Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Purpose: This paper aims that doing a literature review on the topic of sustainable supply chain management by doing a critical analysis of the available research paper on the topic. This study will provide the importance of sustainable supply chain management in the current scenario of operation management in the different company. Further, the aim is to map the use of the theory in the relevant field and future avenues for its development. Design/Methodology/Approach: Research papers and articles from different journals were collected on the topic of sustainable supply chain management and its relevance. Main focus on given on the relative definition and key aspects of the term ‘sustainable supply chain management’ and more importantly sustainability role in the study of Supply chain management. At first 50 articles were collected and analyzed based on a different perspective on the topic. Out of these selected 50 papers, 5 papers were taken into consideration for the evaluation based on the analysis and application. These 5 papers provided the quantitative data to approach the topic at hand and create a framework representing the theory of sustainable supply chain management. Also, the relevance of the topic in different countries and sector dimension is also taken into consideration. Further, an in-depth analysis was done on the impact of the sustainable supply chain management on the performance and results of the given firms/organization. This analysis was based on the secondary data collected from the reports and papers analyzed. Findings: The crucial role of the theory of sustainable supply chain management plays in different dimension such as economic, social, environmental etc of the firms depending on the type of the industry and methodology used to implement it. At first, the finding includes the way to attain the sustainability in the traditional approach of the supply chain management. Later, the theory is evaluated as the key to improving the operation by the mean of being more effective and effective. Further, comprehensive application and strategically implementation of the theory is described in the different decision-making process in the operation management, specifically in supply chain operation. In addition to that, it also showed the impact of enhancing the performance and results through the proper implantation of the theory. Research Limitation/Implications: First, the underlying framework used to build up the theory are derived through different methodology in different research papers, where most of them based on the conceptual notion and are not emphatically tested. A limited number of real-world application examples to validate the theory. Second, analyzed firms/companies in different papers are limited. Also, these firms/companies taken into consideration operate in different industries, where the implication and effect of theory will be different depending on the relevance and application of the theory. Third, the contrast of the focus between economic dimension and sustainability in the social and environmental within the supply chain in different search paper. Fourth, most of the research papers available are on positive terms, so the theory under another term should also be examined. For example, determining the risk and cost associated with the theory which can have the adverse impact on the supply chain. Originality/Value: The focus of this paper was to provide a better understanding of the sustainable supply chain management theory and its application in a different stage of decision making and operation management to both the practitioner and academicians. It craves the path to shift from the tradition supply chain to the new approach by providing the literature review of the extensive research paper from the year 1991 to 2018.