The institutional logic of the sustainable organisation: the case of a chocolate supply network



McLoughlin, Kate and Meehan, Joanne ORCID: 0000-0001-6730-9350
(2021) The institutional logic of the sustainable organisation: the case of a chocolate supply network. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OPERATIONS & PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, 41 (3). pp. 251-274.

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Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to examine how, and by whom, institutional logics are determined in the action of sustainable organisation. The authors analyse a supply chain network structure to understand how multiple stakeholders' perceptions of sustainability emerge into a dominant logic and diffuse across an organisational field.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>Stakeholder network theory provides novel insights into emerging logics within a chocolate supply chain network. Semi-structured interviews with 35 decision-makers were analysed alongside 269 company documents to capture variations in emergent logics. The network was mapped to include 63 nodes and 366 edges to analyse power structure and mechanisms.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>The socio-economic organising principles of sustainable organisation, their sources of power and their logics are identified. Economic and social logics are revealed, yet the dominance of economic logics creates risks to their coexistence. Logics are largely shaped in pre-competitive activities, and resource fitness to collaborative clusters limits access for non-commercial actors.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>Powerful firms use network structures and collaborative and concurrent inter-organisational relationships to define and diffuse their conceptualisation of sustainability and restrict competing logics.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>This novel study contributes to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) through presenting the socio-economic logic as a new conceptual framework to understand the action of sustainable organisation. The identification of sophisticated mechanisms of power and hegemonic control in the network opens new research agendas.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Sustainability, Power, Supply chains, Networks, Institutional logics
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Management
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 12 Mar 2021 08:08
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 22:56
DOI: 10.1108/IJOPM-11-2020-0773
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3117032