Governing Interfirm Relationships for Social Sustainability: The Relationship between Governance Mechanisms, Sustainable Collaboration, and Cultural Intelligence

Abstract

The concept of social sustainability is gaining attention within the field of supply chain relationships and international business. There are conflicting arguments regarding the effectiveness of contract governance and collaboration in an interfirm relationship. Previous studies have investigated the effect of a national culture on contract governance and opportunism. This study examines the effects of contract governance on collaboration, incorporating the moderating influence of cultural intelligence. Survey data were collected from 239 export manufacturing firms in different industries. The current authors suggest that contract governance might be more effective under conditions of a greater level of firm cultural intelligence capabilities. Cultural intelligence plays an important role in the shaping and implementation of collaboration and is the key to manage cross-culture relationship management in a supply chain. Cultural intelligence constitutes one potential way for the export industry to manage intercultural differences and profitably achieve an increase in collaboration. Collaboration with a socially responsible partner brings about improved social performance. The social dimensions of sustainability, such as fair labor practices and decent worker conditions, health and safety, no child labor, and employee empowerment must be addressed to accomplish the most sustainable growth. Managers also need to take advantage of cultural intelligence to adapt, collaborate, and share cultural knowledge.

The Role of Collaborative Healthcare in Improving Social Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework

“…Although previous research has emphasized the importance of economic and environmental sustainability in the healthcare context, social sustainability has been less analyzed [15,39,48]. This scant attention to social sustainability may be due to considering social sustainability as the forerunner for other sustainability dimensions, namely environmental sustainability, and ignoring its independent characteristics [37].…”

“…In the sustainability literature, the terms social performance and social sustainability are sometimes applied interchangeably [39]. Given that there is not a singular definition for social sustainability in the literature [40], the concept can refer to key themes that embody social issues relevant to sustainability, such as access to basic needs [41], social justice [42], and equity [43].…”

“…Social sustainability in the healthcare context has been defined as a "process of creating an accessible, integrated and equitable community that successfully meets the needs of health and well-being of users" [48] (p. 16). Similarly, Awan et al [39] indicated that social sustainability implies both the fair distribution of health and safety resources and providing equal opportunities to access these resources. These objectives of social sustainability in healthcare systems may secure the survival of a healthcare system as they address the expectations of stakeholders.…”

“…For instance, it may enhance individuals' satisfaction [49] and satisfied individuals would feel more commitment and be more willing to share their knowledge in an organization [50], which in turn can develop sustainable performance [51]. In a similar way, social sustainability may shape the perceived organizational support (POS) among individuals in healthcare system as its key concern, like POS [52], is valuing individuals through fair distribution of care facilities and promotion of well-being [39,48]. When employees perceive organization care about them, their organizational identification might increase and this can develop their collaboration, task performance, and extra-role helping behavior, namely organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) [53].…”

“…Professionals' wellbeing, safety, security, satisfaction Capolongo et al [48], Chiu [38] Professionals' comfort (daylighting, social thermal comfort, acoustic, and indoor air quality) Capolongo et al [48] Patients' accessibility to healthcare and fair distribution Awan et al [39], Capolongo et al [48], Chiu [38], Capolongo et al [54] Patients' satisfaction Faezipour and Ferreira [55] Accordingly, Malby et al [8] claimed that a high-performance collaborative healthcare system needs to involve the concept of social sustainability in its practices and approaches. Hence, social sustainability is also a shared concern of healthcare actors, which promotes collaboration among them [9,10,30,[56][57][58][59].…”