on social media. Further, although basic sustainable supply chain practices are prioritised in the environmental aspect, advanced sustainable supply chain practices take precedence over basic ones in the social dimension. The result from the chi-square independence test reveals that there is no significant relationship between different products and perceptions of consumers except for economically advanced sustainable supply chain practices.Practical implicationsThe main implications of the present study are to offer a fast and efficient method to marketers and companies for discovering customer perceptions. In a way, they can identify where the quality of practices needs to improve in their supply chains to gain customer satisfaction. Additionally, the authors suggest industries declare their trade-off preferences between sustainable supply chain practices transparently.Originality/valueThe findings extend the abundance of sustainable supply chain literature by identifying the sustainable supply chain trade-offs among consumer electronics. Also, the reason for customers' dissatisfaction is provided. In the end, six propositions are presented based on the explorations.

The stakeholders' perceptions can significantly impact the management of the supply chain; however, there has been little comparative research on customers' opinions in various regions of the world. This paper conducted a thematic analysis to determine the differences between consumers' perceptions in developed and developing countries. This study analyzes six countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Japan, and China—with a high social media engagement rate. Then, sentiment analysis was utilized to uncover consumers' emotions. The results indicate that social media users in developing nations are increasingly concerned about the sustainability of the mobile supply chain. Also, developing nations tweeted primarily about socially sustainable practices, whereas developed nations were more concerned with environmentally sustainable practices. This study contributes to the theory of stakeholders and institutions by concentrating on external stakeholders and analyzing their perspectives to determine how to enhance sustainable practices in supply chains.