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The complex nature of globally dispersed supply chains and the related difficulty of monitoring supplier sustainability have created a paradox for corporate sustainability. Due to information asymm...

The study provides a first step towards a taxonomy of global sourcing decision-making (GSDM) process archetypes, by answering the questions ‘which archetypes of global sourcing decision-making exist?’ and ‘how do contextual factors determine these types of global sourcing decision-making?’. We highlight the extent to which differences in decision-making processes are explained by variations in environmental, organizational and decision-specific factors. In order to do so, we employ a multiple case study approach with five in-depth cases drawing on 19 interviews as well as publicly available and internal data from large buying firms headquartered in Austria and Germany. Our findings identify three different GSDM archetypes (i.e., bureaucratic-discursive, pragmatic-impartial and political-unstructured) which are mainly influenced by the three main contextual factors: global sourcing maturity, product complexity and leadership style. These factors determine how companies make decisions on sourcing complex co...

The paper is to develop a conceptual analysis for the emergent field of the implications of global sourcing on the triple bottom line, which synthesizes antecedents, global sourcing practices and sustainable performance in the three dimensions of triple bottom line. We carry out a systematic literature review and analyse 70 studies on this topic. Three main themes were identified as antecedents, global sourcing practices and triple bottom line performance. Based on the literature review findings and analysis from the resource orchestration perspective, we further propose three sets of propositions to guide future research. This study provides a comprehensive understanding for studying sustainable global sourcing in the future.

Buying firms have to put increased attention on sustainability issues in supply chains, as they are hold responsible for any non-sustainable actions in their supply chains by stakeholders. Yet, fir...

Buying firms are increasingly confronted with compliance scandals in their upstream supply chain, for which they are held accountable by their stakeholders. Purely symbolic practices, typically ref...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that ISO 14001 can help firms to achieve superior environmental and financial performance. Alternatively, opponents – both practitioners and researchers alike – question...