Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Sustainability under the Torchlight of Social Media

Abstract

This research aims to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with the deployment of social media to improve supply chain sustainability. This exploratory research can lead to deeper insights regarding the opportunities as well as problems experienced due to the use of social media in supply chains. The study selected a three-phase Delphi study approach with both qualitative and quantitative analyses. This study recorded feedback from 34 experts with sufficient knowledge of information technology and sustainable pharmaceutical supply chain. 48 independent constructs separately in enterprise and public media were extracted. All the constructs were ranked, ultimately leading to 10 major constructs which played a significantly crucial role in the sustainability of supply chains. While social media challenges and opportunities in supply chain sustainability are discussed in this article, further studies on social and environmental sustainability and providing operational solutions to these challenges are still needed. No paper has directly extracted the impacts of social media specifically on enterprise and public media individually. While most papers mainly focused on economic and environmental sustainability, this paper pays close attention to sustainability