Organizational and economic mechanism of strategic management of sustainability of supply chains of industrial enterprises

Abstract

The article deepens the theoretical and methodological foundations of the organization of strategic management of industrial enterprises` supply chains sustainability. The evolution of the concept of supply chain management is considered from the standpoint of the institutional theory, as well as the influencing of various factors on its development and integration with the concept of sustainable development is determined. The conceptual and categorical apparatus for researching supply chain sustainability management from the standpoint of network theory and stakeholder theory has been developed. On the example of a metallurgical enterprise, a system of indicators of sustainable development is proposed and strategic guidelines for three scenarios of sustainable development of an enterprise are determined. These three scenarios take into account the conditions for future development, which are defined as pessimistic, optimistic and such as to ensure balanced sustainable development. Calculations of strategic scenarios for sustainable development were based on the determination of threshold values of indicators for three components: economic (including the quality of corporate governance), environmental and social. Strategic benchmarks have been developed for each of the scenarios. In the course of the study, it was found that it is inappropriate to calculate the integral sustainability index for the entire supply chain as a whole. Such a calculation has no informative value and is technically practically impossible due to the incomparability of indicators of different business units included in the supply chain. A conclusion is drawn from this that the sustainability of each individual business unit in the chain should be assessed separately. An organizational and economic mechanism for managing the sustainability of the supply chain in a hybrid form is proposed, which provides for a combination of decentralized development of sustainable development strategies by individual enterprises and organizations within the supply chain and centralized coordination and monitoring of the implementation of strategies by a focal company based on a digital platform. The concept of this mechanism is based on a network approach and provides for the organization of collaboration of participants in the supply chain with the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. The directions in which various digital technologies can be applied in managing the sustainability of the supply chain are considered, among which blockchain technology is recognized as the most suitable for use at the moment.