فشارهای سازمانی و ارزیابی پایداری در زنجیره های تامین Institutional pressures and sustainability assessment in supply chains

Introduction Research on social sustainability is gaining momentum to keep pace with firms’ heightened interest in the topic as previously its application to the supply chain domain has been limited, particularly when compared to research on environmental sustainability (Marshall et al., 2015a). The supply chain function is critical in terms of both its efforts towards delivering on social sustainability goals and mitigating the exposure to risk for buyers. For example, the use of chillabour and poor labour practices by a supplier can significantly damage a company, as well as its supply chain, reputation and performance (Grosvold et al., 2014; Sancha et al., 2015). Research focusing on environmental sustainability in supply chains often adopts an institutional theory or stakeholder perspective on why firms adopt such green practices (González et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2012). Institutional theory, with its focus on conformance (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), also provides a fitting lens for investigating social sustainability in supply chains, and we use it to frame our research on the adoption of social sustainability assessment in global supply chains. There are several streams of institutional theory, and our focus is on the variant in which institutional elements are viewed as a class of elements that explains the existence and persistence of certain organizational forms (Scott, 1987), dating to the works of Meyer and Rowan (1977). We build on DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) work on institutional pressures causing isomorphism in organizational forms. Extensive research emphasizes the role of institutional mechanisms in diffusing organizational practices; the most prevalent of which focuses on the three institutional pressures – normative, coercive and mimetic. Institutional theory-oriented research within supply chain management (SCM) in particular, is often more focused on the impacts of the adoption of practices rather than on how certain practices originally come to be seen as legitimate or on the strategies of social movements (Bruton et al., 2010; Burchell and Cook, 2013; Kauppi, 2013). Thus, researchers are urged to study the standard setting organizations and their role in changing sustainability practices along product supply chains (Ingenbleek and Reinders, 2013). Studying diffusions of practices and the ensuing isomorphism is contingent upon identifying the agents of institutional diffusion and the channels used (Guleret al., 2002). In this study, our aim is to investigate how institutional pressures are exerted on supply chain actors by voluntarily adopted third-party assessment initiatives[1] to reinforce social sustainability as the legitimate way of doing business. This approach has been defined as process-based, as it involves the monitoring of the trading practices of supply chains (Marshall et al., 2017). While recognizing how voluntary assessment initiatives are only one of the likely sources of social sustainability pressure for companies, we chose to investigate these initiatives, as, given their role in socially sustainable supply chains, instigating such pressures would appear to be their raison d’etre. As not all of these organizations certify or formally accredit supply chain actors, but rather expect codes of conduct or guidelines to be adhered to, we have used the collective term of social sustainability assessment initiative to capture the essence of the organization. These assessment initiatives expect all firms to use clearly defined and transparent socially sustainable trading practices in their business operations, i.e. to exhibit isomorphism in their supply chains when it comes to social sustainability. Their goal is for social sustainability to be seen as the only legitimate way of conducting trading relations, particularly with producers located in the global South (Reinecke et al., 2012).