Managing Information Asymmetry and Conflicting Interests in Multi-Stakeholder Sustainable Supply Chains Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

This chapter focuses on the challenges which information asymmetry and conflicts of interest present to multi-stakeholder sustainable supply chain design and suggests the use of MCDA to address these challenges. It looks at the ways information imbalances and divergent stakeholder priorities hamper cooperation and sustainability objectives to produce trust problems and ineffectiveness. These challenges are outlined in the chapter using theoretical underpinnings such as Game Theory and Akerlof's Market of Lemons. Next, it illustrates the MCDA's role in dealing with these problems (transparency, balancing conflicting interests and making the decision in an inclusive way). The practical application of MCDA is illustrated via a hypothetical green supply chain project that demonstrates the ability of diverse stakeholder priorities to be harmonised through systematic criteria evaluation and consensus building. The chapter concludes with a discussion of MCDA's potential for integrating environmental, social and economic goals in optimal decision making in complex supply chains.