Love me, love me not: A nuanced view on collaboration in sustainable supply chains
Introduction
In recent years, firms have become increasingly challenged with managing their supply chain (SC) relationships in order to address the widely unethical and unsustainable practices that emerge as part of their operational activities (Krause et al., 2009, Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014). The depth and quality of the relationship between a firm and its suppliers was the most commonly cited facilitator of sustainable SC management (SSCM) (Brammer et al., 2011).
Previous research on SSC relationships has put a strong emphasis on collaboration between SC partners to facilitate sustainability initiatives (e.g. Gold et al., 2010; Seuring and Müller, 2008). In particular cooperation and inter-organisational learning have been shown to improve sustainable SC performance. Cooperation with suppliers has been identified as a common best practice of SCM related to better organisational outcomes and therefore, unsurprisingly, has become viewed as a critical component of creating sustainable SCs (Pagell and Wu, 2009). Many examples of collaborative green SC activities have been investigated. Some examples include: collaborative waste reduction (Simpson and Power, 2005, Theyel, 2001), environmental innovation (Lee and Kim, 2011, Verghese and Lewis, 2007), adoption of environmental technologies (Vachon and Klassen, 2007), reduction of toxic material (Pagell et al., 2007), and joint development of recyclable products (Simpson, 2010). This ‘collaborative paradigm’, which had first emerged in more traditional SCM theory (Chen and Paulraj, 2004, Vachon and Klassen, 2006a), has become a predominant view of SSC relationships.
Trust between SC partners has been identified as a critical relational mechanism for collaboration, as opposed to compliance-based relationship orientation relying on power (Simpson and Power, 2005). In much SSCM research, the development of strong forms of collaboration, such as partnerships, has been viewed as the most desirable path to follow (Vachon and Klassen, 2006b, Youn et al., 2011). On the other hand, compliance is often perceived negatively and associated with coercive approaches to relationship management (Boyd et al., 2007).
Relational exchanges in a SSC context are complex, and it may be too idealistic to think that truly collaborative relationships can be developed easily. Managing SSC relationships raises some unique challenges such as developing stakeholder engagement and buy-in over time (Alvarez et al., 2010) in order to engage in, for example, environmental product development (Pagell and Wu, 2009). Organisations are reliant on other SC organisations upon which they have differing degrees of influence. Shifting from SCM to SSCM will thus lead companies to significantly rethink their relationship-management strategies to accommodate changes in the business landscape driven by sustainability needs (Pagell et al., 2010). Some authors have specifically identified the value of understanding the degree of collaboration in SSC relationships (Hall, 2000, Matopoulos et al., 2007).
There is little research however that explores in depth the collaborative paradigm, offering a more nuanced view of collaboration, for instance by including considerations about power imbalances (Hoejmose and Adrien-Kirby, 2012, Walker et al., 2012). While true collaboration can arguably be considered the best way forward, it may remain difficult to attain in reality. This is even more relevant when considering that most research in the field has investigated the activities of large corporations often working with small and medium (SME) suppliers at home or overseas to implement sustainable practices (Amaeshi et al., 2008, Hall, 2001, Lee and Klassen, 2008, Walker and Preuss, 2008).
SMEs account for 99% of the economic fabric of the European Union (European Commission, 2013), and are key players in SCs. While past research has shown mixed evidence regarding the role of size in addressing sustainability in SCs, there seems to be a converging argument towards acknowledging the importance of resource availability for SSCM (Bowen, 2002, Lee, 2008, Lee and Klassen, 2008). It is therefore important to understand what constitute the conditions under which true collaboration for sustainability between large and small companies may be impaired or difficult to achieve, and what may be possible ways forward.
In this paper we propose to examine collaboration in SSCs involving a large multinational working with small suppliers. We aim to develop a better understanding of the specific problems that may arise in SC collaboration on sustainability issues. We pay particular attention to identifying both supporting and hindering factors to collaborative practices in this context. An understanding of these factors is critical to enable collaboration to be effectively developed by SC players. We draw from relational theory (Dyer and Singh, 1998) to analyse our findings.
The contribution of this study is threefold. First, we offer relevant theoretical insights on SSC collaboration by exploring the relational view in sustainable SCM, which has not been used to a great extent (Vachon and Klassen, 2006a). While much research in SSCM remains a-theoretical (Carter and Easton, 2011, Touboulic and Walker, 2015), we offer a theoretically informed discussion of collaboration, which makes for an interesting contribution. Second, we examine both the factors that support and hinder collaborative practice on sustainability and therefore provide a more nuanced view of the collaborative paradigm. Last but least, we contribute to developing a better understanding of how SSCM unfolds in practice, rather than of the content of SSCM practices, as called for by Pagell and Shevchenko (2014). This is helpful in viewing SSCM as a change process.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. First, we review the literature on collaboration and SSCs from a relational lens. We then highlight gaps in current research and articulate our research questions. The next part of the paper describes the methodology adopted in the study, providing details regarding research design, data collection and analysis. The findings of our study are presented and discussed in the subsequent part in light of the relational framework. Finally we provide answers to our research questions and reflect upon our application of relational theory and draw some conclusions that can inform managers and future research.
Section snippets
Some background on SC collaboration and SSCM
There is a large amount of research that has been published on “traditional” SC collaboration that can inform our research. Some studies have focused on the factors enabling collaboration between SC actors, such as coordination mechanisms and benefits sharing (Lehoux et al., 2014), information sharing (Kache and Seuring, 2014), joint relationship efforts and dedicated investments (Nyaga et al., 2010), and investment in technology and measurement systems (Fawcett et al., 2008). ‘People issues’
Research questions
We have shown that relational theory enables classifying relationship factors according to whether they support or hinder the development of a collaborative approach to sustainability. So far however, a rather ideal picture of collaborative SSCM has been painted in the literature, which has been presented as the opposite of more arms’ length, coercive and compliance oriented approaches to relationship management. Matopoulos et al. (2007) raise the interesting point that in a SC relationships
Methodology
This paper draws on the qualitative insights gained as part of an Action Research (AR) project involving a large buyer and its small suppliers. While AR has a clear emancipation aspects and seeks to improve particular situations (Reason and Bradbury, 2008), it also enables gathering rich qualitative insights through a combination of different methods (Näslund, 2002, Näslund et al., 2010). This section follows an adaptation of Näslund et al's (2010) AR framework to describe the main aspects of
Findings
The findings from the interviews relating to enablers, lack of enablers and barriers to SSCM collaboration are presented in Table 5. Our findings have uncovered themes that have not been identified previously in the SSCM literature in particular related to lack of enablers and barriers to collaboration. These are highlighted bold italic in the tables. It is possible to note that the lack of enablers plays a more critical role in preventing further collaboration on sustainability than actual
Discussion
Linking our findings to the literature discussed previously enables answering our initial research questions.
Theoretical implications
This research contributes to exploring the process of implementing sustainability in SCs (van Bommel, 2011). Our findings showed that there are various factors that support or hinder a collaborative approach to SSCM. In line with previous research, the findings highlight the importance of relational capital (i.e. trust, relationship history) and commitment in supporting collaborative efforts for sustainability (Sharfman et al., 2009, Simpson and Power, 2005). The most critical factors hindering
Acknowledgements
This article reports on findings from a three-year research project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (Grant no. ES/I031057/1).
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