Sustainable supply chain management: the role of supply chain management investments and global sourcing

Sustainability, intended as including in companies’ strategies and practices environmental and social aspects, is an always more relevant topic. In this paper we specifically address how three variables, namely “sustainable” supply chain management (SSCM), “traditional” supply chain management (SCM) and global sourcing interact each other to determine higher or lower sustainability performance. We assessed these relationships on the base of the fifth edition of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS), based on a sample of more than 400 companies. Our results show that the implementation of SSCM is positively associated with higher performance levels, but also that a fundamental contribution comes from SCM. Next, companies that have many global suppliers, despite the difficulties, can achieve comparable performance than competitors with local suppliers, but they have to rely much more on SSCM. These findings significantly expand literature thresholds and shed some further light on the sustainability phenomenon.