Four forces of supply chain social sustainability adoption in emerging economies

Despite the growing stakeholder awareness on social sustainability issues, little is known about what influences firms to adopt social sustainability in their supply chain management practices and the benefits gained from such efforts. This is especially true for emerging economies in Asia and Southwestern Europe, where the social norms differ significantly. Building on stakeholder's and institutional perspectives, we address the issue by exploring how pressures from customers, sustainability culture, government, and external stakeholders act as primary constituents of the firm in determining the extent to which firm consider supply chain social sustainability adoption in emerging economies. Further, we explore how such social sustainability adoption relates to the firm supplier's social performance, the buyer's operational performance and the buying firm's social reputation. We test the hypothesized model empirically using data from 244 Indian and 126 Portuguese firms. Our results are consistent with the hypothesized model; all factors show significant influence and positive links with the firm's benefits.