Toward sustainable supply chain orientation (SSCO): mapping managerial perspectives

Purpose – The purpose this paper is to profile individual-level perspectives on sustainability and supply chain partnering, introduces the concept of sustainable supply chain orientation (SSCO), and suggests pathways between executive profiles toward SSCO. Design/methodology/approach – The research relies on inductive, theory-building grounded theory and phenomenological data collection and interpretations in the wine industry. In-depth interviews were conducted over five years with 112 senior managers from 88 organizations in the global wine industry representing nine wine regions in four countries. Findings – Ten profiles were developed depicting executives’ perspectives on embracing sustainability, the extent to which motivations for various forms of sustainability and partnering compete, and being self-or supply chain partner focussed. A SSCO depicts a leader who embraces sustainability, sees alignment in motivations and is supply chain partner focussed. Research limitations/implications – The paper contributes to the sustainable supply chain management and general business orientation discourses by introducing the concept of SSCO and profiling executives’ perspectives that may help to define pathways toward SSCO. It may be limited by its inductive method and the industry context. Limitations suggest future research in discovering additional profiles and pathways as well as validating them. Practical implications – Findings reveal the importance of understanding what sustainability means to business executives of firms in hyper-competitive markets with global supply chains. Managers will recognize that there are many possible routes toward SSCO, each one revealing potentially unique differentiation opportunities while also providing clues to competitors’ strategies. Originality/value – This work introduces the concept of SSCO and contributes a classification scheme consisting of detailed business executive profile descriptions and specific pathways toward SSCO followed by those executives.