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The purpose of this paper is to understand communication pathways and factors that cause sustainability initiatives to become contagious from downstream to upstream members of a supply chain, which is termed sustainable supply chain contagion (SSCC).

This study takes an inductive, grounded theory approach, while utilizing established theories.

The decision to implement a sustainability initiative depends on the business case for the organization. Importantly, the findings outline several network and communication factors that overcome the weak business case and, therefore, foster SSCC. Based on these findings, a communication network model of SSCC is outlined. Network factors include the contagion pathways, the role of sustainability and top management teams and communication channels. Communication factors include the alignment of sustainability initiatives with departmental objectives, the articulation of goals and assuring the endurance of a sustainability initiative.

Managers can utilize the proposed model to create conditions that strengthen the business case of a proposed sustainability initiative, thus fostering SSCC. The presented findings reveal different tactics that can assist organizations in communicating sustainability initiatives in a persuasive manner, to permit the proliferation of sustainability across the supply chain.

This research enables a multilevel examination of the factors influencing SSCC.

Based on upper echelons theory and social contagion theory, this study aims to explore how to translate leader sustainability orientation (LSO) into green supply chain integration (GSCI) by green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO), as well as the moderating effects of four dimensions of organizational learning capability (OLC).

This study conducts hierarchical regression analysis using multi-sourced survey data collected in 264 Chinese companies to examine hypotheses.

The results indicate that LSO has positive influences on green supplier and customer integration. Furthermore, GEO partially mediates the impacts of LSO on green supplier and customer integration. Managerial commitment positively moderates the impact of LSO on GEO, while other dimensions such as systems perspective, openness and experimentation and knowledge transfer and integration have non-significant moderating effects.

This study enriches the existing research on internal drivers of GSCI and contributes to the understanding of the direct impact of LSO and mediating effects of GEO. This study extends social contagion theory boundaries by investigating the moderating effects of OLC on the relationship between LSO and GEO.

At the end of 2019, the first case of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) was reported in Wuhan city of China. The disease was declared a pandemic without imagining the magnitude of damage currently caused in all branches of the economy. One of the most affected sectors was food and mostly perishable food (PF), which are more susceptible to environmental conditions. Thus, the research examines the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on Ecuador's perishable food supply chains (PFSCs) during the pandemic. It contributes to new results on the special issue (SI) PFSC response to event risk and uncertainty, such as those that generated the pandemic.

The data used are from primary information sources, which were collected through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was applied to 298 companies belonging to the sector, and later the information was processed through partial least squares structural equation model. The convergent validity, discriminate and robustness tests provide arguments for the suitability of the model. Therefore, the findings are reliable and valid for the adequate measures to improve the PFSC due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

The results show that the perception of personal risk (PPR) produced by COVID-19 has caused the companies of the PFSC to adopt preventive policies (PO) to avoid contagion and guarantee the operation of the companies. In addition, the PPR has been responsible for the alterations in the demand and price (DP) of PF. Next, PO and DP have a significant effect on PFSC, which shows the evidence favouring the malfunction of PFSC operations due to anti-contagion PO, the mismatch of DP. On the contrary, circular economy practices contribute to the excellent performance of the PFSC. Finally, the research suggests some policy implications to consider in improving the PFSC.

This study is the first to be carried out in Ecuador's country on the PFSC; its contribution is unprecedented and makes it a road-map to be considered to guarantee the correct functioning of the PFSCs, and it will provide policymakers with valid elements to design efficient PFSCs that better respond to unforeseen events and uncertainties. Future research will focus on analysing the management of PF consumption in Ecuador during the pandemic.

The purpose of this review is to summarize existing literature on the causes and impacts of the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic on people and businesses, and to propose a conceptual framework for the global economic recovery. The study used existing most recent empirical literature from available for exploring of the magnitude causes and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the people and business and summarized the way of the world economic system. The review study uncovered that people and businesses are suffering from vulnerability scenarios that have causes and effects on current macroeconomic and microeconomic indicators. In addition, microeconomic indicators have affected in the categories of unemployed who are soaring, lowering incomes, increasing health spending, household spending, low productivity, mental stress, decreased consumption, social imbalance, collapsing commodity prices and so on. Nevertheless, macroeconomic indicators have affected in the categories of the global financial crisis, supply and demand, capital market volatility, disruption of fiscal policy, monetary policy, aviation industry, international tourism and hospitality, world trade, and high unemployment. The present study concluded that all government and non-government agencies have to play a major and mature role not only in developing of right policies and laws but also in ensuring practices and coordination as well as increase public and business awareness accordingly. The study summarized strategic and policy guideline for the recovery of the global economy by strengthening the health care system, commodity market volatility fix-up, financial market restructuring, resumption of manufacturing and economic activity, special care for micro-, small- and medium-scale enterprises, mitigate the unemployment problem, recovery package for tourism, hospitality and aviation sector, strengthening the global supply chain network, impacts on global immigration and remittance issues and develop sustainable development framework accordingly for recovery of the world economy.

This paper, a pathway, aims to provide research guidance for investigating sustainability in supply chains in a post-COVID-19 environment.

Published literature, personal research experience, insights from virtual open forums and practitioner interviews inform this study.

COVID-19 pandemic events and responses are unprecedented to modern operations and supply chains. Scholars and practitioners seek to make sense of how this event will make us revisit basic scholarly notions and ontology. Sustainability implications exist. Short-term environmental sustainability gains occur, while long-term effects are still uncertain and require research. Sustainability and resilience are complements and jointly require investigation.

The COVID-19 crisis is emerging and evolving. It is not clear whether short-term changes and responses will result in a new “normal.” Adjustment to current theories or new theoretical developments may be necessary. This pathway article only starts the conservation – many additional sustainability issues do arise and cannot be covered in one essay.

Organizations have faced a major shock during this crisis. Environmental sustainability practices can help organizations manage in this and future competitive contexts.

Broad economic, operational, social and ecological-environmental sustainability implications are included – although the focus is on environmental sustainability. Emergent organizational, consumer, policy and supply chain behaviors are identified.

The authors take an operations and supply chain environmental sustainability perspective to COVID-19 pandemic implications; with sustainable representing the triple bottom-line dimensions of environmental, social and economic sustainability; with a special focus on environmental sustainability. Substantial open questions for investigation are identified. This paper sets the stage for research requiring rethinking of some previous tenets and ontologies.

To communicate their sustainability and responsible management practices to the public, firms can leverage digital technologies both at the organisational and managerial levels. This study explores how firms' communications of responsible management contribute to sustainability in supply chains, as well as the role of blockchain in promoting responsible management.

Employing a qualitative methodology, the authors perform social media analytics (content analysis and sentiment analysis) on a dataset obtained from the social media posts of managers.

The study identifies eight key responsible management practices and shed new light on the role of blockchain in responsible management. The study results contribute to theory by linking responsible management practices with existing sustainability practices in the supply chain. The authors also demonstrate that blockchain enhances responsible management.

Reliance on publicly available data from social media, comprising corporate statements emanating from managers is a major limitation in this study.

The eight responsible management practices identified in this study are recommended for managers of different supply chain echelons to promote sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). The study findings also offer new rationale for blockchain adoption in supply chains.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to link the concepts of responsible management and SSCM. Moreover, the authors obtain empirical evidence from managers in the luxury fashion supply chain.

The catastrophic state of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has seized off all the operations along with the globe. It has not only distressed the socio-economic structure of the world but also mounted enormous pressure on the governmental bodies to save the lives of the people. Despite this, severe impacts of the same have been observed on the small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMME) practices, resulting in the economic downturn. The purpose of this study is to facilitate the SMME’s with circular economy (CE) practices to overcome the negative impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on their supply chain (SC) operations.

The presented work identified seven critical impacts as criteria of the novel COVID-19 pandemic on the Indian SMME and seeks to identify the relief measures in the CE paradigm by identifying 13 prominent enablers to CE as alternatives. Experts’ opinions have been engaged to detect CE enablers’ proficiency to overpower the pandemic impact through a questionnaire-based survey. The obtained data have been clustered and analyzed through a hybrid approach of entropy weight method and grey relational analysis to find an organized ranking of the enablers.

Current work spotlights the SMME’s losses due to SC disruptions and declined consumption patterns. The waste augmentation during the pandemic era has also been grouped in this study, primarily associating with the SC’s waste generation. The result of the performed analysis shows that the CE enabler “waste reduction and its transformation into a resource (E1)” have achieved the highest rank among all the considered enablers, governing a higher demand toward reusing waste for better handling the post COVID era state of affairs.

The presented study aimed to suppress the pandemic impact and generate anticipation of the CE concept, which might help the managers and policymakers identify its urgent need to achieve a stable and resilient SC system in a post COVID period. Presented work is peculiar, aiming to accelerate the CE adaption with green material usage in the industrial sector to suppress the present miserable condition and to achieve industrial and social sustainability for a better-foreseen future.

The aim of the study is to provide evidence on the distress in the supply chain and its impact on the trade credit policy, firms’ performance and risk and their growth opportunities. Trade credit creates a strict relation between suppliers and customers that cannot be easily substituted over time. The linkages established between firms in a supply chain are a key value added for all members that could represent a competitive advantage over independent market players. In the event of a supply chain disruption, all members could suffer from a decrease in profitability and an increase in risk. Nonetheless, no empirical evidence exists on the expected economic and financial effects on pertinent suppliers and customers.

This paper examines the US market and evaluates the impact of a supply chain member’s default on the other members, looking at both the customers’ and suppliers’ default. The sample considers all firms in the USA disclosing entry into bankruptcy proceedings through EDGAR filings that were not classified as financial intermediaries between 2012 and 2016. The analysis considers the effect of distress on the supply chain (suppliers or customers) on the trade credit policy, performance, risk and growth perspectives of connected firms.

The results show that a supply chain disruption not only modifies the trade credit policy but also affects firm risk and profitability and the financing sources available to support firm growth. Empirical evidence shows that the bankruptcy of a member of the supply chain affects the trade credit policy of all the other members. The costs related to default are economically and financially relevant to all supply chain members and affect the resiliency of the supply chain beyond the short term.

This paper uses an original and innovative database to empirically test the impact of corporate distress on supply chain financing, performance, risk and growth opportunities.

Information asymmetry and poor solvency caused by uncertainties in supply chains are the root causes of supply chain financing risks (SCFR). The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of supply chain integration on reducing SCFR by incorporating the mechanisms of information sharing and controlling supply chain risks (SCR).

This paper proposes hypothesis to discuss the impact of integration on SCFR and the mediating roles of alleviating information asymmetry and mitigating SCR, aiming at discovering factors and mechanisms to reduce SCFR. The research model was validated by applying structural equation modeling on survey data from 321 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Integration significantly reduces SCFR by dual approaches of information sharing and mitigating SCR, confirming that alleviating information asymmetry to reach information transparency and controlling SCR to reduce uncertainties facilitate less SCFR.

SMEs should enhance integration capability to reduce SCFR as it greatly influences the evaluation of financial service providers on SMEs and the sustainable financing capacity of SMEs. Additionally, any other methods that can improve information sharing and reduce SCR should be attached if possible.

This study represents a pioneering attempt to analyze the impact of integration on reducing SCFR by exploring the specific mechanisms of alleviating information asymmetry and mitigating SCR. Meanwhile, few prior empirical studies have highlighted the importance of SCFR.