No abstract

The paper is a capsule to understand various social issues in supply chain, the social sustainability practices and strategies used for mitigation. Data was collected through questionnaire survey and systematic literature review of the supply chain social sustainability papers, published in peer-reviewed journals within the time frame of January 2000 to October 2020. Findings from this study show that social aspects are less researched and practiced compared to economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Research is still at an infancy stage in the emerging economies with very few social sustainability-centered studies focusing on practices and metrics to measure the impact of these practices. The paper identifies 26 social issues for social sustainability in supply chain for two different economies and does a comparative study. Scope of the paper is limited to Manufacturing and Energy sectors in the USA and in India to seek a possible contrasting or adhering perspective to the issues. Results and discussion pertain to the chosen sectors and geographies and provide key insight on the perspectives in the region with a conclusion on further research and mitigation methods through research and implementation of corporate practices that can help mitigate systemic social issues.

The paper paves a way to understand supply chain social sustainability practices and their associated barriers to implementation in the Indian and North American energy and manufacturing sectors. A systematic literature review and 4-point Likert scale survey provide clarity on the barriers and their perception from an industrial perspective. Findings from this study highlight that while the criticality of barriers differs with industry and geographies, some barriers are common to all. The study also highlights an approach needed for these sectors by identifying the most common barriers by providing a clear path on what practices can bring about the most impact in resolution. 20 barriers are identified, of which 3 show a stark difference in perception on its criticality against current published research work.  The paper also identifies the top barriers along with the practices that make it most easy to implement. 11 common barriers that exist in the target industries of the two countries are identified and 6 easiest-to-resolve barriers are revealed, analyzing the maximum number of mitigation practices available. The paper concludes by identifying eight most impactful social sustainability practices that can help resolve the maximum number of implementation barriers and highlights avenues for further research in the field.