NEWS & PUBLICATIONS

PERSPECTIVES OF LEADER SUPPORT OF U.S. SUPPLY CHAIN SOCIAL INTEGRITY

by

Dr. Adam Gauthier

​

DOI: ​10.13140/RG.2.2.35240.60169

.When leaders include corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their operations, a general business problem occurs because selecting vendors in the sourcing chain who also include CSR can become expensive and complicated. Specifically, this business problem escalates when a CSR-compliant organization unknowingly sources materials or services from an organization with flawed CSR practices; the outcomes can damage the innocent organization. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to interview business managers in the United States (U.S.) who have supply chain management responsibilities, U.S. supply chain managers (SCMs), or U.S. leaders who manage SCMs, to determine their perceptions of leadership support of socially sustainable supply chain (SSSC) practices, and whether leadership support is critical to SCMs use of SSSC practices. The central question was how organizations supporting SCMs use CSR, including triple-bottom line (TBL) and SSSC practices. The researcher used the framework of SSSC and its resulting construct of supply chain integrity (SCI) combined with construct of leader support from leader-member exchange theory. Themes emerging from the data included that CSR practices are implemented by SCMs to ensure SCI by vetting and auditing suppliers; cultural perceptions of sustainability’s effects on profits incentive SCMs; top-down leadership support for SSSC drives SCMs’ choices of suppliers; socially sustainable supply chain practices are tied to SCMs remuneration when SSSC practices are job requirements; and reporting of SSSC, SCI, and TBL practices are either metrics-based or informal. The most significant finding from this research was that participants perceived top-down leadership support for SSSC as the decisive influence on organizational cultural attitudes toward sustainable methods, and on whether, how, and to what extent SCMs implemented vetting and auditing of suppliers, reported sustainable methods and outcomes, and other practices associated with ensuring SCI. The practical implications of this study included: efforts to promote voluntary changes that increase organizations’ efforts to ensure SCI should be targeted toward organizational leadership, rather than toward SCMs or other stakeholders; and efforts to persuade organizational leadership to alter organizational values and direct their subordinates to ensure SCI should focus on potential negative effects of unsustainable SCM practices on profitability and on potential positive effects of SCI on profitability.