IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v145y2017i2d10.1007_s10551-015-2847-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Toward Moral Responsibility Theories of Corporate Sustainability and Sustainable Supply Chain

Author

Listed:
  • Jung Ha-Brookshire

    (University of Missouri)

Abstract

In the quest to build truly sustainable corporations and supply chains, we propose (a) the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability and (b) the moral responsibility theory of sustainable supply chain. Built from morality literature in philosophy, the view of corporations as moral agents in law, and analyses of corporate hypocrisy and its role in an organization’s and its members’ behaviors, our theories show how a truly sustainable corporation and its external supply chain could emerge. At the core, we believe that without a sense of moral responsibility businesses throughout the supply chain will not be truly sustainable. In today’s highly globalized and fragmented business environments, corporations do businesses with external supply chain partners, and without the truly sustainable supply chain partners, they may not be able to achieve sustainability goals. Moreover, for such a supply chain to be truly sustainable, each member of the supply chain must also be truly sustainable. For each member of the supply chain to be truly sustainable, the individuals who work in a corporation must be truly sustainable as well. That is, a truly sustainable supply chain cannot be established without its member corporations’ and employees’ commitment to and successes in sustainability. This paper shows how business moral responsibility and corporate sustainability are closely intertwined. How these theories could be applied in the corporate and supply chain settings are discussed, and future research opportunities are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Jung Ha-Brookshire, 2017. "Toward Moral Responsibility Theories of Corporate Sustainability and Sustainable Supply Chain," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(2), pages 227-237, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:145:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-015-2847-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2847-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-015-2847-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-015-2847-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mihaela Constantinescu & Muel Kaptein, 2015. "Mutually Enhancing Responsibility: A Theoretical Exploration of the Interaction Mechanisms Between Individual and Corporate Moral Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 325-339, June.
    2. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    3. Gideon Markman & Dan Krause, 2014. "Special Topic Forum on Theory Building Surrounding Sustainable Supply Chain Management," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 50(3), pages 1-1, July.
    4. Javier Aranzadi, 2013. "The Natural Link Between Virtue Ethics and Political Virtue: The Morality of the Market," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 487-496, December.
    5. Gideon Markman & Dan Krause, 2014. "Special Topic Forum on Theory Building Surrounding Sustainable Supply Chain Management," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 50(4), pages 100-101, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tina Sendlhofer, 2020. "Decoupling from Moral Responsibility for CSR: Employees' Visionary Procrastination at a SME," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(2), pages 361-378, November.
    2. Stephanie Schrage & Dirk Ulrich Gilbert, 2021. "Addressing Governance Gaps in Global Value Chains: Introducing a Systematic Typology," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 657-672, May.
    3. Mohammed L. Ashour & Nafez N. Ali & Mahmoud S. Allan, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Competitive Advantage: Relationships and Mechanisms," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(3), pages 161-175.
    4. Čater, Tomaž & Čater, Barbara & Milić, Patricia & Žabkar, Vesna, 2023. "Drivers of corporate environmental and social responsibility practices: A comparison of two moderated mediation models," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    5. Else, Tim & Choudhary, Sonal & Genovese, Andrea, 2022. "Uncovering sustainability storylines from dairy supply chain discourse," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 858-874.
    6. Sooksan Kantabutra, 2022. "Toward a System Theory of Corporate Sustainability: An Interim Struggle," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-27, November.
    7. Salem, Rami & Usman, Muhammad & Ezeani, Ernest, 2021. "Loan loss provisions and audit quality: Evidence from MENA Islamic and conventional banks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 345-359.
    8. Wagner, Tillmann & Korschun, Daniel & Troebs, Cord-Christian, 2020. "Deconstructing corporate hypocrisy: A delineation of its behavioral, moral, and attributional facets," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 385-394.
    9. Sorin M. S. Krammer, 2024. "No Planet B Available! A Review of The Climate Book: The Facts and Solutions by Greta Thunberg," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 194(1), pages 229-232, September.
    10. Cherise Small & Charlene Lew, 2021. "Mindfulness, Moral Reasoning and Responsibility: Towards Virtue in Ethical Decision-Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 103-117, February.
    11. Elnahass, Marwa & Salama, Aly & Yusuf, Noora, 2022. "Earnings management and internal governance mechanisms: The role of religiosity," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    12. Marta Pizzetti & Lucia Gatti & Peter Seele, 2021. "Firms Talk, Suppliers Walk: Analyzing the Locus of Greenwashing in the Blame Game and Introducing ‘Vicarious Greenwashing’," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 21-38, April.
    13. Ricardo Chalmeta & José-Eduardo Barqueros-Muñoz, 2021. "Using Big Data for Sustainability in Supply Chain Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-25, June.
    14. Qing Miao & Jun Zhou, 2020. "Corporate Hypocrisy and Counterproductive Work Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model of Organizational Identification and Perceived Importance of CSR," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-20, March.
    15. Joohye Hwang & Xun Sun & Li Zhao & Song-yi Youn, 2024. "Sustainable Fashion in New Era: Exploring Consumer Resilience and Goals in the Post-Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-18, April.
    16. Saheli Goswami & Gargi Bhaduri, 2023. "Communicating Moral Responsibility: Stakeholder Capitalism, Types, and Perceptions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-17, March.
    17. Xiaobei Liang & Xiaojuan Hu & Hu Meng, 2020. "Truly Sustainability or Hypocrisy: The Effects of Corporate Sustainable Orientation on Consumers’ Quality Perception and Trust Based on Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-20, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antony Paulraj & Injazz J. Chen & Constantin Blome, 2017. "Motives and Performance Outcomes of Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices: A Multi-theoretical Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(2), pages 239-258, October.
    2. Dubey, Rameshwar & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Childe, Stephen J. & Papadopoulos, Thanos & Wamba, Samuel Fosso & Song, Malin, 2016. "Towards a theory of sustainable consumption and production: Constructs and measurement," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 78-89.
    3. Tina Sendlhofer, 2020. "Decoupling from Moral Responsibility for CSR: Employees' Visionary Procrastination at a SME," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(2), pages 361-378, November.
    4. Rameshwar Dubey & Angappa Gunasekaran & Stephen J. Childe & Thanos Papadopoulos & Zongwei Luo & David Roubaud, 2020. "Upstream supply chain visibility and complexity effect on focal company’s sustainable performance: Indian manufacturers’ perspective," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 290(1), pages 343-367, July.
    5. Kristoffer Francisco & David Swanson, 2018. "The Supply Chain Has No Clothes: Technology Adoption of Blockchain for Supply Chain Transparency," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, January.
    6. de Lange, Deborah & Valliere, Dave, 2020. "Investor preferences between the sharing economy and incumbent firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 37-47.
    7. Saheli Goswami & Gargi Bhaduri, 2023. "Communicating Moral Responsibility: Stakeholder Capitalism, Types, and Perceptions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-17, March.
    8. David Berlepsch & Fred Lemke & Matthew Gorton, 2024. "The Importance of Corporate Reputation for Sustainable Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review, Bibliometric Mapping, and Research Agenda," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(1), pages 9-34, January.
    9. Christian Busse, 2016. "Doing Well by Doing Good? The Self-interest of Buying Firms and Sustainable Supply Chain Management," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 52(2), pages 28-47, April.
    10. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    11. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.
    12. Mara Del Baldo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some “spirited businesses”," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 1-36, February.
    13. Michael Howes & Liana Wortley & Ruth Potts & Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes & Silvia Serrao-Neumann & Julie Davidson & Timothy Smith & Patrick Nunn, 2017. "Environmental Sustainability: A Case of Policy Implementation Failure?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, January.
    14. Parnphumeesup, Piya & Kerr, Sandy A., 2011. "Stakeholder preferences towards the sustainable development of CDM projects: Lessons from biomass (rice husk) CDM project in Thailand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3591-3601, June.
    15. Chin-Shan Lu & Kuo-Chung Shang & Chi-Chang Lin, 2016. "Examining sustainability performance at ports: port managers’ perspectives on developing sustainable supply chains," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(8), pages 909-927, November.
    16. Kebede, Yohannes, 1993. "The Limits to Common Resource Management: The Bypassed Commons or Commons without Tragedy," MPRA Paper 662, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 May 1993.
    17. John Stanley & Janet Stanley, 2023. "Improving Appraisal Methodology for Land Use Transport Measures to Reduce Risk of Social Exclusion," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-18, August.
    18. Nora Mzavanadze, 2009. "Building A Framework For National Sustainable Development Assessment And Application For Lithuania: Sustainability In Transition," Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(01), pages 97-130.
    19. Pishchulov, Grigory & Trautrims, Alexander & Chesney, Thomas & Gold, Stefan & Schwab, Leila, 2019. "The Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process revisited: A revised method with application to sustainable supplier selection," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 166-179.
    20. Isin Ceti̇n, 2017. "Accounting Requirements And Records On Bank Subscribed Capital Compliance With European Directives," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1, pages 52-68, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:145:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-015-2847-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.