This research investigates purchasing managers’ responses to adverse supply chain events. We build on attribution theory to examine how individual‐level factors—managerial personality traits, cognitive modes, and attribution of supplier responsibility—combine with firm‐level factors—buffering and bridging—to affect coping success. We combine an inductive process‐tracing approach with the neo‐configurational method of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Findings suggest that dark personality traits—traits that are generally regarded as socially aversive—are useful in coping with adverse supply chain events in combination with cross‐functionally integrated bridging, while the absence of dark personality traits is useful in combination with cross‐functionally integrated buffering. Our study contributes to the extant supply chain management literature in three ways: First, it highlights the role of dark personality traits in how purchasing managers react to supply chain risks. Second, it advances behavioral SCM literature by presenting nuanced findings on the effect of rational vs. intuitive cognitive processes in coping with such adverse events. Third, it contributes to attribution theory by providing a differentiated view on behavioral reactions following responsibility attributions. For managers, we find that high coping success might be achieved by seeking a fit between dark personality traits and firm actions. In addition, the results of the fsQCA demonstrate that supply chain research using configurational studies serves as a productive complement to traditional net effect analyses.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate legal effects on social sustainability practices at buying firms. The US Dodd-Frank Act has forced listed companies to determine the degree to which their products contain conflict minerals (CM). The research question this study seeks to answer is the following: which factors influence a company’s ability to determine the provenance of its inputs? Design/methodology/approach The study examines secondary data in the form of CM reports of 50 US listed firms for two consecutive years using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) approach. Findings This study identifies different configurations of stakeholder salience and firm resources that lead individual companies to achieve high levels of traceability. Findings show that firms’ CM governance mechanisms are a key determinant in the firms’ capacity to meet regulatory traceability requirements. Further, the authors find that both the presence and absence of specific stakeholder pressures and firm resources can lead to traceability. Findings also suggest that firms can achieve traceability without any pressure from stakeholders. Research limitations/implications The study investigates the practices of individual firms that are subject to the Dodd-Frank Act, rather than adopting a supply chain-wide perspective. Further, proxies had to be used to measure several constructs because of reliance on firms’ reporting, which implies that the study did not account for certain behavioral factors that influence traceability. Practical implications This study provides managers of both resource-rich and less resource-rich firms with possible pathways for achieving CM traceability. Originality/value The study contributes to the field of sustainability by providing exploratory insights into the antecedents of traceability and deriving theoretical propositions to guide further research. The authors apply fsQCA to investigate secondary data over multiple years, thus using a novel configurational methodology.