Supply chain social sustainability in small and medium manufacturing enterprises and firms' performance: Empirical evidence from an emerging Asian economy

The paper uniquely investigates the relationship between supply chain social sustainability practices and supply chain performance in small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SME's) in an Asian country. In this paper, we utilized semi-structured interviews of supply chain managers and practitioners to unearth the social sustainability dimensions, followed by a survey using structured questionnaire. We further tested our model using covariance-based structural equation modeling (CBSEM) using 327 samples from SME's. The results suggest a positive relationship between social sustainability practices and supply chain performance that is mediated by customer, supplier, and operational performance. Additionally, the role of firm size and investment in determining supplier performance (SP), operational performance (OP), and customer performance (CP), and supply chain performance (SCP) is established. We present an empirical model for supply chain social sustainability grounded in stakeholder's resource-based view for SME's in emerging economy setting. This study provides original evidence to SME's managers that tangible performance benefits can be realized by focusing on increasing supply chain social sustainability, supporting the case for social sustainability on economic as well as ethical grounds. The outcomes of this research have far-reaching implications for theory and practitioners (SME's) in emerging economies.