Going above and beyond: How sustainability culture and entrepreneurial orientation drive social sustainability supply chain practice adoption

Purpose This paper examines what drives the adoption of different social sustainability supply chain practices. Research has shown certain factors drive the adoption of environmental sustainability practices but few focus on social supply chain practices; delineate which practices are adopted; or what drives their adoption. We examine the facilitative role of sustainability culture to explain the adoption basic social sustainability supply chain practices, consisting of monitoring and management systems and advanced social sustainability supply chain practices, which are new product and process development and strategic supply chain redefinition. We then explore the role played by a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation in shaping and reinforcing the relationship between sustainability culture and the adoption of social sustainability supply chain practices. Design/methodology/approach A survey of 156 supply chain managers in multiple industries in Ireland was conducted to test the relationship between the variables. Findings Our findings show that sustainability culture is positively related to all the practices and entrepreneurial orientation impacts and moderates social sustainability culture only in advanced social sustainability supply chain practice adoption. Research limitations/implications – As with any survey this is a single point in time with a single respondent, is cross-sectional in nature and conducted in one country. Implications for managers include developing and fostering cultural attributes in the organisation to implement social sustainability supply chain management practices that go beyond monitoring suppliers to behavioural changes in the supply chain with implications beyond the dyad of buyer and supplier to lower tier suppliers and the community surrounding the supply chain. Originality/value – This is the first time, to the authors’ knowledge, that cultural and entrepreneurial variables have been tested for social sustainability supply chain practices giving us new insight into how and why social sustainability supply chain practices are adopted. It also applies a strategic choice theory lens to explore variability in the adoption of different sustainable supply chain practice and presents a view of the role of the supply chain managers as active creators and enactors of their environment.