Spillover effects of supply chain news on consumers' perceptions of product quality: An examination within the triple bottom line

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact that news about supply chain operations related to the triple bottom line (TBL) has on consumers' perceptions. Specifically, it focuses on how sustainability successes and failures in a company's supply chain operations influence consumer perceptions of product quality. These perceptions are based on a spillover effect. The research study is set up across three experiments. Study one tests for the spillover effect in supply chain TBL‐related news and demonstrates that negative supply chain news across all three TBL dimensions reduces quality perceptions. Study two examines the effect across three levels of negative news intensity and finds that the spillover effect is consistent, even with stronger levels of negativity. Study three investigates whether a firm can improve damaged quality perceptions and purchase intentions through a recovery effort. The results of study three suggest that consumers' perceptions and purchase intentions are generally reparable. Collectively, the findings should encourage firms to more rigorously consider how news about their supply chain operations may impact consumers' perceptions and intentions toward the firm's products.

Unravelling Mickey Mouse: The Effect of Supply Chain Position and Organisational Slack on the Uneven Balance of Sustainability Dimensions

“…This finding runs somewhat counter to some of the previous research implying that environmental considerations receive more attention [20]. Nevertheless, this finding aligns with recent research, indicating that social sustainability criteria had a stronger impact on consumers and purchasing managers' willingness to pay for a product [63,64]. This may be because environmental issues have a larger psychological distance from supply chain decision makers than social issues and are therefore less likely to induce a behavioural change [11,66,67].…”

“…This finding runs somewhat counter to some of the previous research implying that environmental considerations receive more attention [20]. Nevertheless, this finding aligns with recent research, indicating that social sustainability criteria had a stronger impact on consumers and purchasing managers' willingness to pay for a product [63,64]. This may be because environmental issues have a larger psychological distance from supply chain decision We also viewed the importance of each dimension of sustainability through the stakeholder theory and analysed if a firm's position in the supply chain affects the importance of each dimension of sustainability and thereby contribute to the literature on multi-tier supply chain management.…”

“…Goebel et al [63] found that purchasing managers were willing to pay the highest price premium for good labour conditions. Nichols et al [64], in turn, studied the impact of supply chain news on consumers' perceptions of product quality and found that compared to practically salient (i.e., economic) news emotionally salient news related to social or environmental issues created a stronger impact on consumers' purchase interest.…”

Consumers care and firms should too: On the benefits of disclosing supplier monitoring activities

“…We recruited participants using Amazon Mechanic Turk (M‐Turk), an online crowdsourcing platform used in many disciplines including in operations and supply chain management (e.g., Nichols et al, 2019; Peinkofer et al, 2016; Ta et al, 2018). In comparison to other subject pools, M‐Turk has been found to provide high quality data representative of consumers (Kees et al, 2017).…”

Joint Sustainability Development in a Supply Chain

“…Moreover, consumers care about suppliers working with the manufacturer in order to assure that the products they buy come from a sustainable supply chain (SC) (Nichols, Stolze, & Kirchoff, 2019). That is, the supplier's sustainability efforts can also have a positive impact on the demand for the (manufacturer's) products.…”