Mapping Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Supply Chains: an Exploratory Perspective

Abstract

Corporate responsibility (CR) in general, and sustainable supply chain management in particular, have been a growing concern for companies and researchers over the past decade. However, in scholarly work, sustainability has often been dealt with in a generic fashion or from an anecdotal point of view. Further, research works examining CR on the one hand and sustainable supply chains on the other have been conducted separately. We undertake the multiple factor analysis of a CR rating database (Innovest) which reports longitudinal scores for both the social and environmental performance of 1198 companies in different countries and distinct industries, to demonstrate a strong relationship between CR and a sustainable supply chain. Our findings from exploratory analysis also illustrate the role of country of origin and industry in shaping CR behaviour, highlighting isomorphic as well as allomorphic trends for CR trough time. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Supply Chains of Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises

“…For this reason, Carbone et al (2012) distinguished supply-chain-level responsibilities from business-level responsibilities while incorporating both social and environmental dimensions for both levels. In particular, traditional concepts of CSR cannot fully capture the social responsibilities of supply chains beyond a company.…”

“…Dimensions of CSR in supply chains challenging to capture the CSR dimension applicable to the supply chain level. In particular, Carbone et al (2012) explicitly distinguished CSR from supply chain social responsibility by considering measurement items for both environmental and social aspects of supply chains. For this purpose, a review of existing literature on CSR, green logistics, and SCM was conducted.…”

“…Some of them suggested four dimensions, taking the model of Carbone et al (2012) which consists of corporate-social, corporate-environmental, supply chain-social, and supply chain-environmental dimensions, into account. They discussed CSR dimensions and practices for a parsimonious model, which led to a debate as to whether the supply chain dimension should take the same hierarchy as the environmental and social dimensions.…”

Sustainable supply chain management: current debate and future directions

“…For example, Hutchins & Sutherland (2008) argue that social sustainability must be addressed based on four key areas: labour equity, employee healthcare, labour safety and philanthropy. More recently, Carbone et al (2012) argue that the social performance of supply chains includes working conditions throughout the chain such as salary levels, child labour, work safety, working hours, gender equality, and also product/service safety. The Benoît et al (2010)'s proposal seems to be more holistic, encompassing several indicators segregated by stakeholder groups.…”

“…The Benoît et al (2010)'s proposal seems to be more holistic, encompassing several indicators segregated by stakeholder groups. The literature seems to agree that the social dimension should raise significant interest given the fact that a growing number of products, materials and components has been sourced from 'low-cost countries' with inefficient regulatory systems (Ciliberti et al, 2008;Carbone et al, 2012).…”