World class sustainable supply chain management: critical review and further research directions

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-07-2015-0112
• Published date: 08 May 2017
• Date: 08 May 2017
• Pages: 332-362
• Author: Rameshwar Dubey,Angappa Gunasekaran,Stephen J. Childe,Thanos Papadopoulos,Samuel Fosso Wamba
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics

World class sustainable supply

chain management: critical review

and further research directions

Rameshwar Dubey

Department of Operations Management,

Symbiosis International University, Nashik, India

Angappa Gunasekaran

Department of Decision and Information Sciences,

Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts –Dartmouth,

North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA

Stephen J. Childe

Plymouth Business School, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

Thanos Papadopoulos

Kent Business School, University of Kent, Chatham, UK, and

Samuel Fosso Wamba

Department of Information Systems, Supply Chain and Decisions,

NEOMA Business School, Rouen, France

Abstract

Purpose –Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has attracted considerable interest among

academics and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical review of the literature, to

identify missing links, to argue for the use of world class SSCM (WCSSCM) through a framework, and

suggest further research directions.

Design/methodology/approach –In the paper the authors have undertaken an extensive review of

literature and classified articles using a novel classification scheme.

Findings –Through the extensive review and identification of research gaps, the paper identifies significant

differences between definitions and methodologies in the SSCM literature; and argues for “WCSSCM.”

This term is elaborated on via a theoretical framework in which 18 dimensions are classified under six

constructs of SSCM. Furthermore, a list of potential research directions for WCSSCM is discussed.

Research limitations/implications –The research is an attempt to critically review literature, argue for

WCSSCM, and develop a theoretical framework.

Originality/value –The paper offers a new approach to SSCM literature, arguing for WCSSCM through a

framework, and providing further research directions.

Keywords Literature review, Theoretical framework, Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM),

Triple bottom line, World class SSCM (WCSSCM)

Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has attracted great attention from academics

and practitioners in recent years (Tachizawa and Yew Wong, 2014). The popularity of the

field can be measured in terms of the exponential leap in the number of published articles

around the issue of sustainability in supply chain networks in the last five years. Seuring

et al. (2008) have argued that the sustainable supply chain literature has so far failed to

investigate the impacts of sustainable practices on social dimensions. From an

environmental and economic perspective, Ashby et al. (2012) and Halldorsson et al. (2009)

have argued that the word “sustainability”is over-stretched and it maybe that the level of

attention is raised by unnecessary hyperbole surrounding sustainability in supply chains.

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 28 No. 2, 2017

pp. 332-362

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-07-2015-0112

Received 16 February 2015

Revised 7 July 2015

3 November 2015

6 January 2016

24 January 2016

Accepted 24 January 2016

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-4093.htm

332

IJLM

28,2

Beske and Seuring (2014) have argued that a sustainable supply chain differs from a

conventional supply chain. There is also strong evidence suggesting that sustainability

in supply chain networks has helped organizations to achieve better performance

(e.g. Tsoulfas and Pappis, 2006; Yusuf et al., 2013; Plambeck et al., 2013).

Despite the popularity of the SSCM field, it is quite evident from the literature that the

concept of a sustainable supply chain is poorly understood from both theoretical and

managerial points of view. There is growing body of literature related to SSCM, but, on the

other hand, there are overlaps between green supply chain management (GSCM) or

environmental supply chain management literature and sustainable supply chain literature,

as well as other areas that have attracted significant contributions, such as environmental

supply chains, ethical supply chains and responsible supply chains. Markman and Krause

(2014), in a recent call for papers, have argued for more integrated theory building articles.

Despite the popularity of the SSCM topics amongst researchers, there is still a need for

critical review and a framework that will shed light upon the different definitions and

perspectives and links, and will provide further research directions. To bridge this

knowledge gap and driven by the endorsement of Markman and Krause, this study aims at

achieving the following research objectives:

(1) to review the literature of SSCM and develop a classification of literature based on

previous scholarly works;

(2) to argue for the use of world class SSCM (WCSSCM) and propose a theoretical

framework that articulates its different dimensions;

(3) to provide taxonomy of the literature based on our WCSSCM framework; and

(4) to identify further research directions based on the limitations of our study.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In the second section we discuss our

methodology and our classification of literature and present our theoretical framework.

The third section is devoted to research discussions and finally we synthesize the findings

of the extensive literature review, outline the limitations of this work, and offer extensive

further research directions.

2. Research methodology

In this section we discuss our research process. We first read the literature and identify

different definitions of the SSCM literature, which provided the motivation for the use of

WCSSCM. We then identify enablers of SSCM, which have provided the basis for the

classification of the literature and our proposed framework.

2.1 Identification of literature

We have undertaken a critical review of the literature published in reputable journalsindexed in

the “Web of Science”(using both the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation

Index) and “Scopus.”We used the keywords: “sustainability,”“social sustainability”“supply

chain,”“definition,”“enabler,”“measure,”and “technique.”We reviewed each of the papers for

relevance to the topic area. Following Gunasekaran et al. (2015), if there were disagreements

regarding the inclusion of particular articles, the co-authors discussed until agreement was

reached. Since many of the papers take different viewpoints and look at different aspects, there

is an immense scope for advancement by unifying the field.

2.2 In-depth analysis of definitions of SSCM based on literature

In the past there were several attempts to outline lists of SSCM definitions. We decided to

revisit SSCM definitions published in reputable journals. Our attempt took shape after we

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