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Post Graduate Department of Management Studies, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur, Bangalore, India
Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India
c
Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300, USA,
d
Kent Business School, University of Kent., Sail and Colour Loft, The Historic Dockyard, Chatham, Kent ME4 4TE, United Kingdom
e
Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management, (Constituent of Symbiosis International University), Plot No. A-23, Shravan Sector, CIDCO, New Nashik
422008, India
f
Plymouth Business School, Plymouth University, Room 207, Mast House, 24 Sutton Road, Plymouth, Devon PL4 0HJ, United Kingdom
b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 5 September 2015
Received in revised form 26 June 2016
Accepted 6 July 2016
Keywords:
Sustainability
Social sustainability
Supply chain social sustainability
Supply chain
India
Manufacturing
a b s t r a c t
Research on social sustainability in developing countries has recently gained importance for both academics and practitioners. Studies in the supply chain management eld take either a supplier or a
manufacturer perspective that address predominantly corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues referring to the internal stakeholders. Our research integrates the literature on supplier, manufacturer, and
customer responsibility and proposes the concept of supply chain social sustainability (SCSS) that refers
to addressing social issues within the overall (upstream and downstream) supply chain. Furthermore,
we develop and empirically validate scales for measuring SCSS using in-depth interviews and a survey in
the Indian manufacturing industry. Our results suggest that SCSS consists of six underlying dimensions,
namely equity, safety, health and welfare, philanthropy, ethics, human rights, in a 20-item valid and
reliable scale. We discuss the implications of the ndings for research and practice and suggest future
research avenues.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Sustainability refers to meeting todays needs without compromising the future generations needs (Brundtland, 1987).
Understanding the three distinct dimensions namely economic,
environment and social, and their inter-relationships is crucial
(Elkington, 1999; Pagell and Wu, 2009; Gallego-lvarez et al.,
2015). However, the social dimension has received little attention
in the literature (Ashby et al., 2012; Seuring and Mller, 2008; Ahi
and Searcy, 2015a), whereas the majority of studies refer to developed countries (Carter and Jennings, 2002, 2004; Gunasekaran and
Spalanzani, 2012; Pinar et al., 2014). In developing countries and
emerging economies, apart from few studies (Zhu et al., 2005; Delai
and Takahashi, 2013; Chand et al., 2015; Silvestre, 2015a,b; Gurtu
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: maniv.iitr@gmail.com (V. Mani), rajatfdm@iitr.ac.in
(R. Agarwal), agunasekaran@umassd.edu (A. Gunasekaran),
A.Papadopoulos@kent.ac.uk (T. Papadopoulos), rameshwardubey@gmail.com
(R. Dubey), stephen.childe@plymouth.ac.uk (S.J. Childe).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.07.007
1470-160X/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
271
Table 1
Scale items and measures for social sustainability.
Measures
Source
downstream, socially responsible buying can help achieve sustainability and efciency (Drumwright, 1996; Carter et al., 1999; Cruz,
2013; Martnez-Jurado and Moyano-Fuentes, 2014), including for
instance, the adoption of fair trade principles and good governing
mechanisms (Formentini and Taticchi, 2015).
Studies in social sustainability investigate, in their majority, critical factors and enablers (antecedents) (Clarkson, 1995;
McWilliams and Siegel, 2000; Ehrgott et al., 2011; Searcy and
Buslovich, 2014); and the impact of social sustainability on performance (Kolk et al., 2010; Gunasekaran and Spalanzani, 2012;
Delai and Takahashi, 2013; Sebastiani et al., 2014). However, social
issues and antecedents of social sustainability vary across geographic locations (Gugler and Shi, 2009; Huq et al., 2014). Although
studies have been carried out on suppliers and SCSS (Gimenez and
Tachizawa, 2012), few if any, studies focus on both upstream and
downstream in developing countries.
Scholars have proposed different measures of SCSS (Carter and
Jennings, 2002, 2004; Corbire-Nicollier et al., 2011; Kozlowski
et al., 2015; Domingues et al., 2015), both quantitative and qualitative (Andersen and Skjoett-Larsen, 2009; Tate et al., 2010; Yusuf
et al., 2013). These measures differ across countries and contexts
(Gugler and Shi, 2009; Huq et al., 2014), whereas their majority is
supplier performance oriented (Carter and Jennings, 2002, 2004;
Lu et al., 2012; Ahi and Searcy, 2015b; Silvestre, 2015a). In India
safety, wages and labour practices were identied as dimensions
(Kumar et al., 2014; Mani et al., 2015a; Mani et al., 2016).
Nevertheless, there are no measures of overall supply chain
social sustainability for developing countries, such as India (Mani
et al., 2015b). To address this literature gap, we attempt to generate
the scale items to measure social sustainability as discussed below.
To identify, develop, and validate SCSS measures we used
both qualitative and quantitative methods (Churchills, 1979;
Linderbaum and Levy, 2010). Firstly, we reviewed the literature
(Rowley and Slack, 2004; Chen et al., 2014; Gunasekaran et al.,
2015) on sustainability, social sustainability, operations management, sustainable development and CSR. We conducted searches
272
3. Methodology
3.2. Sample and method of data collection
3.1. Scale purication-pilot test
After generating the 41-item scale, a pilot test was conducted
with 45 supply chain manufacturing managers and experts for face
validity and readability (Heeler and Ray, 1972) including General
Managers, AGM, Senior Managers, CEOs, and VPs (Sustainability),
who participated in the bi-annual supply chain management IIMB
conference in December 2014. Their majority belonged to Fortune 500 companies from automotive, pharmaceuticals, FMCG,
chemical, petrochemical, energy, electrical and electronics, cement,
and IT. Based on the pilot results, the item Inspect supplier
and customer locations and audit the safety measures was
removed and gender discrimination was rephrased to gender
non-discrimination, bringing the number of items to 40. Each was
273
Table 2
Sample characteristics.
Measure
Industry
Freq
Percent
Type of industry
Automobile industry
Architectural/Construction/Cement Industries/Infrastructure
Apparel manufacturer/Dying/Textiles/Spinning
Chemical industry
Consumer durable manufacturer
Mechanical equipment/Mechanical industries
Electrical and Electronics/IT products manufacturer
Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG)
Food and beverages
Iron and steel/Mining/Steel drum
Oil and natural gas industry
Packaging solutions/Paper
Pharmaceuticals companies
Ship building companies
Sugar manufacturers
Others (Footwear/Jewelers/Cycle)
39
35
49
26
4
9
32
9
32
5
3
9
23
2
16
7
13
11.6
16.3
8.6
1.3
3
10.7
3
10.7
1.7
1
3
7.7
0.7
5.3
2.3
Annual revenues
1
90
119
90
0.3
30
39.6
30
Andhra Pradesh
Karnataka
Kerala
Tamilnadu
Telangana
Missing
24
57
13
137
66
3
8
19
4.3
45.6
22
1
Position of respondents
81
189
30
0
27.0
63.0
10.0
0.0
Experience of respondents
15 Years
510 Years
More than 10 years
Missing
14
114
171
1
4.7
38.0
57.0
0.3
274
275
276
Acknowledgements
The authors are most grateful to anonymous reviewers and Professor Giovanni Zurlini, Associate Editor of Ecological Indicators for
their constructive and helpful comments which helped to improve
the presentation of the paper considerably.
Appendix A.
Table A1
Results from exploratory factor analysis for social sustainability (SS) items.
Component
1
0.756
0.717
0.691
0.657
0.616
0.039
0.100
0.073
0.214
0.216
0.003
0.140
0.136
0.129
0.043
0.014
0.098
0.023
0.232
0.239
0.023
0.085
0.119
0.110
0.062
0.021
0.053
0.017
0.300
0.203
SA1
SA2
SA3
SA4
0.071
0.082
0.028
0.029
0.794
0.793
0.779
0.625
0.086
0.000
0.059
0.197
0.139
0.104
0.207
0.236
0.182
0.019
0.056
0.154
0.113
0.048
0.041
0.081
Equity
EQ1
EQ2
EQ3
EQ4
0.018
0.005
0.113
0.069
0.010
0.138
0.012
0.028
0.766
0.765
0.734
0.680
0.026
0.082
0.041
0.075
0.066
0.119
0.077
0.025
0.045
0.031
0.183
0.112
HW1
HW2
HW3
0.077
0.028
0.197
0.005
0.080
0.052
0.049
0.095
0.002
0.841
0.806
0.676
0.009
0.074
0.027
0.158
0.030
0.070
Ethics
ET1
ET2
ET3
0.061
0.021
0.140
0.000
0.084
0.083
0.076
0.113
0.044
0.015
0.115
0.013
0.826
0.760
0.725
0.164
0.058
0.035
Human Rights
HR1
HR2
HR3
0.162
0.044
0.185
0.063
0.011
0.100
0.022
0.158
0.176
0.030
0.159
0.029
0.075
0.115
0.114
0.812
0.707
0.618
0.752
5.97
27.17
0.879
2.73
39.59
0.763
1.42
46.07
0.894
1.28
51.89
0.724
1.14
57.1
0.811
1.12
62.23
Philanthropy
pH 1
pH 2
pH 3
pH 4
pH 5
Safety
Cronbachs alpha
Eigen value(Sum of squares)
Cumulative variance explained
Highest loading values are marked in bold.
Table A2
Final CFA results for the constructs.
Construct in the model
Measurement Item
Items loading
(Standardized)
t-value
Composite
reliability (CR)
Cronbachs alpha
Equity
EQ2
EQ3
EQ4
SA1
SA2
SA4
pH 1
pH 2
pH 3
pH 4
pH 5
HR1
HR2
HR3
ET1
ET2
ET3
HW1
HW2
HW3
0.70
0.80
0.72
0.98
0.62
0.65
0.60
0.64
0.77
0.60
0.60
0.70
0.62
0.88
0.71
0.72
0.72
0.68
0.70
0.62
12.066a
12.218a
0.78
0.82
0.78
0.71
0.75
0.80
0.74
0.82
0.72
0.76
0.73
0.75
Safety
Philanthropy
Human Rights
Ethics
a
b
4.464a
b
5.412a
7.917a
7.513a
8.851a
7.431a
b
6.645a
b
6.651a
7.501a
6.734a
b
5.531a
5.774a
b
277
Table A3
Convergent and discriminant validity of the constructs.
Dimensions
CR
AVE
MSV
ASV
Ethics
Equity
Safety
Philan-thropy
HR
HW
Ethics
Equity
Safety
Philanthropy
HR
HW
0.725
0.784
0.787
0.752
0.749
0.730
0.500
0.548
0.561
0.521
0.502
0.501
0.233
0.035
0.132
0.216
0.233
0.216
0.114
0.015
0.048
0.105
0.103
0.068
0.707
0.110
0.364
0.363
0.483
0.244
0.740
0.024
0.187
0.141
0.087
0.749
0.141
0.297
0.023
0.721
0.346
0.465
0.708
0.232
0.707
Table A4
Evaluation of discriminant validity of the factors using factor correlations.
Component
Mean (SD)
Philanthropy
Safety
Equity
Health and Welfare
Ethics
Human Rights
2.80(0.70)
3.39(0.92)
2.91(0.75)
3.01(0.84)
3.08(0.68)
3.14(0.70)
1.000
0.170
0.134
0.246
0.389
0.190
1.000
0.007
0.141
0.145
0.065
1.000
0.224
0.081
0.277
1.000
0.187
0.330
1.000
0.125
1.000
Table A5
Social sustainability scale items and their measures (After renement) (5-point Likert scale; 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).
Dimensions
Items
Item Loading
Measures
Philanthropy
pH 1
pH 2
pH 3
pH 4
pH 5
0.60
0.64
0.77
0.60
0.60
Safety
SA1
SA2
a
SA3
SA4
a
EQ1
EQ2
EQ3
EQ4
HW1
0.98
0.62
HW2
HW3
ET1
0.70
0.62
0.71
ET2
ET3
0.72
0.72
HR1
HR2
HR3
0.70
0.62
0.88
Equity
Ethics
Human Rights
**
a
**
0.65
**
0.70
0.80
0.72
0.68
indicates that the factor loading is lower than cut-off value (0.5).
Items were removed for poor loading and t in the measurement model.
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