Abstract
Sustainable supply chain emerges as a major business trend essential to long-term competitive advantage. Relevant corporate decisions concern a broad range of factors and require novel analytical models for critical control. This study conducts mathematical analyses to identify the factors that are vital yet receiving insufficient attention from researchers and practitioners. Valid survey observations were collected from 113 enterprises in China, the biggest emerging economy that faces the dilemma between development and sustainability. Grey relational analysis (GRA) and interpretative structural modeling (ISM) assess the importance levels of contextual and organizational factors and explore their joint effects. Validated with conventional expert interviews, the results prioritize the factors that play crucial roles in sustainable supply chains. In particular, enterprises should pay close attention to three factors: corporate collaboration, clean production and supplier selection, which provide useful clues on the best practices of formulating low-carbon decisions. With a better understanding of critical factors, enterprises may make supply chains more sustainable with limited resources. To enhance the generalizability of findings, future studies may collect more observations from multiple countries and validate the results in the settings of global supply chains.
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province, China (No. 2020JM-201).
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Appendices
Appendix A: Questionnaire items
Part I: Questions on the decisions regarding the implementation of sustainable supply chain (1—strongly disagree; 2—disagree; 3—somewhat disagree; 4—uncertain; 5—somewhat agree; 6—agree; 7—strongly agree):
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1.
(Low-carbon target) Based on the current situation of our company, the management specifies the corresponding low-carbon target.
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2.
(Internal management) Our company has a working low-carbon policy for internal management.
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3.
(Green product design) The design of our new products embodies the concept of environmental sustainability (e.g., using environment-friendly materials).
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4.
(Partner cooperation) Our management maintains good cooperative relationships with upstream and downstream enterprises for sustainable supply chain.
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5.
(Energy conservation) Our company uses energy wisely to reduce carbon footprint.
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6.
(Low-carbon manufacturing) Our company reduces carbon emission during the manufacturing process.
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7.
(Green procurement) Our company adopts the low-carbon procurement method to get environment-friendly materials from suppliers.
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8.
(Green packaging) Our company incorporates the low-carbon concept in the product packaging.
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9.
(Low-emission transportation) Our company cuts down carbon emission in the transportation process (e.g., with careful route planning).
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10.
(Product recycling) Our company recycles used products to avoid resource wasting and environment pollution.
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11.
(Green technology) Our company implements innovative technologies to reduce carbon emission.
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12.
(Employee motivation) Our company motivates employees to participate in sustainable supply chain activities.
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13.
(Green storage) Our company uses green materials for storage.
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14.
(Inventory IT support) Our company manages inventory with information technology.
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15.
(Customer demand) Our company values customer demand for low-carbon products.
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16.
(Corporate investment) Our company makes low-carbon investments in all aspects.
Part II: Questions on the importance of the factors affecting low-carbon decisions (1—no influence at all; 2—little influence; 3—some influence; 4—noticeable influence; 5—significant influence; 6—strong influence; 7—overwhelming influence):
- F1. :
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Manager support
- F2. :
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Employee engagement
- F3. :
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Supplier selection
- F4. :
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Operational management
- F5. :
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Climate change mitigation strategy
- F6. :
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Procurement policy
- F7. :
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Technology innovation
- F8. :
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Clean production
- F9. :
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Corporate collaboration
- F10. :
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Transportation management
- F11. :
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Inventory control
- F12. :
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Consumer awareness
- F13. :
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Government intervention
Appendix B: SSIM matrix of influencing factors from expert scoring
To verify the low-carbon decision model established in this study, an alternative SSIM matrix was derived from expert scoring:
Factor | Factor | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
S1 | S2 | S3 | S4 | S5 | S6 | |
S1 Manager support | – | V | V | V | V | V |
S2 Procurement policy | – | V | V | A | X | |
S3 Clean production | – | A | A | A | ||
S4 Supplier selection | – | A | V | |||
S5 Technology innovation | – | V | ||||
S6 Corporate collaboration | – | |||||
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Yang, Z., Guo, X., Sun, J. et al. Contextual and organizational factors in sustainable supply chain decision making: grey relational analysis and interpretative structural modeling. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 12056–12076 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01157-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01157-3