How are supply chains addressing their social responsibility dilemmas? Review of the last decade and a half

• Published in: Corporate social-responsibility and environmental management 2018-09, Vol.25 (5), p.833-843
• Main Authors: Basta, Mohamed, Lapalme, James, Paquet, Marc, Saint‐Louis, Patrick, Abu Zwaida, Tarek
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: corporate social responsibility; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle assessment; Life cycle engineering; Life cycles; Social responsibility; social risk; social sustainability; supply chain management; Supply chains
• ISSN: 1535-3958; 1535-3966
• DOI: 10.1002/csr.1500

Supply chain social responsibility is increasingly a pressing concern to organizations of all sizes. Justified by its impact on the bottom line, various measures were adopted for resolution and prevention. However, despite the abundance of literature on the topic, there continues to be a lack of evidence on which of the measures are the most prolific, that is, how the concern of interest is actually handled. Such evidence would highlight missed opportunities and set the stage for future research. Toward this goal, the authors conducted a mapping study analyzing 590 articles. The findings reveal that corporate social responsibility, sustainable reporting, and social life cycle assessment are the most used methods whereas systems thinking ranks far behind. This work is original in that it is the first of its kind to reveal such findings scientifically. Practical implications of this work include reducing the supply chain's social footprint, ameliorating stakeholder quality of living, and mitigating social risk.