Socially responsible practices in operations & supply chains

During the last decade, social and environmental issues have attracted increased public debate and scrutiny. These two types of issues, when combined with financial performance, come together to form the Triple-Bottom Line, which is a lens through which to examine business sustainability. Customers, regulators, and the public are increasingly demanding that firms work toward the more effective integration of social issues into the design, sourcing, production, and distribution of their products and services. For many firms, their supply chains are important networks in which operational competitiveness, environmental management, and social issues intersect. For example, a manufacturer can seek to make advances in product safety, improve the welfare of its workers, establish systems to ensure human rights within its supplier network, or invest in healthcare infrastructure in developing countries. A firm's level of responsibility varies depending on the type of stakeholder that is involved and the firm's position within the supply chain.;This thesis empirically examines the relationship between a firm's supply chain and the socially responsible practices it engages in, as well as the influence of these practices on firm performance. The investigation is conducted in two stages. First, it begins with a series of exploratory case studies that provide insight into socially responsible practices in Operations Management. Second, a cross-sectional survey of Canadian manufacturing plants across three industries---food manufacturing, transportation equipment manufacturing, and chemical manufacturing---provides further empirical evidence for the posited relationships. For the purposes of this research, socially responsible practices are divided into four categories: internal socially responsible practices, supplier socially responsible practices, customer socially responsible practices, and community socially responsible practices. This research offers a number of contributions to literature and practice. First, a set of new scales to measure socially responsible practices in an operations and supply chain management context are developed and tested. Second, this research contributes new knowledge to both academics and practitioners in the field of operations management by describing and measuring the different dimensions of socially responsible practices. Finally the impact of socially responsible practices on performance is identified and detailed.;Keywords. Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility, Triple-Bottom Line, Empirical Research in Operations Management.