Effects of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) Practices on Performance Outcomes in UK Manufacturing Industry: The Moderating Role of Green Information Systems

While sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has been researched extensively, this research theme offers mixed views on whether the implementation of SSCM practices can actually yield economic performance improvements. Moreover, despite a nascent stream of studies investigating the role of green information systems (GIS) in this context, they seldom explore the contingent effect of GIS on cost performance. This paper aims to clarify whether the SSCM adoption leads to improved economic performance, and examine the moderating effects of GIS on the SSCM practices-performance relationships that is absent in the extant research. Survey data was collected from 146 UK manufacturing firms and analyzed using moderated hierarchical regression.
The results suggest that SSCM adoption does not necessarily lead to improved economic performance. Interestingly, GIS was found to positively moderate relationships between SSCM practices and economic performance, capturing both environmental sustainability and economic efficiency. This study contributes to the current literature by elucidating the ambiguous conclusions of previous studies that not all the supply chain sustainability initiatives pay off. In addition, the study is original and innovative in that very little research to date has offered some directions on how to manage the trade-offs between improved sustainability and less economic efficiency.