Corporate social sustainability in supply chains: a thematic analysis of the literature

This paper maps out different research strands using thematic analysis on the literature pertaining to large companies’ efforts on social sustainability in their supply chains. The data corpus for this thematic analysis is a broad sample of the literature with articles from different journals and employing different research methodologies. Each of the high-level themes is identified at a level high enough to apply to research into not only social but also economic or environmental sustainability. These eight themes – stakeholder pressure; governance; contingencies; practices; partnerships; barriers and enablers; performance; and optimisation for performance improvement and trade-off – are then woven into a thematic map. We call this map the ‘4P’ model as it suggests that pressure and partnerships influence practices, which in turn impact performance. Researchers can use this thematic classification not only to position their research within the social sustainability literature but also to integrate research on economic, environmental and social sustainability

The relative emphasis on supply-chain/logistics topics by UK industry in hiring postgraduates and by UK universities in teaching and research

We examine how UK universities view different topics within supply-chain management as seen in their research output and their postgraduate curricula and whether this view matches the relative emphasis on these aspects by UK-based employers when hiring. Using content analysis, we analysed: (1) UK-based supply-chain/logistics job advertisements, (2) abstracts of research articles by UK academics in supply-chain/logistics journals, and (3) the description of the postgraduate-level supply-chain/logistics degrees in UK universities. Our findings show that the overall research output of UK universities is broadly in line with employers' needs with regards to the relative emphasis on different supply-chain topics. However, their relative emphasis on these topics in their teaching programmes is quite different. We suggest that universities need to look into their provision of academic programmes in relation to employers' needs and need to look into how to leverage their research output better for this purpose

Strategies and tactics of Chinese contract manufacturers and western OEMs (2001-2011)

As policy makers seek to draw lessons from the growth of Chinese manufacturing, we need to better understand the evolving strategies adopted by Chinese manufacturers since the economic reforms of the 1980s. Focusing on the apparel and electronics sectors, we look at how Chinese manufacturers sought to move to higher value-adding parts of the supply chain in different ways during the period 2001–2011 and how their western OEMs responded. As a first step towards understanding the co-evolving strategies and tactics of Chinese contract manufacturers and western OEMs, we use a simple game-theoretic framework of contract manufacturer and OEM strategies to look at the actual tactics many Chinese contract manufacturers adopted. Our findings are that Chinese contract manufacturers ended up co-operating, competing, or co-opetiting (i.e., cooperating and competing at the same time) with western OEMs. Also, western OEMs used their position in the supply chain to devise counter-measures, possibly ending with win–win solutions for both sides

Six Sigma Pricing (R0505H)

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Modeling supply-chain planning under demand uncertainty using stochastic programming: A survey motivated by asset-liability management

We extend the linear programming (LP) model of deterministic supply-chain planning to take demand uncertainty and cash flows into account for the medium term. The resulting stochastic LP model is similar to that of asset-liability management (ALM), for which the literature using stochastic programming is extensive. As such, we survey various modeling and solution choices developed in the ALM literature and discuss their applicability to supply-chain planning. This survey can be a basis for making modeling/solution choices in research and in practice to manage the risks pertaining to unmet demand, excess inventory, and cash liquidity when demand is uncertain.Supply chain risk management Risk models Stochastic programming Supply-chain planning Asset-liability management Demand uncertainty Centralized supply-chain planning

Social enterprises as supply-chain enablers for the poor

Many social enterprises use the poor as producers to improve their living standards. We seek to answer how they do so, from a supply chain perspective. Drawing on various successful social enterprises in Afghanistan, Africa, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Philippines and Sri Lanka, we look at the material, information and cash flows of the micro-entrepreneurs for these social enterprises. We show how a social enterprise helps its associated micro-entrepreneurs by improving the latter's supply chain operations via: (1) easier access to financial credits; (2) easier access to market information; (3) easier market access; and (4) better access to supplies and raw materials and higher productivity through better health and equipment. We then speculate on how to make social enterprises economically sustainable and propose that social enterprises would be better off enabling micro-enterprises rather than running production operations themselves.Economic sustainability Bottom of Pyramid Social enterprise Micro-entrepreneurs Poor as producers Entrepreneurship Supply chain