Can you hear the Eco? From SME environmental responsibility to social requirements in the supply chain

Rebecca Stekelorum, Issam Laguir and Jamal ElBaz

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2020, vol. 158, issue C

Abstract: Recent years have seen an increasing interest on the separate areas of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) in small-and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in SMEs, and collaboration with environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on sustainable activities. However, very few studies have both investigated (i) how SME environmental activities can be translated into social requirements in the supply chain through responsible purchasing, and (ii) how the cooperation with ENGOs impacts this relationship. Within a framework that incorporates dynamic capability, legitimacy, and relational view theories, this study tests the proposed moderated mediation model using data from 146 thousand small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Results indicate that CER significantly and positively influences social requirements in SME supply chains. Moreover, findings also show that CER is positively associated with social requirements in SME supply chains through responsible purchasing. Results further reveal that the effects of CER and the use of responsible purchasing to implement social requirements in SMEs’ supply chains vary depending on the cooperation with ENGOs. Overall, this study contributes to the theory of sustainable supply chain management, and offers unique insights into the role of environmental NGOs in the move from CER to social requirements in SME supply chains.

Keywords: Corporate environmental responsibility; Social requirements in the supply chain, Responsible purchasing; Environmental ngos; Small- and medium-sized enterprises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162520309951
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:tefoso:v:158:y:2020:i:c:s0040162520309951

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120169

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().