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Sustainable Operations Management pp 103–129Cite as

How Does Innovativeness Foster Sustainable Supply Chain Management?

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Part of the book series: Measuring Operations Performance ((MEOP))

Abstract

Innovativeness refers to an organization’s willingness/ability to change through architectural/radical innovation of processes, products and management systems. Existing literature generally supports the importance of innovativeness for environmental and social sustainability. Open questions, however, still remain: (i) which mechanisms (i.e., tools and routines) do innovative firms leverage that better assist the process through which stakeholder pressure is turned into sustainability strategy? (ii) Which mechanisms do innovative firms leverage that better assist the process through which strategy is turned into a successful adoption of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices? To advance our understanding of how innovativeness fosters SSCM, we leveraged a continuous process of theory generation and data collection through case studies. A set of propositions and a conceptual model were built that complement prior research and can provide guidance to firms that struggle with how to deliver new environmental and social standards in their supply chains.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin, Carysfort Ave, Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland

    Jury Gualandris

  2. Department of Management, Information and Production Engineering, Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Viale Marconi 5, Dalmine, Bergamo, Italy

    Matteo Kalchschmidt

Authors
  1. Jury Gualandris
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  2. Matteo Kalchschmidt
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Correspondence to Jury Gualandris .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Management, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy

    Andrea Chiarini

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Gualandris, J., Kalchschmidt, M. (2015). How Does Innovativeness Foster Sustainable Supply Chain Management?. In: Chiarini, A. (eds) Sustainable Operations Management. Measuring Operations Performance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14002-5_6

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