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This paper aims to examine the complex links between environmental proactivity, collaboration with suppliers and customers, green operations and firm performance.

Based on a sample of 208 US companies, five main effects and two mediation effects were tested using structural equation modeling analysis.

This study reveals that environmental proactivity exerts positive effects on green operations and that collaboration mediates the above relationship. Further, green operations are a powerful driver of a firm’s economic and environmental performance. Findings also demonstrate the critical mediating role of green operations in linking collaboration with performance.

This research contributes to a scholarly debate by offering novel insights into the extent to which proactivity improves firm performance may be influenced by multiple supply chain practices. To managers, this study highlights the strategic value of environmental proactivity as it fosters collaboration and green operations in boosting a firm’s environmental and economic performance.

This study addresses a gap in the literature by investigating the links between environmental proactivity, collaboration, green operations and corporate performance.

Drawing on multi-theoretical lenses and a combination of supply chain and business ethics literature, this study aims to investigate the role of motives in driving sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices and sustainable performance.

Using a sample of 205 supply chain companies in the USA, the authors apply structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to empirically test the proposed model and seven hypothesized relationships.

Results of the study underscore the critical role of moral motives, while highlighting that all three types of motives (instrumental, relational and moral) are robust in driving SSCM practices and achieving improvement in all three dimensions of sustainable performance–economic, environmental and social.

This research can help supply chain scholars develop a more robust subfield of motivation-based SSCM research to gain a deeper understanding of how motives may differentially predict sustainable supply chain practices and performance.

The results of this study demonstrate the critical links between moral motivation and the triple bottom line (TBL) performance and suggest that managers pay more attention to moral motives in their decision-making.

This study bridges gaps in the extant literature by incorporating motivation-based antecedents, expanding the scope of SSCM practices, including the social dimension of sustainability and investigating the mediating effects of SSCM practices on the links between motives and the TBL performance.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework and propositions to advance research and practice in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). Performance indicators (economic, environmental, and social) identified in the paper aim to facilitate empirical testing of a range of theoretical models derived or extended from the stated propositions.

The study of SSCM is truly complicated, and there is no one theory that applies in all instances. The authors analyzed over 200 critical articles published in major supply chain management and sustainability-based journals and grounded the proposed framework in a multi-theoretical perspective.

SSCM implementation entails linking stakeholder pressures, moral motives, and management commitment with relational practices. The paper further elucidates how relational practices, when bundled together, can create a set of relational capabilities, which in turn transform stakeholder pressures into sustainable outcomes.

The research framework contributes to SSCM theory building insofar as it can be expanded into various theoretical models, allowing researchers to empirically test the links among SSCM drivers, management commitment, and relational capabilities, along with their individual or collective impact on supply chain performance.

The framework provides a roadmap for firms to develop and nurture relational capabilities while dealing with growing stakeholder pressures. Moral motives strengthen top management commitment, which helps channel stakeholder pressures toward the proactive development of relational capabilities.

The paper fulfills a call for utilizing multiple theoretical lenses to examine complex SSCM phenomena and, ultimately, to create a coherent theory of SSCM.

As focal buyers implement sustainable supplier management (SSM) to advance their supply chain sustainability, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more nuanced understanding of how buyers’ use of power may incite varying perceptions of justice from suppliers that affect sustainable supplier performance (SSP).

This paper draws on multidisciplinary literature and collects empirical data from 181 supplying firms in China to examine the complex links among power use, justice, SSM, and sustainable performance using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Both coercive and reward buyer power can facilitate SSM implementation and justice perception moderates the impact of SSM on SSP. Furthermore, coercive power adversely influences justice evaluation, thereby attenuating the effect of SSM on performance.

This study complements and extends sustainable supply chain management research by evaluating SSM: on environmental, social and economic performance; from the perspectives of suppliers; and in an emerging market where many suppliers of Western firms are located. It also adds to behavioral SCM research by examining how buyers’ exercise of power might influence suppliers’ justice perception.

To implement SSM, focal buyers cannot simply issue codes of conduct to suppliers and ignore suppliers’ disposition to commit to standards. While coercive power might be convenient and tempting for buying firms, managers ought to be judicious in the use of coercion.

This is the first large-scale empirical investigation on the links among power use, justice, SSM and sustainable performance from the perspectives of suppliers in an emerging economy.

As supply chain sustainability has become more urgent than ever before, this study aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how supplying firms’ sustainability motives influence their compliance and commitment, as well as sustainable performance, as they respond to buyers’ sustainable supplier management programs.

To investigate the intriguing links among sustainability motives, compliance/commitment and sustainable performance of supplying firms, this paper draws on multidisciplinary literature and collects empirical data from 281 supplying firms in China to test the proposed model and hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

Instrumental and moral motives make comparable contributions to compliance; moral motives exert stronger influence on firms’ commitment to sustainable practices. In addition, although compliance has a greater impact on economic and environmental performance, commitment is far more robust in improving environmental and social performance.

Unlike most research on motives that has been theoretical, this study represents one of the few empirical analyses of how motives may affect sustainable performance. Examining the challenges from the perspectives of supplying firms, it also adds to the SSCM literature by making clear how compliance and commitment may differentially predict sustainable performance.

Although instrumental and moral motives can be complementary in advancing sustainable practices, it is imperative for firms to integrate moral considerations into sustainability decision-making and move beyond compliance, if they are to contribute meaningfully to a better society and cleaner environment.

This is the first large-scale empirical investigation on the links among motives, compliance, commitment and sustainable performance from the perspectives of suppliers.

Empirically examines the relative importance of technical and organizational factors in the implementation of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). Identifies a list of eight technical and organizational factors. Describes a stepwise regression analysis which was performed with the level of perceived success of FMS implementation as the dependent variable. All organizational and technical factors were used as explanatory variables. In the stepwise regression analysis, three of the five organizational factors (i.e. team approach, employee commitment and top management involvement) entered the model, suggesting that they are significant factors to successful FMS implementation. Based on the results of the statistical analysis, three focus groups were further organized to develop a framework for an effective training and management development, to help managers better understand the scope of both the problems and opportunities associated with the human issues which arise while firms are undergoing technological changes.

Empirically examines the factors contributing to employee commitment in the implementation of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), a class of highly automated manufacturing systems. Identifies and categorizes a number of employee commitment elements from diverse disciplines into five factors, using a confirmatory factor analysis approach. A linear regression analysis was performed with the perceived level of employee commitment to FMS implementation as the dependent variable and five factors including educational opportunity, job discretion, management support, job security, and financial incentives as the explanatory variables. In the regression analysis, the educational opportunity factor entered the model, suggesting that it is a significant factor constituting employee commitment for successful FMS implementation.

This paper aims to investigate the extent to which a firm's customer focus drives several interlinked facets of supply chain management and their relationships to customer service and financial performance.

Drawing on diverse streams of research, the authors develop and test an integrated model in which customer focus is proposed to foster supply‐chain relational capabilities, leading to beneficial performance outcomes. This study's empirical validity is enhanced by collecting data from over 200 US manufacturing firms and testing the model using SEM.

This empirical investigation documents significant positive relationships between (a) customer focus and supply‐chain relational capabilities, (b) customer focus and customer service, (c) supply‐chain relational capabilities and customer service, and (d) customer service and financial performance.

This study holds the important implication for managers that, in order to be effective, supply chain partners must reconfigure their supply chains to be more customer oriented and continually develop and leverage the relational competencies in order to enhance firm competitiveness.

Interdisciplinary in nature, this study is one of the first to conduct empirical supply chain management research using multiple and complementary theoretical perspectives, including strategic management and relationship marketing in order to gain a better understanding of the nuances involved in fostering strategic collaboration among supply chain partners.

Examines the relationship between perceived service quality and five dimensions of service quality (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) identified by Parasuraman for the three types of service (pure service, mixed service and quasi‐manufacturing service) identified in Chase and Tansik’s model. The least squares regression reveals that the reliability dimension is statistically significant for all three types of services. Tangibles is the critical dimension for mixed services while empathy is important for quasi‐manufacturing services. Also provides directions for training and management development efforts for improving the critical dimensions by using focus groups.

Studies the relationship between perceived price and perceived quality for the three types of services, namely, pure, mixed, and quasi‐manufacturing classified by Chase and Tansik, and the relative importance of five dimensions of service quality identified by Parasuraman et al. Finds that the relationship between perceived price and the five dimensions of service quality appears to be very weak for pure and quasi‐manufacturing services, but is statistically significant for mixed service. Reliability dimension is statistically significant for all three types of service. Tangible dimension is a critical variable for mixed service while the empathy dimension is important for quasi‐manufacturing service. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived price and overall service‐quality is significant for quasi‐manufacturing service, but is weak for pure and mixed services.