Applying a Strategic Sustainable Development Lens to Supplier Network Collaboration

Abstract: A company cannot be more sustainable than its supply chain. Given their complexity and the need for collaborative, strategic action for sustainability across supplier networks this research takes a systems perspective to answer, “How can a Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD) lens support supplier network collaboration towards sustainability?”.The application of the SSD lens includes mapping barriers and enablers to collaboration for sustainability found in literature and a case company along with the Five-Level Model (5LM) to which we add complex adaptive system elements. Based on this a thematic analysis of the barriers and enablers is performed paper presents results of the 5LM and thematic analysis, finding that taking an SSD perspective shows interconnections across the multiple enablers and barriers to collaboration. The challenges encountered during 5LM along with the results implications for the Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) academic field and practitioners are discussed. We conclude that the variety and complexity of barriers and enablers for collaboration make it important to approach sustainability strategically across the supplier network. The SSD perspective supports collaboration for sustainability by providing an opportunity to examine it from a systems perspective and to formulate prescriptive considerations for the case company and guiding questions for SSCM practitioners.