An Analysis of Barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management Implementation: The Fuzzy DEMATEL Approach

Abstract

This study aims to identify and analyze the sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) implementation barriers in the context of Iran to determine the barriers and establish a cause-and-effect relationship between them. The Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) is used to assess the barriers to SSCM implementation in Iran, and a fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is used to obtain qualitative assessments from multiple experts regarding how to mitigate the impact of the barriers. To validate the proposed methodology, out of 20 barriers identified through the literature review and 9 more barriers suggested by experts, 26 barriers are identified to be relevant to the context of Iran using FDM. Six SSCM implementation barriers (i.e., economic sanctions; banking problems; economic instability; high inflation rate; lack of regulation and guidance from the government and lack of a globally competitive environment) were determined as important barriers in the cause group. All of them are related to Iran’s economic situation, the economic sanctions against Iran, and the government’s neglect of the importance of sustainability issues, all of which are obviously out of the companies’ control; moreover, the impact-relation map for each has been developed to facilitate the visualization of its interactions (i.e., influencing and influenced) with other barriers. The outcomes achieved are unique to Iranian companies and cannot be generalized to every company in other countries; however, the proposed approach might serve as a foundation for analyzing and comprehending the interactions between barriers. The suggested technique would identify the most effective areas for directing resources and efforts to reduce the effects of barriers to successful SSCM implementation.

The Influence of Technological Innovation Capability on Sustainable Supply Chain Management Implementation—Evidence from Patent-Intensive Industries

“…The first step in developing research items is to review the literature that is relevant to the study's scope [49]. After a comprehensive review of the literature on barriers to SSCM implementation in developing countries, Iran in particular, we decided to use the results of our previous study [50], which identified the barriers to SSCM implementation in Iran, because it is the most recent and comprehensive study on barriers to SSCM implementation in Iran. Since TICs are internal capabilities and may affect internal factors more than external ones, only the internal barriers were considered in this study.…”

“…Since TICs are internal capabilities and may affect internal factors more than external ones, only the internal barriers were considered in this study. The identified internal barriers to SSCM implementation by [50] are illustrated in Table 1.…”

“…Without the commitment of top management, there would be no attention paid to sustainability and no appropriate resource allocation. In addition, there is no direction for policy development or environmental goal attainment [50]. Top management cannot embrace an environmental strategy without altering present organizational procedures and practices [70][71][72], as sited by [73].…”

“…Lack of knowledge about the company's appropriate SSCM practices is a major obstacle; thus, proper training must be offered to employees to guarantee the effective implementation of SSCM processes [50]. Since a company's learning capacity is its ability to find, integrate, and use information from the environment [33], it seems like this could help companies teach and train people about sustainability in the right way.…”

Selection of suppliers using crisp gradual means integral in conjunction with clustering algorithms

“…Kilincci and Onal [28] modelled the choice of fuzzy AHPs for a washing machines company, based on many criteria and decision-making. Zadeh [29] proposed a fuzzy theory of positioning, where all of the information captures a specific subjective subject and is translated into numbers representing a set of certain values based on their importance, while decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is used to obtain qualitative assessments from multiple experts regarding how to mitigate the impact of the barriers [30] . The proposed modelling using fuzzy clusters has proved to be an effective means for formulating decision problems related to the problem under study, where the available information is subjective and accurate.…”