From sustainability commitment to performance: The role of intra-and inter-firm collaborative capabilities in the upstream supply chain

Davide Luzzini (), Emma Brandon-Jones, Alistair Brandon-Jones and Gianluca Spina
Additional contact information
Davide Luzzini: Audencia Recherche - Audencia Business School
Emma Brandon-Jones: University of Bath [Bath]
Alistair Brandon-Jones: University of Bath [Bath]
Gianluca Spina: INFM-FIRENZE - Dipartimento di Fisica - UniFE - Università degli Studi di Ferrara = University of Ferrara

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Organisations increasingly see sustainability as an important element of their business strategies, and the role of purchasing and supply functions is critical in translating sustainability commitment into performance. Yet, the impact of sustainability commitment on purchasing processes and routines, as well as the effect of such capabilities on performance, remains empirically under-explored. From a Resource-Based perspective, we argue that commitment to sustainability leads purchasing and supply functions to develop intra-and inter-firm collaborative capabilities, and that in turn these capabilities deliver improved performance. Based on survey data from 383 procurement executives in ten European and North American countries, we use structural equation modelling to empirically test our hypotheses. Our results provide strong support for the hypothesised links between sustainability commitment and both intra-and inter-firm collaborative capabilities; and between inter-firm collaborative capabilities and environmental and social, and cost performance. Conversely, our data do not support the hypothesised links between intra-firm collaborative capabilities and both aspects of performance. In our discussion, we reflect on both confirmatory and conflicting findings in relation to theory and practice, before examining the study's limitations and opportunities for future research.

Keywords: Sustainability; Purchasing and supply management; Intra-firm collaborative capabilities; Inter-firm collaborative capabilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-env
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://audencia.hal.science/hal-01289178v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Published in International Journal of Production Economics, 2015, 165, pp.51-63. ⟨10.1016/j.ijpe.2015.03.004⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://audencia.hal.science/hal-01289178v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01289178

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2015.03.004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().