ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND THE SUPPLY CHAIN: IS COLLABORATION NECESSARY?

Purpose:Explores what sustainability means to managers with findings calling into question whether collaboration with a firm’s upstream and downstream supply chain partners is part of that meaning or even a desired goal. Design/methodology/approach:Inductive, theory-building grounded theory method augmented by phenomenological data collection and interpretations in the wine industry; in-depth interviews with 110 senior managers in the global wine industry representing 7 wine regions in 4 countries. Traditional interpretive trustworthiness criteria were used to ensure valid data were collected and the best interpretations developed. Findings:Interpretations revealed an interesting view of what “collaborative” sustainability meant. Although some firms were collaborating with other organizations to improve sustainability, many were primarily focused on their own organizations. Sustainability was often perceived as being a personally driven and directed, project-based, environmentally-focused, economically constrained journey that begins and sometimes remains self-focused, being different from industry norms, remaining skeptical, and only sometimes involves collaborating with supply chain partners. Research limitations/implications:Contributes to the supply chain sustainability discourse by calling into question whether an organization always needs to collaborate with its supply chain partners in order to be environmentally sustainable. Presents trying to be sustainable as a journey that does not always have sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) or sustainable collaboration as a goal, especially for certain kinds of firms. Practical implications:Reveals the importance of understanding what sustainability means to business leaders of small to medium sized firms in hypercompetitive markets where products, in this case often seen as luxury goods, are not expected to be and in some cases desired not to reflect all sustainability efforts often espoused.Social implications:Findings could influence social sustainability regulations by giving pause to certain standards while individual perspectives on sustainability are explored in greater depth.Original/value:Stepping back to inductively re-examine the meaning of sustainability after a dozen years of research and normative advice on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM).