The impacts of supply chain social sustainability on supply chain performance, mediating role of supply chain integration: the case of Vietnam

Abstract

The importance of sustainability in the supply chain has steadily risen in recent decades as a result of the growing awareness on the social issues. In order to achieve sustainability successfully, set out by the 9th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam on sustainable development, the Government has issued the “Orientation for sustainable development of the country”. Is to examine the relationship between supply chain social sustainability and supply chain performance, as well as explore the mediating role of supply chain integration on this relationship. PLS-SEM model is developed to identify the impacts of sustainability on performance outcomes and the mediating role of supply chain integration. The author received 428 responses from small, medium and large companies located in Vietnam, and after filtering, 408 responses were used for further analysis. This finding showed that sustainability impacts significantly on integration and performance in the supply chain. Moreover, the result indicates that supplier integration and internal integration mediate the relationship between social sustainability practices and supply chain performance, while customer integration mediation role was not found significant. This result proves that social sustainability practices can link all the stakeholders and enhance collaboration in the supply chain. In addition, performance outcomes can be increased by implementing social sustainability practices. To maintain sustainable development, firms should embrace values of sustainability to improve the well-being, working condition, safety and healthcare of their employees and their strategic partners as well as the advancement of local society.