Piggy in the Middle: How Direct Customer Power Affects First-Tier Suppliers’ Adoption of Socially Responsible Procurement Practices and Performance

Donna Marshall (), Lucy McCarthy (), Marius Claudy () and Paul McGrath ()
Additional contact information
Donna Marshall: University College Dublin
Lucy McCarthy: Queens University
Marius Claudy: University College Dublin
Paul McGrath: University College Dublin

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 154, issue 4, No 15, 1102 pages

Abstract: Abstract Companies are faced with a choice of which type of power to use in their efforts to persuade their first-tier suppliers to adopt socially responsible procurement practices with key second-tier suppliers. However, we know little about how first-tier suppliers will react to different types of power and which are most effective in encouraging the adoption of socially responsible procurement practices. We are also ignorant of the impact of these practices on first-tier suppliers’ performance. This paper uses bases of power theory to examine the impact of buyer companies’ power usage (non-mediated and mediated) on first-tier suppliers’ adoption of socially responsible procurement practices (process-based and market-based) with their own (second-tier) suppliers. We surveyed managers responsible for sustainable supply chain management in 156 firms and analyzed the results using structural equation modeling. Our findings show that non-mediated power use (expert and referent) influences the adoption of process-based and market-based practices, while mediated power use (coercion, legitimacy, and reward) has no significant impact on the adoption of either type of practice. Additionally, we find that the adoption of market-based socially responsible procurement practices leads to enhanced performance for first-tier suppliers who adopt these practices with their second-tier suppliers.

Keywords: Sustainable supply chain; Power; Socially responsible procurement practices; Performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-016-3387-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:jbuset:v:154:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3387-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3387-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().