Sustainable supply chain management – a key to resilience in the global pandemic

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential synergy between companies’ sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) activities and their supply chain resilience (SCRES). The authors propose hypotheses about the impact of buying companies SSCM activities on the inflicted damage by unexpected supply chain disruptions and the recovery time afterwards and test these empirically using data from companies during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors investigate a sample of 231 of the largest publicly traded companies in the European Union with 4.158 firm-year observations. For the analysis, the authors generate variables capturing the companies’ intensity and years of experience of their SSCM activities targeted at the supply chain and run regression analyses on the inflicted damage due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery time after the disruption.

Findings

Buying companies’ SSCM activities have a positive effect on their SCRES. The damage inflicted by unexpected supply chain disruptions is lower when companies have higher levels of SSCM and longer experience with it. The recovery time afterwards is significantly reduced by longer experience with SSCM efforts.

Research limitations/implications

The authors suggest SCRES is reinforced by transparency, situational awareness, social capital and collaboration resulting from companies SSCM activities translate into increased SCRES.

Practical implications

The authors show that companies with superior SSCM are more resilient in a crisis and conclude that, therefore, companies should invest in SSCM to prevent future supply disruptions.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study analyzing a data set of multi-industry companies, linking their SSCM activities to SCRES during the pandemic.

Citation

Eggert, J. and Hartmann, J. (2023), "Sustainable supply chain management – a key to resilience in the global pandemic", Supply Chain Management, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 486-507. https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-10-2021-0463