Building on Carter and Jennings' (2002a,b, 2004) seminal works on socially responsible purchasing and logistics, this multinational study investigates the extent to which socially responsible supplier selection (SRSS) is associated with customer firms’ financial performance in three key world economic regions. We collect and utilize a unique dataset consisting of a total of 479 manufacturing, retail, and service provider firms operating in three distinct national cultures: China, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America. Based on an exploratory empirical analysis, we observe evidence that, overall, firms that consider social responsibility aspects during the supplier selection process enjoy financial performance advantages versus rivals. However, model comparisons across the studied countries reveal differential outcomes of SRSS by region. Our findings aid supply chain managers by linking SRSS to commonly expected outcomes within these important national settings.
A number of highly publicized, controversial lapses in social responsibility within global supply chains have forced managers and scholars to reexamine long‐held perspectives on supplier selection. Extending Carter and Jennings’ department‐level study of purchasing social responsibility, our research assesses the role of supply managers’ ethical intentions and three key antecedents that drive socially responsible supplier selection. Comparing evidence from firms operating in China, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, we identify three key drivers of supply managers’ ethical intentions and examine both their direct and indirect impacts on socially responsible supplier selection. We find differential support for the predictor relationships on supply manager ethical intentions across national contexts and mediated versus nonmediated models. These observations bear important implications for firms conducting global supply management.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.