Developing global supplier competences for supply chain sustainability: The effects of institutional pressures on certification adoption

Abstract

Due to institutional pressures faced by companies in their business environment, this paper investigates how sustainability certification adoption affects global suppliers' competences. Using multiple case studies, managers of 20 export‐oriented firms were interviewed, and secondary data were collected and analysed through inductive content analysis. Findings show normative and mimetic pressures as central for sustainability implementation by coffee suppliers. Additionally, we found that as a result of suppliers' sustainability improvement in their own operations, during the certification adoption, new competences emerged going beyond the triple bottom line dimensions, including improvements in aspects of institutional dimension of sustainability. In contrast to previous research in supply chain sustainability that emphasises coercive pressures, this paper demonstrates the role of normative and mimetic institutional pressures in developing new supplier competences. In doing so, we draw on the role of certification adoption in influencing global suppliers and hence sustainability throughout the supply chain.

Pressures for sub‐supplier sustainability compliance: The importance of target markets in textile and garment supply chains

“…This extends the traditional SSCM literature by “reach[ing] deeper into the supply chain” (Mena et al, 2013, p. 59), or assessing and controlling the sustainability compliance of upstream suppliers beyond linear buyer–direct supplier dyadic models (Choi & Wu, 2009; Dou et al, 2018; Grimm et al, 2014; Norris et al, 2021; Sauer & Seuring, 2019). While sustainability compliance can be defined as the ability to meet the minimum social and environmental standards required by buyers in their code of conduct (Pereira et al, 2023; Silva & Nunes, 2022), we concentrate in this article on sub‐supplier sustainability compliance (Fontana et al, 2021; Grimm et al, 2016). Sub‐suppliers are entrusted with critical manufacturing operations like spinning, washing, printing, and dyeing, playing a strategic role in creating time and cost efficiencies (Venkatesh et al, 2020).…”

“…MT-SSCM research shows that sustainability compliance upstream in supply chains results from buyer pressures, and the research adopts institutional theorists' view that organizations implement new practices due to coercive pressures from more powerful organizations, mimetic pressures from top-performing organizations, and normative pressures to conform with legitimizing norms (DiMaggio, 1994;DiMaggio & Powell, 1983;Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Evidence demonstrates that buyer pressures can stir direct supplier sustainability compliance (Carter & Easton, 2011;Pereira et al, 2023;Touboulic & Walker, 2015) with both social (Yawar & Kauppi, 2018) and environmental standards (Villena & Dhanorkar, 2020;Zhang et al, 2022).…”

Sustainable supply chain management in a global context: the perspective of emerging economy suppliers

“…Despite these barriers, suppliers in emerging economies have adopted sustainability initiatives, and, consequently, buyer and supplier sustainability performance has improved (Jia et al, 2018; Koberg & Longoni, 2019). In particular, suppliers have benefited through knowledge/technology from their international buyers (Jia et al, 2018; Liu et al, 2019) and built competencies enabling sustainability improvement for the entire GSC (Pereira et al, 2023). Thus, when buyers have obtained knowledge regarding their suppliers’ local context, this facilitates the alignment of sustainability goals (Koberg & Longoni, 2019; León-Bravo et al, 2021).…”

Institutional pressures for sustainability: a triple bottom line approach

“…From the practitioners' point of view, different reasons may explain their focus on environmental sustainability actions, such as the greater regulation and control of these issues in comparison, for example, to social issues. Indeed, large corporations are required to comply with increasingly stringent controls on, for example, pollution and CO2 emissions (Habib et al, 2022), and they also require their suppliers to adopt sustainability-related certifications (Hajjar et al, 2019;Pereira et al, 2023). In addition, as highlighted by several authors (Dyllick and Muff, 2016;Landrum, 2018), confusion persists between the concepts of corporate sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and environmental management.…”