Stefan Seuring

University of Kassel · Workgroup of Supply Chain Management

Purpose The German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (GSCDDA), as a comprehensive regulation for due diligence in supply chains, will exert profound pressure on companies’ sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). This study aims to examine the affected stakeholders’ polarizing expectations stemming from the GSCDDA, the resulting impacts on SSCM and...

Purpose This paper aims to provide a starting point to discuss how social enterprises can drive systemic change in terms of social impact through operations and supply chain management. Design/methodology/approach This paper reviews existing literature and the four papers in this special issue and develops a conceptual framework of how social ente...

Because of increasing customer awareness and government regulations, apparel organisations are inclined to adopt social sustainability practices (SSPs) into their working environment. There is a lack of scientific literature examining the interaction between social and economic sustainability within the apparel industry from the employee perspectiv...

Purpose The literature on public procurement (PP) has increased significantly in recent years, and, to date, several reviews have been conducted to study this relevant subject. Nevertheless, a bibliometric analysis of the PP knowledge domain is still missing. To fill this knowledge gap, a bibliometric review is carried out to investigate the curren...

Purpose By January 1, 2023, the German supply chain due diligence act (SCDDA) has become effective. This represents a strong governmental intervention into global operations and supply chain management (SCM). Hence, its frame conditions and implications are worth being studied. Design/methodology/approach Expert interviews with managers reveal fac...

Purpose Operationalizing R-imperatives in firms is seen as vital to bolstering circularity through reduce, reuse and recycle and building circular supply chains (CSCs). However, this process introduces various uncertainties to firms within CSCs. This is a gap that still requires an in-depth analysis, particularly to answer the question of how firms...

The theoretical foundation of (sustainable) supply chain management (SSCM) is an issue of frequent debate. Integrating it with the Global Production Networks (GPN), which is a kind of stepsibling, can help expanding the theoretical foundations of SSCM. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the GPN approach links to SSCM in analysing and expla...

Although organic standards and certification schemes have a crucial role in ensuring quality, safety, and sustainability within food systems, there is a need to critically analyze their implications on human capabilities within alternative food networks (AFNs). Therefore, this paper draws upon the capability approach to analyze the implications of...

Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) have become a standard tool in many fields of management research but are often considerably less stringently presented than other pieces of research. The resulting lack of replicability of the research and conclusions has spurred a vital debate on the SLR process, but related guidance is scattered across a numb...

Financial service innovations open avenues for the financial inclusion and empowerment of micro-businesses in emerging economies. While there is a growing debate about the impact of such information and communication technology-driven business model innovations, this has not been studied on a supply chain (SC) level. Accordingly, this paper adopts...

“Publish or perish” is a well-known aphorism in academia. However, this mantra has often led to excessive pressure to publish increasing numbers of manuscripts without commensurate care for quality. Such pressure has been associated with evaluation systems that push researchers to focus on various scientometrics indicators, such as publishing in jo...

This paper examines the efficacy of three supply chain relationship factors: trust, commitment, and relationship specific investment (RSI) in affecting firms’ cooperation, innovation and financial performance, comparing buyers’ and suppliers’ perspectives. A questionnaire survey was conducted in mainland China. Two independent samples with 101 and...

Purpose This paper introduces initial foundations of a sustainability-dominant logic theory intersecting the sustainable operations and supply chain management (SOSCM) discipline with the circular economy (CE) field of knowledge. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies propositional forms of theorising to derive the formulation of propositio...

The digital transformation involves both risks and opportunities for the sustainability of global supply chains. This systematic literature review of 64 peer-reviewed English journal articles aims to show how the adoption of digital technologies is related to (sustainable) supply chain management practices and associated sustainable outcomes. (Non)...

Purpose Supply chain management (SCM) research has contributed to the transition to a circular economy (CE). Still, confusions exist on the related terms, and no review has mapped out the development trends in the domain. This research clarifies the boundaries of the relevant concepts. Then, it conducts a comprehensive review of the circular SCM (C...

Digital manufacturing empowers supply chains with enhanced information and resource flows. As a state-of-the-art technology related to Industry 4.0, additive manufacturing (AM) presents many possibilities for enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of supply chains embracing circular economy (CE). In this study, we use the content analysis meth...

Since ecological deterioration and social discrepancy are intensifying, multiple stakeholders are driving companies to incorporate sustainability in their supply chains. Thus, integrating non-traditional supply chain stakeholders, such as non-governmental organizations and competitors, in supply chain practices is essential for achieving a more sus...

Risk management in the base of the pyramid (BoP) environment is needed to ensure that firms performance objectives are met. Accordingly, integrating sustainability performance measurement in the supply chain risk management would offer interesting avenues for managing risks in BoP supply chain. Therefore, the paper conceptualizes an intersection be...

Research on Blockchain implementation in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chains (PSC) is lacking despite its strong potential to overcome conventional supply chain challenges. Thus, this study aims to provide critical insight into the nexus between Blockchain and PSC and further build a conceptual framework for implementation within the pharmaceutical in...

This paper aims to investigate the impact of blockchain application on trust levels in supply chains. Through the systematic review of the relevant literature, three dimensions of trust, i.e., the trustor-trustee perspective, forms of trust, and time orientation, are investigated. Our findings show that, first, there are three pairs of trustors and...

This study systematically reviews 127 papers on sustainable supply chain management in the textile and apparel (T&A) industry. Gaps and trends in related research are determined in a content analysis according to structural dimensions and analytic categories of research method, supply chain management and sustainability and also risk and performanc...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which institutional pressures affect supplier and customer collaboration and how collaboration explains green supply chain performance using institutional and stakeholder theories. Design/methodology/approach The paper builds on empirical evidence gathered from responses of Iranian in...

The Industry 4.0 (I4.0) concept paves the way for the circular economy (CE) as advanced digital technologies enable sustainability initiatives. Hence, I4.0-driven CE-oriented supply chains (SCs) have improved sustainable performance, flexibility and interoperability. In order to smoothly embrace circular practices in digitally enabled SCs, quantita...

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged supply chains (SCs) around the globe unprecedentedly. This study aims to gain insights on the impacts of the pandemic on SCs and their management under consideration of different regional contexts on a global scale. Design/methodology/approach A Delphi study collects the expertise of global SC academics...

In recent years, the concept of a circular economy (CE) has gained importance and attracted significant attention among scholars and practitioners. Research that examines the role of modern technologies in supporting the transition from a linear economy to the CE is therefore highly needed. This article analyzes and classifies existing research at...

Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the technologies driving the shift to Industry 4.0. This transition reconfigures the supply chain to achieve the circular economy (CE) ideal along with improved resource efficiency. This study aims to explore how AM can be implemented in the CE context and to conceptualise the integration of AM and CE. The conc...

The rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) has created opportunities for supply chain performance improvements to address challenges in base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) contexts. The article aims to analyze how ICTs that provide information, financial access, and transaction applications serve as enablers for transaction cost...

Purpose The Covid-19 pandemic has made it essential to explore the resilience factors specific to developing regions, not only because they pose threats of extreme poverty and offer a novel context but also because they play an important role in globalisation. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-method approach was undertaken to address this novel...

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) emerged as a niche topic around 20 years ago but moved into the mainstream. This paper revisits some of the conceptual developments of the field-building on Seuring and Müller (2008). We draw upon this framework and its core constructs to revisit the status quo of theory development in SSCM. We reflect on...

With the emergence of the Circular Economy (CE), conventional supply chains are transitioning towards Circular Supply Chains (CSCs) that achieve improved sustainability performance. Inter-organisational relationships across supply chains need to be redefined to achieve this. We perform a systematic literature review to examine how collaboration may...

Global sourcing largely occurs from so-called emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). In these contexts, substantial leverage effects for sustainability in supply chains (SCs) can be expected by reducing adverse impacts on society and minimising related risks. For this ethical end, an adequate understanding of the respective sourcing con...

While the relevance of business and supply chain processes in base of the pyramid context is much discussed, the link to performance measurement (PM) has not been clarified. Focusing on sustainable supply chain performance measurement (SSCPM), this paper provides a literature review to determine which PM tools, instruments, and indicators (PIs) hav...

Purpose While the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on logistics and supply chain management (SCM) is recently much discussed, this is hardly linked to emerging economies and base of the pyramid (BoP) settings. The paper aims as offering a framework linking different conceptual elements to each other for explaining how ICT en...

The circular economy (CE) has inspired the emergence of circular supply chains (CSCs) to reduce the environmental impacts of linear production systems. However, the transition to CSCs faces numerous challenges and uncertainties, which in turn impact the sustainability performance of CSCs. Following a systematic review process, this paper aims to id...

The Industry 4.0 (I4.0) concept comprises advanced digital technologies that facilitate the digitally enabled sustainability approach leading to a Circular Economy (CE). I4.0 driven CE initiative leads to a paradigm shift in supply chain management (SCM), where quantitative methods provide practical solutions to issues that arise when adopting circ...

Purpose Blockchain technology is provoking significant disruptions, thereby affecting supply chain management. This study endeavoured to advance research regarding blockchain-based supply chain traceability by identifying the opportunities and limitations that accompany the adoption of public blockchains. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to c...

Purpose: Managing supply chains (SCs) for sustainability often results in conflicting demands, which can be conceptualized as sustainability tensions. This paper studies sustainability tensions in electronics SC contexts and the related management responses by applying a paradox perspective. –– Design/methodology/approach: A single case study on t...

Purpose – The relationship between sustainability, traceability and transparency in the fashion-apparel industry, characterised by complex, labour-intensive and geographically dispersed supply chains (SCs), needs further clarification. The first goal of this study is to revise, refine and adapt to the scope of this industry, the conceptualisation o...

This paper seeks to enrich the theoretical debate on dynamic capabilities (DCs) in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). By extending Beske et al.’s (2014) study, a systematic literature review was conducted, and articles matching our inclusion criteria were analyzed from 2002 to 2018. Yet, two major additions are made. For the first time, tw...

Resulting from divergent business environments between actors, the integration of the base of the pyramid (BoP) into formal supply chain (SC) structures is often hampered by institutional voids, which can result in the emergence of paradoxical situations. This paper analyzes the potential of supplier development (SD) for addressing the BoP inclusio...

Engaging with stakeholders and managing their issues when striving for a sustainable supply chain (SC) is a significant challenge. Although most studies on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) consider stakeholder management necessary, little is known about related stakeholder management practices in SSCM. Thus, this paper seeks to enrich the...

The coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented event, putting global supply chains (SCs) into the focus of a wider public. Yet it is unclear what is communicated about this and how and what consequences SC management (SCM) would take away. This research aims at analyzing how text mining can provide insights on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic o...

Students starting their research into sustainability management are often driven by a normative assumption of wanting “to do something good” or “save the world” from this or that problem. This also holds for many researchers, where the pressure to do research that has an immediate impact on the local business or natural environment is paramount. Th...

Purpose Literature review articles have become a frequently applied research approach in operations and supply chain management (SCM). The purpose of this paper aims to elaborate on four approaches for developing or employing theory in systematic literature reviews (SLRs). Design/methodology/approach The paper uses conceptual arguments and illustr...

Purpose Base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) markets are frequently characterized by institutional voids. However, it remains unclear how institutional voids impact corporate and supply chain risk and performance. This intersection will be analyzed in this paper. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a systematic literature review of 94 BoP papers...

With the overlap of the interfirm relationship quality and supply chain management research in mind, this paper reviewed 100 recent, scientific, English-language papers on interfirm relationship quality based on a categorisation schema derived from a conceptual framework of supply chain management. We aim to contribute to the existing supply chain...

This special issue welcomes studies focusing on social sustainability transformation to show the real impacts of radical supply chain (re)design and (re)configuration for an improved social performance and practice, but also those studies that demonstrate how current supply chain configuration can address social sustainability issues without creati...

Purpose The purpose of this article is to discuss the role of operations management in society. The article detects trends, raises critical questions to operations management research and articulates a research agenda to increase the value of such research in addressing societal problems. Design/methodology/approach This paper evaluates the papers...

Purpose The literature on supplier development (SD) is mostly fragmented, and very little research offers insights on the interrelations of the critical elements of SD. This research aims to evaluate the significance of SD and reconceptualise it by identifying and linking the key constructs and items of SD. Design/methodology/approach A structured...

Purpose This paper aims to examine how trust and communication at the personal level relationships conform to trust and communication at the organizational level relationships and which role do the two different level relationships play in influencing firms’ commitment, performance and propensity to stay in long-term relationships. Design/methodol...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how trust and communication at the personal level relationships conform to trust and communication at the organizational level relationships, and which role do the two different level relationships play in influencing firms’ commitment, performance and propensity to stay in long-term relationships. Design/method...

The literature on the diffusion of the circular economy (CE) rarely provides empirical evidence from emerging economies that face institutional voids and sustainability paradoxes. In contrast, drawing on stakeholder theory, in this paper we test a research framework capable of capturing the imbricated and complex relations among stakeholder pressur...

Fostering business activities has been advocated as a more appropriate strategy, replacing aid-based initiatives for achieving sustainable economic development of underprivileged societies. However, the little familiarity with the working of supply chains serving the respective markets is obstructing our efforts to devise suitable strategies to pro...

Purpose This paper aims to conduct a review of the recent literature on inter-firm relationship quality (RQ) in the supply chain (SC) settings. Design/methodology/approach 100 English-language scientific publications on inter-firm RQ, published from 2006 to 2015 were selected and analyzed by using a content analysis approach. Findings The results...

Scholarly discussion on the amalgamation of sustainability and supply chain management has been growing in the last decade. However, an integrated social and economic sustainability performance measurement in supply chains is an emerging avenue in the Sustainable Supply Chain Management discourse. Hence, the purpose of this study is to understand h...

Despite a wealth of expertise involving leading institutions over at least 15 years, a base of the pyramid (BoP) model resulting in scalability has yet to emerge. We posit that institutional gaps between BoP goals of developing human and social capital on one hand and a short‐term profit focus of business on the other contribute to the lack of scal...

The different institutional environments in which base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) actors and supply chain (SC) partners do business make institutional voids salient. This is due to varying or missing institutional arrangements, which, in emerging countries, can cause market failure along the SC. This paper suggests using supplier development (SD) as a wa...

Triadic or tetradic multi-tier sustainable supply chain management (MT-SSCM) research emerged recently to reach out towards raw material suppliers and to address their often severe sustainability impacts. This is especially relevant in mineral supply chains (SCs) which consist of a commodity chain upstream and an end-product chain downstream. To co...

Dynamic capabilities (DCs) are crucial for companies to attain competitive advantage in dynamic business environments and supply chains, where environmental and social aspects are considered by sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). However, the effects of stakeholder influences on SSCM performance, which results from the interplay of DCs and...

This paper presents current academic and industrial frontiers on blockchain application in supply chain, logistics and transport management. We conduct a systematic review of the literature and find four main clusters in the co-citation analysis, namely Technology, Trust, Trade, and Traceability/Transparency. For each cluster, and based on the pool...

Purpose: The food industry and its distribution solutions often lie at the center of sustainability-related arguments. However, little is known about the dynamic role of business capabilities for sustainable transformations in the context of local food distribution. Accordingly, this study investigates how dynamic capabilities drive sustainable sup...

Luxury is often blamed for creating social inequality and hampering sustainability, especially in the social and environmental realms. For instance, luxury goods entice people to conspicuous consumption that may result in showing off. However, study results show that luxury and environmental sustainability have common features. Notably, previous re...

Climate change is forcing governments and businesses to explore mitigation strategies to avoid future catastrophe. There is an urgent need to manage climate change risks in global supply chains. Following a systematic literature review and text mining approach, 90 interdisciplinary articles between the years 2005 and 2018 were studied. Thematic and...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework of experience co-creation that captures the multi-dimensionality of this construct, as well as a research process for defining of the antecedents of experience co-creation. Design/methodology/approach The framework of experience co-creation was conceptualized by means of a lite...

Research on the base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) approach and the associated business case for deprived participants in informal markets now appears frequently in a range of business ethics and management-related journals. The present analysis of how supply chain management (SCM) and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) concepts are habitually used...

Purpose – Although research has been conducted on logistics social responsibility (LSR) on the one hand, and sustainable consumption on the other hand, the interlinkages between LSR and sustainable consumption still lack conceptualization and empirical evidence. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study empirically the interplay between logi...

The purpose of this study is to apply a well-accepted framework from sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to empirical data collected from base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) projects. This enables testing whether such SSCM constructs are also meaningful in a BoP context. A total of 45 interviews are conducted in the local dairy supply chain in Kenya (...

Purpose This study aims to investigate the under-researched role of the sub-supplier’s direct environment in achieving compliance with multi-tier sustainable supply chain management (MT-SSCM) objectives. Design/methodology/approach Building on conceptual research, this study aims to generalize the characteristics of multi-tier supply chains in lig...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how companies enact traceability in their global supply chains (SCs) to achieve sustainability goals and how this so-called traceability for sustainability (TfS) can contribute to (sustainable) supply chain management ([S]SCM). For this, the paper focuses on the paramount example of the apparel industry. Design/...

Globalized economic systems involve complex supply chains (SCs) where environmental and social impacts are to be managed in alignment with diverse stakeholder expectations and to mitigate sustainability-related risks. Quantitative modeling approaches for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) have gained increasing attention. Compared to analyt...

For the widespread establishment of a circular economy, the acceptance of used products among consumers is a prerequisite. This paper investigates the customer experience of product–service systems related to used products (PSSuP), such as renting, remanufacturing, and second-hand models, and aims to point out the offering characteristics that effe...

Application of new technologies is gaining strong momentum in production and operations management (POM) of today’s manufacturing. The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (including data mining), new-generation data-driven information technologies, automatic intelligence, and new energy technologies, for example, has...

Purpose – Companies receive growing pressure from customers, nongovernmental organizations, and public administration through legal acts to generate products both providing value to the customers and being sustainable. This requires a move beyond green products, which are therefore not perceived as sufficient anymore. Hence, research on new product...

Nachhaltiges Supply Chain Management verbindet das Management von Wertschöpfungsketten und Netzwerken mit Zielen aus den drei Dimensionen der Nachhaltigkeit, d. h. Ökologie, Soziales und Ökonomie. Durch diese Querschnittsfunktion ermöglicht das Nachhaltige Supply Chain Management gleichermaßen die Erfüllung der Anforderungen von Stakeholdern, Geset...

Purpose So far, most of the literature on logistics social responsibility (LSR) has prioritized the examination, classification of and adaption toward positive LSR practices instead of investigating necessary logistics service providers’ capabilities to implement LSR strategies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to theory by an...

Although retail investors' interest in sustainable investment is constantly increasing, German credit unions and co-operative banks offer few sustainable financial products. The purpose of the study is to explore the current gap between supply and demand of sustainable financial investments in German retail banking from a financial advisor's point...

Purpose Green supply chain management (GSCM) research is so far dominated by studies focusing on manufacturing companies, while research on retailers is missing. The purpose of this study is to assess the interaction between green in-store activities (environment-related infrastructure and retail in-store processes), GSCM and environmental and eco...

Supplier development is a measure that contributes to improving economic and social performance along a supply chain, and it is a recent theoretical development warranting further empirical research. This paper on the dairy supply chain in India explores the role of supplier development strategies (SDS), related socially oriented capability develop...