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This study draws on the systems perspective to study the individual and combined interaction effect of lean management (LM) and sustainability management (SM) on the organization's triple bottom line (TBL) performance.

The study employs structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses using data from the sixth version of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS VI).

The study finds that LM is positively related to all dimensions of the TBL performance. In contrast, SM is positively related to social and environmental performance and negatively related to economic performance. Finally, by finding that the interaction between LM and (SM) is positive for social and environmental performance, this study not only confirms that LM is an enabler for sustainability, but it also supports that the two paradigms are mutually compatible and reinforcing.

The findings imply that practitioners pursuing both LM and SM should leverage their mutual positive effects and balance the unintended effects of implementing isolated bundles by implementing them together as a complete socio-technical system. Their combined impact on the TBL performance will outweigh the sum of their individual effects in the case of isolated implementations.

In contrast with the extant literature, this study proposes that LM and SM make parts of one system as opposed to one correlated with the other or having a positive causal effect on the other. Taking an integrated systems approach, the study empirically verifies the “mutual compatibility” of the lean and sustainability paradigms argument, with regard to their effect on the TBL performance.

This study aims to understand how firms in developing economies acquire knowledge about social sustainability by leveraging the social capital embedded in firms' social network, through optimally governing relationships with network members. The study proposes that relational and contractual governance mechanisms interact with various structural facets of the network, resulting in varying degrees of social sustainability related knowledge acquisition.

Primary data collected with a multiple respondent survey design from 204 manufacturing firms located in major industrial cities in Pakistan were used. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) followed by hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

The study finds that both relational and contractual governance mechanisms are positively related to a firm’s social sustainability-related knowledge acquisition, but their effectiveness is impacted by the structural facets of the network. Network size positively moderates the relationship between relational governance and social sustainability related knowledge acquisition, whereas both network range and strength of ties negatively moderate the relationship between contractual governance and social sustainability related knowledge acquisition.

Practitioners with resource-constrained firms should interact with their social network to leverage the knowledge and resources embedded within. The findings prescribe optimal governance strategies for different combinations of network structure variables to gain maximum knowledge about social sustainability.

The literature lacks information on the effect of network structure on the relationships between social network governance and social sustainability-related knowledge acquisition for resource-constrained firms in the developing economy context, making this study’s contributions unique.