Sustainable purchasing and supply management

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Sustainable purchasing and supply

management: a structured literature review of

definitions and measures at the dyad, chain and

network levels

Joe Miemczyk and Thomas E. Johnsen

Audencia Nantes School of Management – PRES LUNAM, Nantes, France, and

Monica Macquet

ESC Rennes – School of Management, Rennes, France

Abstract

Purpose – This paper provides a structured literature review of sustainability in purchasing and supply management, moving beyond the traditional

environmental and social sustainability. The paper reviews the concept of sustainability at three levels of inter-organizational analysis – i.e. dyad,

supply chain and network. The paper distils the nature and scope of existing research and synthesizes measures used to research sustainability across

organizational boundaries.

Design/methodology/approach – This literature review systematically analyzes existing literature. In particular, the review focuses on definitions

and measures of sustainable purchasing and supply management to obtain an accurate view of current research.

Findings – This paper uncovers two distinct trends in the type of research carried out. First, internal or dyadic issues are in focus and second, a

tendency to deal with environmental, as opposed to social, sustainability. Despite the need to look beyond the dyad given the risks associated with the

extended network, few studies do so in any of the sustainability dimensions.

Research limitations/implications – This review is limited by the method employed focusing on definitions and measures. Although the review

considers supply chain and network research, it does so purely from a purchasing perspective, thus excluding issues such as logistics and transport.

Practical implications – The paper identifies areas open to future research and provides practical insights into how sustainable purchasing and

supply are measured. It also synthesizes existing measures of sustainability at different levels and organizes these into a taxonomy.

Originality/value – The paper examines studies across multiple levels of analysis and integrates multiple fields of knowledge to show how research

on sustainability in purchasing and supply is structured.

Keywords Sustainability, Ethical, Environmental, Purchasing, Sourcing, Supply chain, Network, Stakeholders, Supply chain management, Research

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

A company is no more sustainable than the suppliers from

which it sources (Krause et al., 2009). This puts purchasing

and supply management in a central position on the road to

achieving sustainability. However, fully understanding a

company’s sustainability profile requires a view of not only

the company’s direct suppliers but also its extended supply

chain or even the wider network in which it operates. A

growing amount of research on sustainability concerns

purchasing and supply management, such as ethical

sourcing (Preuss, 2009; Roberts, 2003), corporate social

responsibility in the supply chain (Faisal, 2010; Maloni and

Brown, 2006), socially responsible buying (Maignan et al.,

2002; Park and Stoel, 2005) and green supply chains

(Kainuma and Tawara, 2006; Mollenkopf et al., 2010).

While significant progress has been made in these areas, it is

important to make further advances and consolidate systemic

issues that exist at the interface of sustainability and

purchasing and supply (Linton et al., 2007).

One difficulty with studying sustainability in this field is the

problem of levels of analysis. Authors often describe their

research as addressing supply chains when, in fact, the level of

analysis is restricted, for example, to an internal or dyadic

buyer or supplier perspective. In adopting a purchasing and

supply management perspective, this paper seeks to identify

those sustainability issues that have been researched that

primarily concern purchasing and supply management and,

simultaneously, the different levels of analysis. A second

significant concern in studying sustainability in purchasing

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1359-8546.htm

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal

17/5 (2012) 478–496

qEmerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1359-8546]

[DOI 10.1108/13598541211258564]

Received 21 April 2011

Revised 11 August 2011

16 December 2011

10 February 2012

Accepted 12 February 2012

This project was partially funded by the French agency ADEME under

PREDIT 4 GO4 (AAP No. 1) – Projet FUSION CO2.

478

and supply is the topic focus. Previous reviews have identified

a typical division in research in this area between

environmental and social issues (Seuring and Muller, 2008;

Srivastava, 2007). However, a general view of sustainability

research in this area reveals that many studies have adopted

an environmental, or green, perspective. These studies

concentrate on issues of buying green inputs, or managing

waste and pollution (Holt and Ghobadian, 2009; Hong et al.,

2009; Zhu and Sarkis, 2007; Zhu et al., 2005a). Relatively few

studies have explicitly adopted a social sustainability

viewpoint (Besser et al., 2006; Handfield and Baumer,

2006; Worthington et al., 2008).

This paper provides a comprehensive, critical review of

sustainable purchasing and supply research to date. While

there have been a number of reviews in this area, our focus is

on how sustainability is operationalized from a research

perspective. Therefore, the analysis is directed towards how

sustainable purchasing and supply are defined and how

sustainability is measured in this field. First, definitions of

sustainability at the dyad, chain and network levels of analysis

are offered. This includes an analysis of the social and

environmental aspects of sustainability that can be identified

at the different levels. Second, a synthesis of the principal

measures used to gauge the degree of sustainability at these

different levels of analysis is provided. These measures

include those used in empirical and conceptual frameworks as

well as those typically used in practitioner models. In sum, we

ask: what are the definitions and measures used to describe

sustainability at different levels of inter-organizational analysis

in the area of purchasing and supply management?

When examining the supply chain and network literature,

our interest is in purchasing (in its broad sense) rather than

logistics or other supply chain management practices. Hence,

the scope of this study is limited to the activities associated

with purchasing (or procurement or sourcing), such as the

purchasing process, supplier selection and supplier

development. The study does not include activities related

to transportation (such as vehicle routing), management of

inventory (except where suppliers are concerned), reverse

logistics or closed-loop systems for waste recovery unless

there is a link to purchasing and supply activities.

The paper is organized as follows. The first section explains

the logic of considering three levels of analysis in sustainable

purchasing and supply management. The second section

outlines the methodology employed in the literature review.

The third, fourth and fifth sections report the findings from

the literature review, with each section focusing on one level

of analysis. The final section presents the conclusions from

the literature review and outlines implications and limitations.

1.1 Three levels of analysis in sustainable purchasing

and supply management

Drawing on existing classifications of levels of analysis in the

management of supply chains (Croom et al., 2000; Harland,

1996; Mo¨ller et al., 2005; Ritter and Gemu

¨nden, 2003), we

distinguish between three levels of sustainability analysis

pertinent to purchasing and supply management: dyadic

relationships, supply chains and industrial networks

(Figure 1). Although various levels of inter-organizational

analysis have been suggested, this simple classification makes

it possible to clearly differentiate among the levels.

Dyads refer to relationships between two actors. In the

purchasing and supply context, we focus on the company-

direct supplier dyad. As companies seek to implement

sustainability in their supply chains, their first natural step is

to focus on direct supplier relationships. Purchasing and

supply activities within dyads involve both discrete one-off

exchanges (transactions) and long-term, relationship-

development issues, such as the adaptation of business

processes to suit other parties and the institutionalization of

business practices (Ha

˚kansson, 1982). Purchasing,

procurement and sourcing decisions typically concern

internal buying processes that relate primarily to direct

suppliers, i.e. dyadic relationships, including specification,

supplier selection, contracting, ordering, expediting and

evaluation (see, for example, Van Weele, 2010).

Definitions of purchasing, procurement and sourcing vary

in scope and the extent to which these functions extend to

indirect suppliers is not always clear. Procurement and

sourcing are often defined as more inclusive, or strategic, than

purchasing – for example, procurement may be defined as

including the make-or-buy decision (Murray, 2009, p. 199) –

but this is not always the case. Furthermore, the use of the

terms is often industry specific, e.g. the public sector often

uses the term “procurement” instead of “purchasing” (see

Ramsay and Croom, 2008; Rozemeijer, 2008; for a debate on

this issue). Furthermore, the role of purchasing in relation to

supply chain management varies; “unionists” view purchasing

as part of supply chain management, while others believe that

supply chain management has replaced purchasing (Larson

and Halldorsson, 2002). For practical reasons, we group

purchasing, procurement and sourcing together.

Sustainability problems are likely to stem from indirect

supplier relationships that are part of the extended supply

chain. Supply chain management focuses on multiple

customer-supplier dyads, with the supply chain ultimately

spanning from original raw material extractors to final end

customers (Harland, 1996). Supply chains tend to be

depicted around a focal firm and its upstream and

downstream relationships (Christopher, 1998; Lambert et al.,

1998), although there has been some debate as to whether

supply chains are simple linear structures – chains – or more

like “supply chain networks” (or “supply networks”) that

include inter-connected supply chains (see, e.g. Lamming

et al., 2000; Lockamy, 2008). The consensus seems to be that

supply chains should be understood as the latter.

Thus, some authors have argued that sustainability needs to

be understood from an even higher level of analysis; this level

is typically referred to as network or stakeholder analysis. In

this regard we draw from the theoretical perspective of the

Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group

(Ha

˚kansson, 1982), which has developed concepts and

constructs for the study of industrial networks over the last

30 years. It seems pertinent to study sustainability at a

network level – as Roome (2001, p. 70) aptly states, “we

increasingly see ourselves as part of a network society living in

a network age”, “concerns about complex environmental and

social consequences of industrial activity have provoked the

need for more frequent and meaningful engagement between

companies and stakeholders”, “networks have an identified

role in innovation for environmental management and

sustainable development” and “knowledge suggests that

ecosystems are based on organisms connected through

complex networks of energy and material flows”. It is

therefore important to identify the extent to which literature

on sustainability has embraced this level of analysis.

Sustainable purchasing and supply management

Joe Miemczyk, Thomas E. Johnsen and Monica Macquet

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal

Volume 17 · Number 5 · 2012 · 478–496

479

In the sustainability literature, an increasing number of

studies analyze and discuss sustainability from a purchasing

and supply chain management perspective. However, the

issue of the level of analysis seems to be all too often ignored

or taken for granted. Studies that claim to adopt a supply

chain focus on sustainability may do so purely from a dyadic

perspective. The first main objective of this study, therefore, is

to: analyze existing research on sustainable purchasing and

supply management at the dyad, chain and network levels,

with a focus on the definitions that are used.

The second main objective of this study is to understand

how sustainable purchasing and supply are operationalized

from a research perspective. Although sustainability is still

rather immature in its development as a research field in

purchasing and supply, a number of empirical works have

attempted to show the state of implementation in

organizations. A review of the current research provides an

opportunity to discuss gaps and opportunities for further

research. An examination of the measures used (the actual

questions asked of organizations by researchers) can give a

good indication of the subject matters covered. However,

there appears to be little standardization in these questions

and subjects, making comparison problematic and creating an

opportunity for consolidation and categorization. It is also

important to know how sustainability is integrated into

purchasing and supply activities. Therefore, we aim to

delineate those types of measures that are used in different

purchasing and supply processes (such as supplier selection or

development). From this, our second objective is to: identify

and categorize the measures used in existing studies of the

main purchasing processes.

Given our first objective of understanding the levels of

analysis of sustainable purchasing and supply research, and

our second objective of identifying and categorizing measures,

there is a need to establish a framework that can provide a

systematic overview of measures used across the various levels

of analysis. Hence, our last objective is to: develop a

taxonomy of measures used in sustainable purchasing and

supply at the dyad, chain and network levels of analysis.

2. Method

This paper seeks to provide a rigorous, critical analysis of the

state-of-the-art research into sustainable purchasing and

supply management. One difficulty in defining sustainability

at different levels is that authors often describe their research

as addressing supply chains when, in fact, the level of analysis

is restricted, for example, to a dyadic buyer or supplier

perspective. Therefore, we do not limit this review to

empirical works (as such research is limited across all levels

of analysis) but include conceptual papers as well. At the same

time, this review does not consider analytical modeling

approaches; although there are significant research studies in

this area, we do not consider how sustainability in purchasing

and supply is conceptualized mathematically. Furthermore,

we search for both explicit and implicit measures used to

detect differences in elements of sustainability at the different

levels of analysis.

The paper attempts to synthesize a rapidly growing field of

knowledge. To do so, we have adopted a structured approach

to the literature search and analysis, heeding the call for

systematic reviews in the field of management “to provide

collective insights through theoretical synthesis into fields and

sub-fields” (Tranfield et al., 2003, p. 220). As described by

Tranfield et al. (ibid), the key steps in a systematic review

include the planning phase, the actually undertaking of the

review, and reporting and dissemination, steps which are

described later. One of the difficulties in carrying out a review

of management literature is the range of research approaches

encountered. While quantitative studies have clearly defined

variables and concepts, and normally detail the measures used,

we did not aim to exclude all non-quantitative research. As

such, all types of papers – conceptual, qualitative, empirical

and quantitative studies – are included in the review. This

created some difficulties in extracting definitions and measures

from the review articles but widened the review’s scope.

Instead of judging the quality of non-quantitative studies, as

suggested by Popay et al. (1998), we adopted a specific aim: to

search for and report on the definitions and measures (or at

least, for example, the questions used to survey case study

respondents) used in the studies identified.

Figure 1 Three levels of sustainable purchasing and supply analysis

Sustainable purchasing and supply management

Joe Miemczyk, Thomas E. Johnsen and Monica Macquet

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal

Volume 17 · Number 5 · 2012 · 478–496

480

In the initial search for relevant papers, we used the well-

established databases Emerald and EBSCO. For this part of

the study, journal article titles were searched. The search

terms listed in Table I were used in combination (e.g. “green”

and “supply”). They were used in both in keyword and

abstract searches, which was less efficient than just focusing

on the keywords but ensured that we captured as many

relevant papers as possible. We did not include the term

“chain”, as we assumed this would be included in “supply”.

The following list shows the journals in which we identified

relevant research papers. We should stress that we did not

purely search in the listed journals; these journals were simply

those with papers found during the search and selection

process:

.Academy of Management Perspectives.

.Asian Business & Management.

.Benchmarking: An International Journal.

.Business Strategy & the Environment.

.Corporate Environmental Strategy.

.Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental Management.

.European Journal of Innovation Management.

.Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.

.International Journal of Environmental Technology

& Management.

.International Journal of Logistics: Research & Applications.

.International Journal of Management Reviews.

.International Journal of Operations & Production Management.

.International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics

Management.

.International Journal of Production Research.

.International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.

.International Journal of Production Economics.

.Journal of Business Ethics.

.Journal of Cleaner Production.

.Journal of Economic Geography.

.Journal of Operations Management.

.Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management.

.Journal of Supply Chain Management.

.Omega.

.Logistics Information Management.

.R&D Management.

.Journal of Supply Chain Management.

.Supply Chain Management: an International Journal.

.Sustainable Development.

.Transportation Research: Part E.

From this initial search, we found 1,481 papers. The titles of

the papers within this initial sample were checked for

relevance, and those papers with a title that was beyond the

scope of this review were removed, including those that dealt

with green logistics and general logistical issues, as well as

those concerning the consumer/marketing end of the supply

chain. This reduced the list to 274 potentially relevant papers.

When the relevance was still unclear based on the title, the

abstract was checked manually.

All of these papers were then filtered according to the

quality of the journal. To ensure that only the highest quality

research is considered, the analysis focuses specifically on

articles published in major English-language North American

and European journals. The analysis considers only those

articles published in journals that are included in the latest

Association of Business Schools (ABS) ranking (Harvey et al.,

2010). The ABS ranking draws from several other highly

regarded journal quality rankings. Although any journal

ranking is inevitably controversial, the ABS ranking is widely

viewed as providing a reliable measure of research rigor and

quality. There was one exception to this requirement, the

Journal of Cleaner Production, which was found to be

significant in the volume of the overall production of papers

related to sustainability. Of the 113 papers remaining after the

quality filter was applied, 73 contained definitions and/or

measures and were included in the full review. Figure 2

summarizes this process.

2.1 Analysis and coding

In order to generate a clearer picture of how the field is

structured in terms of levels of analysis and the research focus,

we undertook a two-stage analysis. In our initial review of the

literature, we found that papers typically included a statement

indicating that the level of analysis was the supply chain.

However, this statement was often contradicted by the fact

that the definitions and empirical research in those papers

focused only on the internal function of the purchasing

department or relationships with immediate suppliers.

Given this inconsistency, we analyzed both the overall

emphasis of the articles, including the definitions, and the

more detailed operationalization of the questions (i.e. the

measures used). Thus, the first analysis was a general review

of the papers in which we categorized each paper into one of

the three levels of analysis, and determined whether the focus

was on environmental or social sustainability. This was done

by reviewing each paper in its entirety and completing a

database entry for each paper. The database included

information on the following variables: study (authors and

year), method (conceptual, case-based, empirical, analytical),

definition (the definition of sustainability if present in the

paper), focus/findings (the main findings of the study), unit of

analysis (firm/dyad, supply chain, network), and whether the

paper was primarily focused on environmental or social

sustainability or both. In order to objectify this process, we

developed a checklist of terms and meanings to search for in

each paper (Table II).

Table I Search terms used and number of relevant papers

Supply Purchasing Procurement Sourcing Network

Green 57 18 13 9 4

Social 33 5 5 51 Not run due to very high return and low relevance

Environment *10 5 5 2 23

Sustainab *93 5 18 21 Not run due to very high return and low relevance

Responsib *15 7 113 62 506

Stakeholder 280 40 57 24 Not run due to very high return and low relevance

Sustainable purchasing and supply management

Joe Miemczyk, Thomas E. Johnsen and Monica Macquet

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal

Volume 17 · Number 5 · 2012 · 478–496

481

In the second stage of analysis, we identified the measures

used in each study (37 papers contained identifiable

measures). The measures were entered into a separate

database, the duplicates were removed, and the data was

coded according to the level of analysis and the main divisions

of social and environmental emphasis using the checklist

(based on Table II). While most measures were of a dyadic

nature, we were able to discern measures that focused solely

on internal processes or issues. Therefore, we added

primarily examine the definitions used to set the scope of the

studies included in the review. We present 32 of the

definitions used in these studies (out of a total 50; we

remove duplicate or very similar definitions). Second, we

identify and categorize the measures used in the papers and

discuss how these measures are represented across the main

purchasing processes. Third, we examine how these measures

reflect the different levels of analysis.

Figures 3a and 3b summarize the study’s overall findings. It

Table II Checklist of terms used to code papers

Level of analysis

Dyadic (or internal) Concerns processes with immediate suppliers or simply internal functions of the firm

Supply chain Concerns suppliers and customers, or suppliers’ suppliers

Network Concerns the extended network, peripheral suppliers, indirect suppliers or other stakeholders with indirect links to the focal firm

Focus of the study

Environmental Environmental, green, waste, pollution, energy use, materials, recycling

Social Community, ethics, diversity, social standards, human rights, child labor

Figure 2 Systematic literature review process

Sustainable purchasing and supply management

Joe Miemczyk, Thomas E. Johnsen and Monica Macquet

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal

Volume 17 · Number 5 · 2012 · 478–496