TY - JOUR
T1 - Cooperative initiatives with NGOs in socially sustainable supply chains
T2 - How is inter-organizational fit achieved?
AU - Rodríguez, Jorge A.
AU - Giménez Thomsen, C.
AU - Arenas, D.
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge the financial support from research grant ECO2010-16840 and ECO2013-47794-R from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation . We would also like to thank the participants of the 2013 EUROMA Doctoral consortia for their comments to an earlier draft of this paper; and, also to the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2016/11/20
Y1 - 2016/11/20
N2 - This research studies how firms and NGOs achieve inter-organizational fit for implementing practices that create value in socially sustainable supply chains. This paper presents a theoretical model that identifies the factors that drive and enable firm-NGO inter-organizational fit. Previous research has adopted an institutional perspective in which secondary stakeholders put pressure on the firm to implement sustainable practices. However, anecdotal evidence and latest industry practices suggest that a cooperative perspective could be more appropriate to understand how value can be created in socially sustainable supply chains. The proposed theoretical model depicts the achievement of inter-organizational fit as a process that entails several alignments along the way: a value logic alignment, the alignment of an NGO's mission with the profit-oriented behavior of firms, the alignment of an NGO's objectives with firms’ strategies, and the adjustment of firms’ organizational structures and organizational routines to an NGO's activities. We use a qualitative nested case study, which involved an NGO-led project that undertook supplier development programs for poor suppliers in cooperation with several firms. Recommendations for practitioners and areas of future research are also provided.
AB - This research studies how firms and NGOs achieve inter-organizational fit for implementing practices that create value in socially sustainable supply chains. This paper presents a theoretical model that identifies the factors that drive and enable firm-NGO inter-organizational fit. Previous research has adopted an institutional perspective in which secondary stakeholders put pressure on the firm to implement sustainable practices. However, anecdotal evidence and latest industry practices suggest that a cooperative perspective could be more appropriate to understand how value can be created in socially sustainable supply chains. The proposed theoretical model depicts the achievement of inter-organizational fit as a process that entails several alignments along the way: a value logic alignment, the alignment of an NGO's mission with the profit-oriented behavior of firms, the alignment of an NGO's objectives with firms’ strategies, and the adjustment of firms’ organizational structures and organizational routines to an NGO's activities. We use a qualitative nested case study, which involved an NGO-led project that undertook supplier development programs for poor suppliers in cooperation with several firms. Recommendations for practitioners and areas of future research are also provided.
KW - Firm-NGO cooperation
KW - Inter-organizational fit
KW - Inter-organizational relationships
KW - Socially sustainable supply chains
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84990026673&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.07.115
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.07.115
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84990026673
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 137
SP - 516
EP - 526
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
ER -