Mechanisms for sensing sustainable developments and issues within complex supply chains
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2018-07-16
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en
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Abstract
When organisations becomes more complex they could lose sight of sustainability issues and developments within their supply chain, especially those derived from deeper layers of the supply chain. If not controlled, these developments and issues may not be perceived by supply managers until it is too late. Therefore this research explores the mechanisms that enable organisations to sense sustainable developments and issues that emerge from within their complex supply chains. The mechanisms proposed are based on theoretical and empirical research. The findings of this study showed that three approaches can be distinguished in how companies currently address the challenge of sensing sustainability issues and developments within their supply chain: (1) they collect information about the supply chain, (2) they enhance sustainability performances within the supply chain and (3) they prioritize between complexity risks of the supply chain. Based on these findings, other suitable mechanisms are proposed that improve the ability to sense sustainability developments and issues in the supply chain: (1) Mechanisms that the approaches companies already have established, (2) mechanisms that enable companies to control the contingency variables, (3) mechanisms that structurally incentivize, support or improve the ability to learn as an organization and (4) mechanisms that reduce the dependency of technologies on local infrastructures.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen