The Ethics of Sustainability in Supply Chain Relationships: Through the Lens of Supply Chain Integrity

Abstract

Firms continually experience supply chain sustainability issues that seem to conflict with stated values, highlighting the importance of supply chain integrity. As stakeholders evaluate how firms align their values and practices with supply chain partners, decision makers will need to balance normative and instrumental goals to make ethical and sustainable relationship decisions. Indeed, researchers have called for an exploration of the ethics of supply chain partnerships with the intent of identifying ways to create more sustainable and productive supply chains. Yet, much is still unknown about the mechanisms driving the ethical decision-making process to achieve integrity in supply chain relationships. Therefore, in a field experiment, this research evaluates ethical decision-making in buyer–supplier relationships by assessing individuals' evaluations of environmental or social sustainability norms and economic consequences on their ethical judgments and decisions related to buyer–supplier relationship continuance. Results revealed that while individuals' ethical judgments positively influenced relationship continuance intentions, individuals may have relied more heavily on evaluations of economic outcomes when considering tradeoffs with environmental or social outcomes. Results also indicated individuals' bottom-line mentality influenced decision-making to a degree. Overall, we suggest firms move from chain liability to chain responsibility by centering integrity in supply chain relationships.