Supply chain risk identification: Signaling companies’ social sustainability reputation

Abstract

Over the past decades, supply chains have become global, longer, and consequently more complex to manage and control. This evolving context has shaped the current business landscape, which increasingly demands socio-environmental accountability from firms. This paper addresses these emerging business requirements, making an original contribution to its field by drawing on stakeholder and signaling theories to identify whether the adoption of supply chain risk identification practices exerts a positive effect upon firms’ social performance. Additionally, it assesses the role of digital technology in strengthening this relationship. A survey of manufacturing firms was conducted to gather data, which was analyzed via covariance-based structural equation modeling and AMOS 28.0 software. The research found that practices intended to identify supply chain risks make a considerable contribution towards signaling a positive social sustainability reputation and highlighting the application of digital technology to help attain better social performance. Stakeholder saliency is an aspect that still requires further research.