Sustainable supply chain management – a key to resilience in the global pandemic

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential synergy between companies’ sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) activities and their supply chain resilience (SCRES). The authors propose hypotheses about the impact of buying companies SSCM activities on the inflicted damage by unexpected supply chain disruptions and the recovery time afterwards and test these empirically using data from companies during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach The authors investigate a sample of 231 of the largest publicly traded companies in the European Union with 4.158 firm-year observations. For the analysis, the authors generate variables capturing the companies’ intensity and years of experience of their SSCM activities targeted at the supply chain and run regression analyses on the inflicted damage due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery time after the disruption. Findings Buying companies’ SSCM activities have a positive effect on their SCRES. The damage inflicted by unexpected supply chain disruptions is lower when companies have higher levels of SSCM and longer experience with it. The recovery time afterwards is significantly reduced by longer experience with SSCM efforts. Research limitations/implications The authors suggest SCRES is reinforced by transparency, situational awareness, social capital and collaboration resulting from companies SSCM activities translate into increased SCRES. Practical implications The authors show that companies with superior SSCM are more resilient in a crisis and conclude that, therefore, companies should invest in SSCM to prevent future supply disruptions. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study analyzing a data set of multi-industry companies, linking their SSCM activities to SCRES during the pandemic.

Embracing change in tandem: resilience and sustainability together transforming supply chains

“…Starting from the idea that supply chains (as social-ecological systems) are the dance floors, it is suggested that firms facing turbulence will perform differently depending on which stage of the dance they target. We note that firms with a strong sustainability orientation start the dance performance in a better position than others (Eggert and Hartmann, 2022;Sauer et al, 2022); however, this does not hamper others to embrace change. Each dance performance stage is described as follows:…”

“…Secondly, Shen and Sun (2021) provide an example of a study that links SCRes capabilities to sustainability, revealing that flexibility and collaboration are key advantages for a firm's non-commercial social sustainability actions. Thirdly, Eggert and Hartmann (2022) explored the SCRes steps of preparing and recovering during COVID-19 from a buying firm perspective. Although they found positive impacts of sustainability on SCRes related to transparency, situational awareness, social capital and collaboration, they did not consider the responding step, nor did they consider transformative SCRes.…”

“…We understand that more rehearsing leads to more success when acting, therefore firms which build sustainability micro-foundations during this stage are likely to better respond to the crisis during the next stage. For Eggert and Hartmann (2022), SCRes preparedness (which they call readiness) is an antecedent for sustainability activities. Similarly, Stone and Rahimifard (2018) state that it is impossible to have sustainability without resilience.…”

“…, 2021; Negri et al. , 2021), the extant literature simply identifies a positive relationship without explaining the nature of this relationship (Eggert and Hartmann, 2022; Sauer et al. , 2022; Negri et al.…”

Risk management in sustainable supply chain: a knowledge map towards intellectual structure, logic diagram, and conceptual model

“…Collaboration can lead to faster communication and sharing of critical information, which can lead to better SSCRM (Kaur et al 2022 ). In an empirical study of supply chain resilience, 32% of respondents said they worked more closely with suppliers to mitigate SSC risks (Eggert and Hartmann 2022 ). Many studies employ wholesale pricing contracts, revenue sharing contracts, repurchase contracts, etc.…”