Social Supplier Development Practices: Operational Effectiveness and the Role of Employee Well-Being

(1)

Social Supplier Development Practices: Operational Effectiveness

and the Role of Employee Well-Being

Master’s Thesis SCM MSc Supply Chain Management Faculty of Economics and Business

University of Groningen The Netherlands June 29, 2016 Jeroen Blankestijn Studentnumber: 2052156 e-mail: j.blankestijn.1@student.rug.nl Supervisor: X. Zhang xuan.zhang@rug.nl Co-assessor: Prof. J. de Vries jan.de.vries@rug.nl

Acknowledgement: I would like to acknowledge two reviewers for the constructive and insightful suggestions provided to improve the quality of this thesis; content wise, Joël Zwart, as well as

grammatically, Matthijs van der Kooij. Furthermore, I thank C. Sancha-Fernandez for her supervision during the first four months and wish her well in her recovery. In addition, I would like to thank X. Zhang, who replaced C. Sancha-Fernandez, for her supervision during the final part. To conclude I like to thank J. de Vries for his assessment and feedback. This study is supported in part by the Faculty of Economics and Business of Groningen University and is part of the master Supply Chain

(2)

2

Social Supplier Development Practices: Operational Effectiveness

and the Role of Employee Well-Being

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role of employee well-being (EWB), containing employees’ health and safety and employee commitment, in the relationship between social supplier development (SD) practices and operational performance, measured as quality and flexibility. This is done from the suppliers’ perspective. Data were collected in Dutch manufacturing industries by means of a survey. The paper makes multiple contributions. First, it generates an insight in the relationship between social SD practices and suppliers’ operational performance. Second, it explores the supplier’s perspective. The results show insignificant relationships between social SD practices and EWB as well as operational performance. However, a significant relationship between EWB and operational performance has been found. In addition, employees’ health and safety contributes to operational performance through employee commitment. This indicates the potential benefits of social SD practices once it becomes more clear how social SD practices can contribute to increase EWB.

(3)

3

PREFACE

As part of the master Supply Chain Management at University of Groningen this thesis needed to be written. In a period of four and a half months the whole process from initial idea until the final report had to be conducted. The topic that I selected was about sustainability, with a preference for the social dimension. After I was allocated to my supervisor, C. Sancha-Fernandez, the precise subject was developed. During the research different aspects of academic writing and research skills needed to be used in order to fulfill the requirement within the field of operations management.

In this study the concepts, effects and implications regarding social supplier development practices, employee well-being, and operational performance are included. The research helped me to enhance my knowledge regarding sustainability, in particular the social dimension of it. Furthermore, I have gained insights in the complexity of human resources in combination with operational outcomes and measures.

Besides that, I would like to acknowledge two reviewers for the constructive and insightful suggestions provided to improve the quality of this thesis; content wise, Joël Zwart, as well as

grammatically, Matthijs van der Kooij. Furthermore, I thank C. Sancha-Fernandez for her supervision during the first four months and wish her well in her recovery. In addition, I would like to thank X. Zhang, who replaced C. Sancha-Fernandez, for her supervision during the final part. To conclude I like to thank J. de Vries for his assessment and feedback. This study is supported in part by the Faculty of Economics and Business of Groningen University and is part of the master Supply Chain

(4)

4

1. INTRODUCTION

Stakeholders, such as customers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media, put pressures on companies to focus more on sustainability (Mani, Agrawal, & Sharma, 2015; Marshall, McCarthy, Heavey, & McGrath, 2015). In that sense, the concept of sustainability has been gaining more and more attention over the last decades within the research field as well as in practice (Brandenburg, Govindan, Sarkis, & Seuring, 2014; Carter & Rogers, 2008; Sancha, Gimenez, & Sierra, 2016; Seuring & Müller, 2008). The main focus of research has been on the environmental dimension and its relationship with performance, for example financial and operational benefits (Carter & Rogers, 2008; Green, Zelbst, Bhadauria, & Meacham, 2012; Schaltegger & Burritt, 2014; Vachon & Klassen, 2008). Although the social dimension has gained more attention over the last couple of years, it is still under-explored in comparison with the environmental dimension of sustainability (Huq, Stevenson, & Zorzini, 2014; Klassen & Vereecke, 2012; Sancha et al., 2016; Zorzini, Hendry, Huq, & Stevenson, 2015). The workforce is considered as one of the most important resources of the organization (Gereffi & Lee, 2012; Menon, 2012). If workers are treated in a

(6)

6 will look at the effectiveness of those practices that focus on improving working conditions at

suppliers.

In the sustainable supply chain management literature, practices that aim to improve suppliers’ capabilities are called supplier development (SD) practices. SD practices can be defined as “any activity undertaken by a buying firm to improve either the supplier performance, supplier capabilities, or both and to meet the buying firm’s short- and/or long-term supply needs" (Krause, Scannell, & Calantone, 2000, p. 34). The effectiveness of SD practices for the firm’s operational performance has been studied (e.g. Gallear, Ghobadian, & Chen, 2012; Gimenez, Sierra, & Rodon, 2012; Hollos, Blome, & Foerstl, 2012). Most of the research focuses on SD practices in general or on environmental SD practices (e.g. Gualandris, Golini, & Kalchschmidt, 2014; Modi & Mabert, 2007; Wagner, 2011). Social SD practices include activities that are aimed at improving employees’ working conditions at suppliers through assessment and collaboration, for example by providing safety training at supplier’s premises (Sancha, Gimenez, Sierra, & Kazeminia, 2015). In this study the focus will be on social SD practices and how they are related to operational performance. Studies that focused on the

abovementioned relationship found some conflicting results (Akamp & Müller, 2013; Carter, 2005; Gallear et al., 2012; Hollos et al., 2012; Sancha, Longoni, & Giménez, 2015). For example, Sancha et al. (2016) found that there is no direct relationship between social SD practices and operational performance, while Akamp and Müller (2013) found a positive direct effect. These mixed results might indicate that there is a mediating factor present within this relationship (Carter, 2005). Building on this and considering the fact that human resources’ operational effectiveness can be determined by the maintenance or well-being of the resources, this study will address employee well-being (EWB) as a potential mediating factor. The reason for this is that it is expected that when social SD practices are implemented its effectiveness in terms of operational outcomes is mainly determined by human resources and thus the employees’ well-being. Operational performance will improve as a result of the implementation of social SD practices (e.g., training in terms of safety issues) if due to this

(7)

7 2013). The supplier’s perspective, on the other hand, focuses on how the supplier itself experiences the implementation of SD practices and how their performance is affected (Arroyo-López et al., 2012; Nagati & Rebolledo, 2013). In this research, the latter perspective will be considered. In summary, three main knowledge gaps have been identified: (1) the lack of studies regarding the social dimension of sustainability, (2) the suppliers’ perspective, and (3) the role of EWB.

This research aims to fill the abovementioned gaps, by answering the following research question: What is the role of EWB in the relationship between social supplier development practices and

suppliers’ operational performance? In order to answer this research question a questionnaire based on a theoretical background will be developed which will be conducted within the Netherlands. The aim is to clarify the impact of social SD practices on suppliers’ operational performance as experienced by the supplier itself, implying that this research will be conducted at the supplier. Furthermore, the potential mediating role of EWB within the relationship between social SD practices and supplier’s operational performance will be explored.

This paper seeks to contribute to the operations management (OM) literature by clarifying the relationship between social SD practices and suppliers’ operational performance. In addition, this study will try to provide explanation for the mixed results found thus far by analyzing a potential mediating factor, EWB. Besides that, this study will elaborate on the social dimension of SD practices. This aspect is important since working conditions, if included in SD practices, can contribute to the improvement of performances within the supply chain. While initially the focus has been on the environmental dimension, aspects like fair production and modern slavery gain more attention in practice. Thus, studying the social dimension of SD practices will help to set these aspects on the research agenda as well. Also, taking a supplier’s perspective increases knowledge on the effects of social SD practices on operational performance as experienced by suppliers. It does so by indicating if social SD practices contribute to the suppliers as well as the buyer firms. Most current studies take a buyer firm’s perspective showing that buyer firms have legitimate reasons to implement these practices, while it is unknown how these practices impact on the business of suppliers (Arroyo-López et al., 2012; Sánchez-Rodríguez et al., 2005). This study aims to clarify whether or not suppliers benefit from these practices. If so, they could be motivated to let buyer firms implement these practices more often or more easily instead of remaining sceptic. Furthermore, the results of this research may generate insight for buyer firms since their sustainable performance depends on

(8)

8 According to Roberts (2003) and Carter (2005) managers are generally more likely to implement social sustainability practices in their organization if it has a clear business case and potential benefits are indicated. This research tries to contribute to this practical aspect.

The structure of this paper is as follows: in the next section the theoretical background, hypotheses and the conceptual model will be provided. Subsequently, the methodology and results will be described. Then, the collected data and the results are analyzed. Finally, the findings will be discussed and conclusions will be provided.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This research uses different aspects of the operations management literature, like sustainability, supplier development, employee well-being and operational performance. In order to develop a clear model, this section will elaborate on these aspects, from which hypotheses will be derived.

2.1 Social sustainability

Social sustainability is one of the three dimensions (economic, environmental, and social) of sustainability (Elkington, 1994). Deconstructing sustainability into these dimensions allows

researchers to explore the differences, although a holistic view may help to analyze the overall impact of sustainability practices with organizational performance (Marshall, McCarthy, Heavey, and

McGrath, 2015). “Social sustainability is a positive condition marked by a strong sense of social cohesion, and equity of access to key services (including health, education, transport, housing and recreation)” (McKenzie, 2004: 15). According to different researchers (Longoni et al., 2014;

McKenzie, 2004; Pullman et al., 2009; Sancha et al., 2016) the social dimension of sustainability can be split into external and internal aspects, where the external aspects are about the reputation of the organization or whole supply chain (Longoni et al., 2014; Pagell & Gobeli, 2009; Sancha et al., 2016) and the internal aspects are about human resource management (HRM) and employee well-being (EWB) in the organization itself (Pagell & Gobeli, 2009; Pullman et al., 2009; Sancha et al., 2016). Thus, one of the important aspects of social sustainability are the working conditions of the

employees. Firms in Western countries could improve these conditions by extending social practices across the supply chain. This is mostly done by means of supplier development (SD) programs (Krause et al., 2000). The next section will elaborate on these practices.

2.2 Social supplier development practices

(9)

9 employees’ working conditions and well-being at the supplier (Sancha, Gimenez, et al., 2015). This can be done in different ways, by for example assessments, audits and training (Large & Gimenez, 2011). For this study those practices are specified to the social dimension of sustainability. This is due to the fact that this research has a social perspective and will focus on, for example, training of social practices to the personnel. In the end those social SD practices are related to operational performance through EWB. In the next section the focus will be on operational performance, after that EWB will be discussed.

2.3 Operational performance

In the literature, operational performance is a common performance measure (e.g Pagell & Gobeli, 2009; Wong, Boon-Itt, & Wong, 2011; Zhu, Sarkis, & Lai, 2012). Most of the management within the organization is focused on the operational performance. Operational performance management can be considered as “the definition, implementation and use of performance measures on the level of day-to-day operations” (De Leeuw & Van Den Berg, 2011, p. 224). The focus is on day-to-day-to-day-to-day operations which makes it a suitable performance indicator for manufacturing firms. But what is included in operational performance? Some authors provide a list of measures, such as unit cost, delivery, flexibility, speed of new product introduction, and quality (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2003). In this research the components of operational performance as indicated by Wong, Boon-Itt, and Wong (2011) will be considered, which are delivery, flexibility, quality, and cost. The reason for this is that these four components are widely known and encompass most aspects which are of importance to an organization when considering operational performance and a social perspective. In the end two of these are selected for this research, which are flexibility and quality. This is due to the fact that it is hard to directly link improvements in EWB with cost due to the intangibility of financial outcomes of EWB (Surroca, Tribó, & Waddock, 2010). However, also changes in quality and flexibility will eventually affect the expenditures of an organization (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2003). For example, quality improvements lead to less rework and thus reduces production costs. In this study, operational quality is defined as the improvement of product quality in the production process, whereas flexibility is regarded to be the adjustment of the products and/or production schedule in order to meet the desires of the customer (Wong et al., 2011). In the following section, the role of EWB and its potential impact on operational performance will be discussed.

2.4 Employee well-being

(10)

10 definitions (Baptiste, 2008; Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009; Taris & Schreurs, 2009). The main focus of these definitions was the absence of illness, both physical and psychological, however EWB is more than just the absence of illness (Baptiste, 2008; Meyer & Maltin, 2010). To illustrate, EWB may include different aspects, such as health and safety of the worker (Pagell, Johnston, Veltri, Klassen, & Biehl, 2014), bonds with co-workers (Nahum-Shani, Bamberger, & Bacharach, 2011), job satisfaction (Taris & Schreurs, 2009), and happiness (Taris & Schreurs, 2009). Taking this into consideration, several researchers held on to the definition of Warr (1987) and extended it by focusing on some of the different aspects as mentioned before (e.g. Grant et al., 2007; Van De Voorde, Paauwe, & Van

Veldhoven, 2012). This research will follow that line and defines EWB as the overall quality of an employee’s functioning and experience at work, where the focus will be on three dimensions: job satisfaction, commitment, and health and safety. This definition is suitable because it contains most aspects of EWB and it does not on forehand emphasize one specific aspect of EWB, leaving this research to consider EWB in a broad sense. Besides that, EWB can be approached at several levels. EWB has been researched at the level of the individual (e.g. Alfes, Shantz, Truss, & Soane, 2013), the staff or the organization (e.g. Macky & Boxall, 2008), and at the country level (e.g. Zheng et al., 2015). The focus of this research is on the staff or organizational level, implying that the shared EWB will be studied (Van De Voorde et al., 2012). This means that the well-being of the individual is not explicitly considered and that the focus will be on the overall well-being of the staff. Due to this the employee job satisfaction can be hard to determine due to individual biases and conflicting perceptions within the group of staff workers. This would generate an unrepresentative outcome of the general job satisfaction among the whole workforce. Given that this is the case, this study will consider only the two dimensions of employees’ health and safety, and employee commitment. In the following paragraph the different concepts will be connected and based on this, hypotheses will be developed.

2.5 Hypotheses development

In order to answer the research question three hypotheses will be developed. These hypotheses link the constructs, social SD practices, EWB and operational performance, as discussed earlier. First the focus will be on the direct relationship between social SD practices and operational performance, after which the relationship between social SD practices and EWB will be elaborated upon. Lastly, the relationship of EWB and operational performance is discussed. All hypotheses form the basis for a potential mediation of EWB within the relationship. In the end, all the hypotheses will result in a conceptual model.

(11)

11 Gualandris & Kalchschmidt, 2015; Sancha, Gimenez, et al., 2015), where others found that the

relationship was insignificant or came up with negative results (Klassen & Vereecke, 2012; Sancha et al., 2016). For instance, Sancha et al. (2016) found that the implementation of collaboration and assessment, as mean of implementing social SD practices, had a mixed impact on performance. Collaboration seems to contribute to a better performance while assessment does not significantly influence performance. This implies that the relationship between social SD practices and performance is not directly clear. Akamp and Müller (2013), however, found a positive impact of supplier

development practices on performance. This means that the implementation of social SD practices presumably contributes to the improvement of supplier’s operational performance. Two studies (Arroyo-López et al., 2012; Nagati & Rebolledo, 2013) focused on the relationship between general SD practices and suppliers’ broad operational performance, explicitly from a supplier’s perspective. Nagati and Robelledo (2013) found in their study that there is a direct positive relationship between SD practices and supplier’s operational performance, while Arroyo-López et al. (2012) found mixed results. This implies that the direct relationship is unclear and that in all probability there are factors present that determine this relationship for suppliers, as also considered by Carter (2005).

Furthermore, it is expected that the relationship between social SD practices and suppliers’ operational production cost is positive once the mediating factor is controlled. Thus, it is expected that social SD practices have a positive impact on operational performance which results in the third hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Social supplier development practices have a positive impact on operational

performance.

(12)

12 EWB. In addition, implementing social SD practices implies that the supplier is forced to take,

together with the buyer firm, a perspective in which the employee gains a more central position and receives more attention. This will result in the fact that employees feel that they are appreciated and valued more by the organizations, both the buyer firm and the supplier. Based on this, it is expected that employee commitment, another aspect of EWB, regarding their jobs will increase. Furthermore, the improvement of health and safety awareness and relevance by means of training will decrease the amount of risks experienced at the workplace, decreasing stress and fear among the workforce. So in the end social SD practices will improve the health and safety of employees as well as their

commitment regarding their jobs and/or the organization, thus social SD practices will increase EWB. Based on this the following hypothesis is developed:

Hypothesis 2: Social supplier development practices have a positive impact on employee well-being. EWB influences the productivity of the workforce (Wright & Huang, 2012). If EWB is neglected within an organization, the employees are generally less committed to the organization and are less likely to run the extra mile (Meyer & Maltin, 2010). Furthermore, poor working conditions will generate health and safety risks for the employees (Das, Pagell, Behm, & Veltri, 2008). This could result in an increase in absenteeism due to illness or accidents as well as a stressed atmosphere among the workforce due to the feeling of unsafety (Pagell et al., 2014; Veltri et al., 2013). For example, if there is a considerable rate of absenteeism among the workers, the workforce’s productivity is

disrupted. This is due to a smaller amount of available workers during a workday leading to a decrease in total production per day of the workforce, hence a lower productivity rate. These changes in

productivity influence the flexibility outcomes and/or quality of the products. So in the end, this will affect the operational performance of the supplier. A solution might be hiring more temporary workers or increasing overtime. However, both solutions result in higher operational production costs and the latter even in dissatisfaction among the workers due to extra worktime. Besides that, child labor and other unethical policies of the supplier will affect the supply chains’ reputation, including the buyer firm, which may influence the turnover rate of the supply chain (Klassen & Vereecke, 2012). Based on this one might expect that EWB at the supplier affects operational performance in multiple ways and thus that it will affect the operational performance of a supplier. From this it can be derived that if EWB is well maintained within the organization the operational performance will be influenced positively. Based on this the following hypothesis is developed:

Hypothesis 3: Employee well-being has a positive impact on operational performance.

(13)

13

Social SD Practices EWB Operational Performance

Figure 2.1: Conceptual model

H2

H1

H3

conceptual model, which is depicted in figure 2.1. In the next section the methodology used to test this model will be described.

3. METHODOLOGY

In this section the methodology that is applied during this research will be discussed. First, the focus will be on the method which is used to collect data as well as the measures used in order to test the hypotheses. Second, the steps of the data collection will be addressed and, lastly, the sample descriptions will be provided.

3.1 Method and measures

This study is exploratory; the aim is to gain insights in the theory developed and to try to generalize the obtained results. Based on this the method that is selected is survey study. Survey studies contain the possibility to gather data for an explorative purpose (Karlsson, 2009). Furthermore, by means of a survey large numbers of data can be collected, which is a prerequisite for the generalizability of a research, within a relatively short period of time and with a relatively little amount of effort. That is an advantage of a study executed by means of a questionnaire (Karlsson, 2009).

(14)

five-14 point Likert scale was designed (1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree) and respondents were asked to indicate their extent of agreement with the following statements. All the scales were designed in the same direction. In table 3.2 an overview of all the constructs and the items is provided. The details regarding the data collection are discussed in the next section.

3.2 Data collection

In order to collect the data different steps had to be executed. Furthermore, the industries in which the data will be collected had to be described on forehand. In this section, the latter will be addressed firstly and after that the data collection process be discussed.

3.2.1 Industries

Data were collected from firms within the Netherlands. The unit of analysis can be described as the supplier firm. The industry and size of the organizations which were aimed for as respondents are set in advance. This research targeted firms which had more than 50 employees in 2015 according to the registrations of the NACE, NAICS and SIC codes. This threshold was set because it is expected that those firms will have the resources to implement social SD practices (Pradhan & Routroy, 2014). Furthermore, the firms included were manufacturing firms operating in for example the chemical, textile and electronics sector (for the total list see table 3.1). The reason that manufacturing firms and especially these sectors were selected is that firms within these sectors have to cope with more pressures from stakeholders to maintain a sustainable level due to the fact that these industries will generate a strong impact on the different sustainability dimensions (De Brito, Carbone, & Blanquart, 2008; Gualandris & Kalchschmidt, 2015). Due to this, it was expected that firms within these sectors are more likely to implement social SD practices and thus would be able to fill-out the questionnaire and provide usable data. In order to collect the data different steps had to be accomplished.

3.2.2 Data collecting

Before the data were collected multiple steps needed to be taken. First, the questionnaire had to be developed and processed by using Qualtrics, an online survey program. In the meantime a list of potential respondents had been prepared. Then, contact information was checked, by means of the website of the organization. Once the contact details were clear the organizations present on the list were contacted and asked to participate. Within the organizations, the plant manager, supply chain manager or equals (for the full list see table 3.1), identified beforehand by consulting the

(15)

15 answers would be treated absolutely confidentially and that their personal information would remain secret within the process. A concept email can be found in appendix A. After that a reminder was sent in order to get a response, if there was not a response within two weeks after the first contact and first email. Once most of the questionnaires were returned the data was analyzed by means of IBM’s Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), a statistical analytics program.

3.3 Sample description

Based on the data collection a general data analysis can be conducted in order to gain insight in the sample of respondents. In total 515 organizations were contacted, of which 350 provided an email address and stated that they agreed to participate, so the willingness to participate rate was about 68%. In the end, of those 350 organizations 99 provided a response. Of those 99 responses there were some missing data, which resulted in a useful response of 92 for all the three variables. However, for the descriptive analysis the original 99 responses were used. The reason for this is that the amount of missing data differs per variable: the questions measuring social SD practices have 99 valid responses while EWB has only 92. The missing data were given a value of -99 in SPSS and were not replaced by the average or any other value. This finally resulted in a response rate of 28%, which is above the set minimum response rate for empirical studies within the field of operations management (which is 20%; Malhotra & Grover, 1998). The following table, table 3.1, describes the demographic

(16)

16 Table 3.1: Demographic characteristics of the respondents

Demographic characteristics Percentage of sample (%)

Industry

Textile mill products 2

Leather and leather products 1 Electronic and electrical equipment and components 15 Apparel and other finished products made from fabrics and similar materials 3 Chemicals and allied products 17

Wood and cork manufacturers 3

Plastic and cork manufacturers 4

Metallurgy industry 12

Machinery manufacturers 12

Car manufacturers 2

Food industry and beverages 15

Paper manufacturers 4

Other 3

Annual sales

Between 10 and 20M euro 12

More than 100M euro 25

Number of employees Between 1 and 10 1 Between 11 and 50 2 Between 51 and 100 20 Between 101 and 500 56 More than 500 14

Position within the organization

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) 3

Supply Chain Manager 20

Plant Manager 13

Manager of Operations Department 37 Manager of Environmental Department 6

Purchaser 6

Other 8

Based on the factor analysis the consistency of the items is checked. However, first the Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) is used to see if the sample size is adequate for a factor analysis. The KMO of all sets of items is bigger than the threshold of 0.600 (KMO = 0.758). So the factor analysis can be executed for all the items combined. The Bartlett’s test should be significant in order to be sure that there are relationships between the items. In this case the significance is 0.000 and hence it upholds the criteria. Now that the criteria of the KMO and the Bartlett’s test are met the factor analysis can be conducted. The resulting rotated factor matrix with the loadings of each item is

depicted in table 3.2. As can be seen, the items are arranged into three components; the first

(17)

17 social SD practices, EWB, and operational performance are all higher than the threshold of 0.700. Thus, the internal consistency of the items is sufficient. In other words, all the variables can be used for a correlation test and eventually for regressions.

Table 3.2: Results of principal components analysis

Items

Factor

1 2 3

Social SD practices: α = 0.927 (please indicate the current level of implementation of the following practices)a

Our key customer assesses our social performance through formal evaluation, using established guidelines and procedures

.824

Our key customer performs social audits for our internal management systems

.864

Our key customer provides us with feedback about the results of the social evaluation

.914

Our key customer provides training related to social practices to our personnel

.795

Our key customer visits our premises (e.g., factories) to help us improve our social performance (e.g., provides advices and shares know-how about social issues)

.878

Our key customer makes joint efforts with us to improve our social performance

.858

Employee well-being: α = 0.855 (please indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statements)b

Our employees feel safe at work .796 Our employees' health is good .786 Our employees are seldom involved with accidents at work .702 Our employees prioritize safety and health regulations .637 Our employees' absenteeism is low .637 Our employees feel loyalty towards the organization .513 Our employees feel loyalty towards the immediate supervisor .699 Our employees feel loyalty towards their fellow employees .627 Our employees feel loyalty towards customer and clients .615 Our employees are proud to tell people they work for us .672

Operational performance: α = 0.859 (please indicate how your current plant´s performance compares with that of your main competitor(s) in the following areas:)c

Offer high performance products that meet customer needs .631 Produce consistent quality products with low defects .645 Offer high reliable products that meet customer needs .713 Produce high quality products that meet our customer needs .800 Be able to rapidly change production volume .614 Produce customized product features .745 Produce broad product specifications within same facility .790 The capability to make rapid product mix changes .686

Eigenvalue 5.755 4.711 2.895

Cumulative percentage of variance explained (%) 23.98 43.61 55.67

(18)

18 Now that the variables are computed the correlations can be checked. The results of this test are depicted in table 3.3. Remarkable is that only the variables EWB and operational performance are correlated. A reason for this could be that only those variables have any relationship and/or that the variables reinforce one another. The constructs are checked on validity and reliability and fulfil the criteria so the hypotheses can be tested. These are discussed in the following section.

Table 3.3: Univariate statistics and Pearson correlations among the variables

4. RESULTS

In this section the hypotheses will be tested. First the focus will be on the direct relationship between social SD practices and EWB. After that the hypothesis regarding the relationship of EWB with operational performance will be discussed. Finally, the direct relationship between social SD practices and operational performance will be elaborated.

The first hypothesis that is tested is hypothesis 1 (H1), stating that social SD practices has a direct relationship with operational performance. Table 4.1 indicates the results of the regressions including the one regarding the first hypothesis. H1 is not supported as can be derived from the table, the relationship is not significant (p = 0.086). Remarkable is that if the relationship would have been significant, it would have been a negative relationship (β = -0.175, p > 0.05), which is not completely in line with current literature, although it adds to the mixed relationships that were found (Akamp & Müller, 2013; Sancha et al., 2016).

Second, a linear regression was executed to test the second hypothesis (H2). The aim of this linear regression was to test if there is a direct relationship between the independent variable social SD practices and the potential mediating factor EWB and what kind of relationship this would be, Table 4.1: Results of regression analyses

Hypotheses R2 Adj. R2 F Standardized Beta (β) H1 (Social SD practices  Operational performance) 0.031 0.020 3.002 -0.175

H2 (social SD practices  Employee well-being) 0.003 -0.008 0.281 0.056 H3 (Employee well-being  Operational performance)

0.086 0.076 8.466 0.293**

Variables Mean S.D. 1 2

1. Social SD practices 1.7879 0.95708

2. EWB 3.8457 0.49954 0.056

3. Operational Performance 3.6324 0.58848 -0.175 0.293**

Note: ** = Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

(19)

19 positive or negative. From table 4.1 it can be concluded that H2 is not supported since the relationship is not significant. Furthermore, social SD practices would have had only a slight positive impact (β = 0.056, p > 0.05) on EWB. Besides that, the R2 is 0.003 indicating that the variance explained in EWB by means of social SD practices is very low.

After the second hypothesis was tested the last linear regression was executed. With this regression hypothesis 3 (H3) was tested. This hypothesis is supported (p < 0.05), as can be seen in table 5.1. The relationship between EWB and operational performance is significant and positive (β = 0.293, p = 0.005). The variance explained of operational performance by EWB is not that high (R2= 0.086). Nevertheless, it is important to consider this relationship, which will be discussed in more detail in the discussion section. Due to the fact that H1 and H2 are not supported, the mediation of EWB in the relationship of social SD practices and operational performance has not been found. Figure 4.1 displays the findings within the conceptual model as developed earlier. In the next section these findings will be discussed in more detail.

5. DISCUSSION

5.1 Discussion of results

In general, the fact that there is not a significant direct relationship between social SD practices and operational performance (H1), here measured as operational quality and flexibility, is to a certain extent in line with previous literature. As discussed in the theoretical background, earlier studies indicated mixed results, positive relationships as well as insignificant ones (e.g. Akamp & Müller, 2013; Klassen & Vereecke, 2012). In that perspective, this research is in line with the trend of mixed outcomes. However, according to my knowledge, this paper is the first one that explicitly considers the suppliers’ perspective instead of the buyer firm’s perspective within this particular field of study. Thus, the results suggest that a clear relationship between social SD practices and operational benefits is hard to estimate, even for the supplier where these practices are implemented. This is remarkable since it is expected that an organization could measure the operational effectiveness of practices

Social SD Practices EWB Operational Performance

Figure 4.1: Hypotheses test results visualized in conceptual model 0.056

-0.175

0.293**

(20)

20 implemented in their organization. A reason for this could be that suppliers do not experience the urgency or value of keeping track of the operational effectiveness of practices that are implemented by another organization. A supplier may think that the buyer firm generates mainly benefits for

themselves and not for the supplier. Furthermore, the mean of the variable social SD practices is quite low (1.7879 on a scale from 1-5), what indicates that the respondents’ buyer firms do not implement that many social SD practices at their premises. Given this fact, it is plausible that a direct relationship is hard to find.

(21)

21 The mediation of EWB within the relationship between social SD practices and operational

performance has not been found. This is due to the fact that H2, stating there is a positive direct relationship between social SD practices and EWB, is not supported. Furthermore, it is found that there is no direct relationship between social SD practices and operational performance (H1), which makes it harder to see if the mediation may be partial or full. In that sense this research indicates that EWB is not a factor that plays a role in the operational effectiveness of social SD practices at the supplier. However, the results show that there is a significant relationship between EWB and operational performance. This implies that EWB contributes to improvements in operational performance, as measured in quality and flexibility. Hence, EWB has an impact on operational performance and could be still a mediating variable if social SD practices are of more importance and the social security provided by laws and regulations is absent or not that strongly enforced by

governments.

As stated above, EWB has a positive and significant impact on operational performance. Prior studies indicated that employees’ health and safety has a positive impact on operational performance (Das et al., 2008; Pagell et al., 2014; Veltri et al., 2013). Considering the fact that EWB is based on two aspects, employees’ health and safety as well as employee commitment, it could be interesting to see if they both contribute to operational performance or if primarily employees’ health and safety

contributes to operational performance improvements. Building on previous research (Das et al., 2008; Pagell et al., 2014; Veltri et al., 2013), it is expected that employees’ health and safety would have an impact on operational performance while for employee commitment it is harder to estimate. To first see if it is the case that both components separately are related to operational performance, the correlation between the different variables is determined. The test results are depicted in table 5.1 and indicate that operational performance is correlated with both measures of EWB. Furthermore, both measures of EWB are highly correlated, with a significant at the 0.01 level. Based on this, it is decided to perform a linear regression for both measures, controlling for each other, and operational

performance. The results of this regression are shown in table 5.2. It is remarkable that employee Table 5.1: Univariate statistics and Pearson correlations among the divided variable EWB

Variables Mean S.D. 1 2

1. Employees’ health and safety 4.0000 0.61907

2. Employee commitment 3.8406 0.56663 0.428**

3. Operational performance 3.6324 0.58848 0.208* 0.295**

(22)

22 Table 5.2: Results of regression analyses with the subdivided variable EWB

Relationships R2 Adj. R2 F Standardized Beta (β) Employees’ health and safety  Operational performance 0.095 0.075 4.677 0.100 Employee commitment  Operational performance 0.095 0.075 4.677 0.252*

commitment is found to be significant and positively related with operational performance (β = 0.252, p < 0.05), while employees’ health and safety is not significant (β = 0.100, p > 0.05). Especially the latter is conflicting with the existing literature (e.g. Das et al., 2008; Pagell et al., 2014). A reason for this finding can be that if the perceived health and safety within the organization by the employees is high, they feel more comfortable and safe at the workplace. This in turn may result in an increase of loyalty towards the organization, fellow employees and/or customers. Due to this increase in loyalty the employees may be willing to work in overtime. Also they can be more focused on achieving high standards of quality and flexibility since they do not need to take care of their own health and safety that explicitly. Thus, in the end the quality will be improved as well as the flexibility, since the employees are more willing to make sure that the set objectives are met. This is an indication of commitment, since it refers to “a force that binds an individual to a course of action that is of relevance to a particular target” (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001, p. 301). As employee commitment is high, employees feel more connected with the organization and are willing to run the extra mile in order to reach the goals and objectives (Baptiste, 2008; Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001; Meyer & Maltin, 2010). So, the main finding of this research is that employees’ health and safety has a positive impact on employee commitment which in the end contributes to operational performance. It also implies that there is an indirect effect of employees’ health and safety on operational performance instead of a direct one.

5.2 Implications and contributions to theory

The findings of this study provide some implications and contributions to OM literature. This research aimed to fill three knowledge gaps: (1) add to the lack of studies regarding the social dimension of sustainability, (2) elaborate on the suppliers’ perspective regarding the operational effectiveness of social SD practices, and (3) the role of EWB in this relationship. Based on the results these gaps could be filled. The first gap is filled by means of executing this research. This research is another study that focused on the social dimension of sustainability and tried to add value to this relatively small field of study. In addition, this study tried to show the relevance of this particular topic by addressing the impact of social SD practices on employees by means of changes in EWB. EWB was the third knowledge gap, which is not filled due to insignificant relationships between social SD practices and EWB. However, the role of EWB with respect to operational performance has been underlined and supports partly the findings of other studies (e.g. Das et al., 2008; Pagell et al., 2014). Although, the findings of this research suggest that there is not a direct relationship of employees’ health and safety

(23)

23 with operational performance. As the results indicate, employee commitment has a direct relationship while employees’ health and safety contributes indirectly, through employee commitment, to

operational performance. So this study adds to OM literature by indicating the relevance of EWB within this field.

This study contributes to the usage of the suppliers’ and buyer firms’ perspective through addressing the suppliers’ perspective. Hitherto only two studies (Arroyo-López et al., 2012; Nagati & Rebolledo, 2013) were found that explicitly addressed the suppliers’ perspective while studying general SD practices. This study adds to these studies by researching social SD practices as part of sustainability while taking the suppliers’ perspective. Where Nagati and Rebolledo (2013) find that there is a positive direct relationship between SD practices and suppliers’ operational performance, Arroyo-López et al. (2012) find that there are other factors that influence this relationship and that it is not a clear direct relationship. This study underlines the idea of Arroyo-López et al. (2012) that there is no direct relationship and that governmental interference may be an important factor that influences the operational effectiveness of SD practices for suppliers.

Another implication concerns the conceptualization of the variables. The construct of social SD practices as adapted from Large and Gimenez (2011) and Krause et al. (2000) is a solid measure of which all items contribute to the final variable. This construct has been used to check the

(24)

24 argue that several intangible resources determine the effectiveness of policies such as corporate social responsibility and social SD practices. They argue that human capital is one of those intangible factors and actually find evidence for this. This would argue that the findings of this research conflict with the previous ones. Nevertheless, the intangibility of factors like human capital makes it hard to truly measure the impact of such constructs, which would be an explanation for the results found in this study. Thus, this study indicates that there are still some suitable measures missing in literature in order to measure the different variables from a suppliers’ perspective. Besides implications and contributions to theory this study also has some implications for practice.

5.3 Implications and contributions to practice

Due to the fact that one hypothesis is supported due to the fact that the other relationships were not significant, it is hard to clearly underline multiple contributions to practice. One thing that can be concluded is that the implementation of social SD practices is not clearly reflected in operational performance improvements. Although managers are eager to see financial returns (Carter, 2005), some investments should be made based on other insights, like quality improvements, and intangible results, like an increase in employee commitment. Generating insights in financial benefits due to the

improvements of quality and flexibility is quite difficult when it is mainly based on short-term studies and literature. Measurements that could assess the long-term benefits or could indicate short-term changes in finances may help to indicate financial benefits. However, hitherto these measures are not present yet. Furthermore, governmental interference seems to influence the effectiveness of social SD practices. This would imply that suppliers in Western countries should worry less about the impact of social SD practices, while on the other hand, suppliers in developing countries could gain more benefits by means of social SD practices. However, this research does not focus on the impact in the developing countries. Furthermore, there are quite some other factors, like organizational or national culture, that influence the implementation of social SD practices. Thus, it would be inappropriate to base the implementation or effectiveness of practices, like social SD practices, only on cost

improvements. However, on the long-term the implementation of those practices would probably improve cost based performances (De Brito et al., 2008; Pullman, Maloni, & Carter, 2009). As long as there are no suitable measures to indicate improvements due to social SD practices, managers should trust on soft and intangible measures for the long-run.

(25)

25

5.4 Limitations and future research

Besides the fact that this study had some time restrictions, there are some other limitations. Firstly, the study is executed within the Netherlands. This is a well-developed, Western country where the

government actively enforces some laws and regulations regarding social guidelines for organizations. This influences the impact of social SD practices in the Netherlands in twofold. First, the buyer firms are less likely to implement social SD practices since the government takes considerable responsibility for work circumstances through laws and the enforcement of those laws. Second, the impact of social SD practices which are implemented is hard to measure, since the standard level of social security is quite high. Another limitation is that the questionnaire was filled out by a single manager of each organization. The managers might have a biased view regarding the different variables, for example the real level of EWB among the workforce can be different from how a manager perceives it. So ideally EWB is measured among the workforce, on the individual level, instead of asking one person who is their supervisor and generates a response at the organizational level. This could be one of the suggestions for future research, others are addressed in the next paragraph.

In order to gain a better insight in the concepts of social SD practices, EWB and operational

performance from a suppliers’ perspective, future research is desired. Firstly, the model used in this study can be tested in a developing country, like Bangladesh. This would indicate whether there is actually no relationship between social SD practices and EWB or that this is indeed suppressed by another factor like governmental interference. The impact of social SD practices will be probably bigger in developing countries due to the presence of ethical misconduct and bad work circumstances, meaning that there is more room for improving EWB. Furthermore, a case study in a developing country could help to check what kind of measurements would be more suitable to gain insight in the relationship between social SD practices and EWB. It could also be a good context to conduct a first pilot study of those new measurements. Based on this study improved measures can be used to study the impact of social SD practices on EWB and operational performance, which can be executed on a bigger scale so the results can be generalized in the end. Furthermore, the enforcement and presence of laws and regulations regarding social security could be a factor that impacts the relationships in the proposed model. In future research this aspect could be incorporated as well. In the end, the

reputational benefits gained by buyer firms indicate that there might be other potential benefits gained by supplier’s workforce circumstances improvements. Thus, even for the buyer firm it could be a valuable addition if the supplier could measure and indicate the success of the implementation of social SD practices. In conclusion, future research within this field of study has the potential to

(26)

26

6. CONCLUSION

The objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between social SD practices and operational performance, measured as quality and flexibility. This was done from a supplier’s perspective while also considering the impact of EWB at supplier’s premises. The impact of social SD practices was analyzed from the receiving end, the supplier. The results suggest that the implementation of social SD practices does not directly contribute to operational performance, which is also found by previous studies, although these studies took a buyer firm’s perspective (e.g. Klassen & Vereecke, 2012; Sancha et al., 2016).

By studying the impact of EWB, measured as employees’ health and safety and employee

commitment, the aim was to get an insight in whether and how the effectiveness of social SD practices is determined by the workforce. However, the results indicate that there is no relationship between social SD practices and EWB. This leaves the impression that the effectiveness of those practices is not clearly determined by the well-being of the employees at the supplier. However, the average level of EWB in this study is quite high. The reason for this might be the interference of the government. Through laws and regulations as well as the enforcement of those guidelines the government ensures a considerably high level of social security (e.g. health assurance, acceptable work circumstances) in the Netherlands, which could cause a high score on EWB. Due to a lack of these governmental actions it is expected that in developing countries, like Bangladesh, the effect of social SD practices on EWB would be present. So it would be important to consider the differences between countries as an influence on operational performance (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2003). Furthermore, the current work circumstances in those countries are lacking behind and in a considerably bad condition. Hence, the implementation of social SD practices can make a bigger difference in those cases. So further research regarding this model, in for example developing countries, is desired in order to gain insight in the role of EWB and the impact of governmental interference.

In addition, the results indicate a significant and positive relationship between EWB and operational quality and flexibility. This underlines the potential contribution of improvements in work

circumstances in regards of operational performance. Furthermore, the two segments of EWB that are studied contribute differently regarding operational quality and flexibility. Better employees’ health and security generates, as it seems, more employee commitment, as earlier studies suggested as well (Das et al., 2008; Pagell et al., 2014). The improved employee commitment causes an increase in operational quality and flexibility. This is in line with the expectation that employees are willing to work harder when they are committed. This finding underlines that it is important to consider the well-being of employees when implementing social SD practices and considering its effectiveness.

However, the intangibility of EWB and the link between social SD practices and operational

(27)

27 reason why the impact of EWB and the direct relationship with social SD practices is not found. Although the mediating role of EWB cannot be supported based on this research, it is proposed that it could play an important role regarding the effectiveness of practices like social SD practices.

7. REFERENCES

Ahmad, S., & Schroeder, R. G. (2003). The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Operational Performance: Recognizing Country and Industry Differences. Journal of Operations Management, 21(1), 19–43.

Akamp, M., & Müller, M. (2013). Supplier management in developing countries. Journal of Cleaner

Production, 56, 54–62.

Alfes, K., Shantz, A. D., Truss, C., & Soane, E. C. (2013). The link between perceived human resource management practices, engagement and employee behaviour: a moderated mediation model. The

International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(2), 330–351.

Arroyo-López, P., Holmen, E., & De Boer, L. (2012). How do supplier development programs affect suppliers?: Insight for suppliers, buyers and governments from an empirical study in Mexico. Business Process

Management Journal, 18(4), 680 – 707.

Baptiste, N. R. (2008). Tightening the link between employee wellbeing at work and performance. Management

Decision, 46(2), 284–309.

Brandenburg, M., Govindan, K., Sarkis, J., & Seuring, S. (2014). Quantitative models for sustainable supply chain management: Developments and directions. European Journal of Operational Research, 233(2), 299–312.

Butler, S. (2013). Bangladesh factory deaths spark action among high-street clothing chains. Retrieved February 3, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/23/rana-plaza-factory-disaster-bangladesh-primark

Carter, C. R. (2005). Purchasing social responsibility and firm performance: The key mediating role of organizational learning and supplier performance. International Journal of Physical Distribution &

Logistics Management, 35(3), 177 – 194.

Carter, C. R., & Rogers, D. S. (2008). A framework of sustainable supply chain management: moving toward new theory. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 38(5), 360–387.

Collier, J., & Esteban, R. (2007). Corporate social responsibility and employee commitment. Business Ethics: A

European Review, 16(1), 19–33.

Das, A., Pagell, M., Behm, M., & Veltri, A. (2008). Toward a theory of the linkages between safety and quality.

(28)

28

De Brito, M. P., Carbone, V., & Blanquart, C. M. (2008). Towards a sustainable fashion retail supply chain in Europe : Organisation and performance. International Journal of Production Economics, 114(2), 534–553. De Leeuw, S., & Van Den Berg, J. P. (2011). Improving Operational Performance by Influencing Shopfloor

Behavior via Performance Management Practices. Journal of Operations Management, 29(3), 224–235.

Early, K. (2013). Supply chain transparency: forging better relationships with suppliers. Retrieved February 3, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/supply-chain-transparency-relationships-suppliers

Elkington, J. (1994). Towards the Sustainable Corporation: Win-Win-Win Business Strategies for Sustainable Development. California Management Review, 36(2), 90–100.

Foerstl, K., Reuter, C., Hartmann, E., & Blome, C. (2010). Managing supplier sustainability risks in a

dynamically changing environment — Sustainable supplier management in the chemical industry. Journal

of Purchasing and Supply Management, 16(2), 118–130.

Gallear, D., Ghobadian, A., & Chen, W. (2012). Corporate responsibility, supply chain partnership and performance: An empirical examination. International Journal of Production Economics, 140(1), 83–91.

Gereffi, G., & Lee, J. (2012). Why the World Suddenly Cares About Global Supply Chains. Journal of Supply

Chain Management, 48(3), 24–32.

Ghijsen, P. W. T., Semeijn, J., & Ernstson, S. (2010). Supplier satisfaction and commitment: The role of influence strategies and supplier development. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 16(1), 17– 26.

Gimenez, C., Sierra, V., & Rodon, J. (2012). Sustainable operations : Their impact on the triple bottom line.

Intern. Journal of Production Economics, 140(1), 149–159.

Grant, A. M., Christianson, M. K., & Price, R. H. (2007). Happiness, Health, or Relationships? Managerial Practices and Employee Well-Being Tradeoffs. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 21(3), 51–64.

Green, K. W., Zelbst, P. J., Bhadauria, V. S., & Meacham, J. (2012). Do environmental collaboration and monitoring enhance organizational performance? Industrial Management & Data Systems, 112(2), 186– 205.

Gualandris, J., Golini, R., & Kalchschmidt, M. (2014). Do supply management and global sourcing matter for firm sustainability performance? Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 19(3), 258–274.

Gualandris, J., & Kalchschmidt, M. (2014). Customer pressure and innovativeness: Their role in sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 20(2), 92–103.

(29)

29

Hollos, D., Blome, C., & Foerstl, K. (2012). Does sustainable supplier co-operation affect performance? Examining implications for the triple bottom line. International Journal of Production Research, 50(11), 2968–2986.

Huq, F. A., Stevenson, M., & Zorzini, M. (2014). Social sustainability in developing country suppliers.

International Journal of Operations Management, 34(5), 610–638.

Karlsson, C. (2009). Researching Operations Management. New York: Routledge.

Klassen, R. D., & Vereecke, A. (2012). Social issues in supply chains: Capabilities link responsibility, risk (opportunity), and performance. Intern. Journal of Production Economics, 140(1), 103–115.

Krause, D. R., Scannell, T. V, & Calantone, R. J. (2000). A Structural Analysis of the Effectiveness of Buying Firms’ Strategies to Improve Supplier Performance. Decision Sciences, 31(1), 33–55.

Lai, K. H., Cheng, T. C. E., & Yeung, A. C. L. (2005). Relationship stability and supplier commitment to quality. International Journal of Production Economics, 96(3), 397–410.

Large, R. O., & Gimenez, C. (2011). Drivers of green supply management performance: Evidence from Germany. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 17(3), 176–184.

Macky, K., & Boxall, P. (2008). High-involvement work processes, work intensification and employee well-being: A study of New Zealand worker experiences. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 46(1), 38– 55.

Mahapatra, S. K., Das, A., & Narasimhan, R. (2012). A contingent theory of supplier management initiatives: Effects of competitive intensity and product life cycle. Journal of Operations Management, 30(5), 406– 422.

Malhotra, M. K., & Grover, V. (1998). An assessment of survey research in POM: from constructs to theory.

Journal of Operations Management, 16(4), 407–425.

Mani, V., Agrawal, R., & Sharma, V. (2015). Social sustainability in the supply chain: analysis of enablers.

Management Research Review, 38(9), 1016–1042.

Marshall, D., McCarthy, L., Heavey, C., & McGrath, P. (2015). Environmental and social supply chain management sustainability practices: construct development and measurement. Production Planning &

Control, 26(8), 637–690.

Menon, S. T. (2012). Human resource practices, supply chain performance, and wellbeing. International Journal

of Manpower, 33(7), 769–785.

Meyer, J. P., & Herscovitch, L. (2001). Commitment in the workplace: Toward a general model. Human

(30)

30

Meyer, J. P., & Maltin, E. R. (2010). Employee commitment and well-being: A critical review, theoretical framework and research agenda. Journal of Vacational Behavior, 77(2), 323–337.

Modi, S. B., & Mabert, V. A. (2007). Supplier development: Improving supplier performance through knowledge transfer. Journal of Operations Management, 25(1), 42–64.

Moura-Leite, R., & Padgett, R. (2014). The effect of corporate social actions on organizational reputation.

Management Research Review, 37(2), 167–185.

Nagati, H., & Rebolledo, C. (2013). Supplier development efforts: The suppliers’ point of view. Industrial

Marketing Management, 42(2), 180–188.

Nahum-Shani, I., Bamberger, P. A., & Bacharach, S. B. (2011). Social Support and Employee Well-Being: The Conditioning Effect of Perceived Patterns of Supportive Exchange. Journal of Health and Social Behavior,

52(1), 123–139.

Page, K. M., & Vella-Brodrick, D. A. (2009). The “What”, “Why” and “How” of Employee Well-Being: A New Model. Social Indicators Research, 90(3), 441–458.

Pagell, M., & Gobeli, D. (2009). How Plant Managers’ Experiences and Attitudes Toward Sustainability Relate to Operational Performance. Production and Operations Management, 18(3), 278–299.

Pagell, M., Johnston, D., Veltri, A., Klassen, R., & Biehl, M. (2014). Is Safe Production an Oxymoron?

Production and Operations Management, 23(7), 1161–1175.

Pfeffer, J. (2010). Building Sustainable Organizations : The Human Factor. Academy of Management

Perspectives, 24(1), 34–46.

Pradhan, S. K., & Routroy, S. (2014). Analyzing the performance of supplier development: a case study.

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 63(2), 209 – 233.

Pullman, M. E., Maloni, M. J., & Carter, C. R. (2009). Food For Thought: Social Versus Environmental Sustainability Practices and Performance Outcomes. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 45(4), 38–54.

Roberts, S. (2003). Supply Chain Specific? Understanding the Patchy Success of Ethical Sourcing Initiatives.

Journal of Business Ethics, 44(2-3), 159–170.

Sancha, C., Gimenez, C., & Sierra, V. (2016). Achieving a socially responsible supply chain through assessment and collaboration. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, 1934–1947.

Sancha, C., Gimenez, C., Sierra, V., & Kazeminia, A. (2015). Does implementing social supplier development practices pay off ? Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 20(4), 389–403.

(31)

31

Sánchez-Rodríguez, C., Hemsworth, D., & Martínez-Lorente, A. R. (2005). The effect of supplier development initiatives on purchasing performance: A structural model. Supply Chain Management, 10(4), 289–301.

Schaltegger, S., & Burritt, R. (2014). Measuring and managing sustainability performance of supply chains.

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 19(3), 232–241.

Seuring, S., & Müller, M. (2008). From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16(15), 1699–1710.

Surroca, J., Tribó, J. A., & Waddock, S. (2010). Corporate Responsibility and Financial Performance: The Role of Intangible. Strategic Management Journal, 31(5), 463–490.

Taris, T. W., & Schreurs, P. J. G. (2009). Well-being and organizational performance: An organizational-level test of the happy-productive worker hypothesis. Work & Stress, 23(2), 120–136.

Ter Hoeven, C. L., & Van Zoonen, W. (2015). Flexible work designs and employee well-being: examining the effects of resources and demands. New Technology, Work and Employment, 30(3), 237–255.

Vachon, S., & Klassen, R. D. (2008). Environmental management and manufacturing performance : The role of collaboration in the supply chain. International Journal of Production Economics, 111(2), 299–315.

Van De Voorde, K., Paauwe, J., & Van Veldhoven, M. (2012). Employee Well-being and the HRM – Organizational Performance Relationship: A Review of Quantitative Studies. International Journal of

Management Reviews, 14(4), 391–407.

Veltri, A., Pagell, M., Johnston, D., Tompa, E., Robson, L., Amick, B. C., … Macdonald, S. (2013).

Understanding safety in the context of business operations: An exploratory study using case studies. Safety

Science, 55, 119–134.

Wagner, S. M. (2011). Supplier development and the relationship life-cycle. International Journal of Production

Economics, 129(2), 277–283.

Warr, P. B. (1987). Work, unemployment and mental health. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Wong, C. Y., Boon-Itt, S., & Wong, C. W. Y. (2011). The contingency effects of environmental uncertainty on the relationship between supply chain integration and operational performance. Journal of Operations

Management, 29(6), 604–615.

Wright, T. A., Cropanzano, R., & Bonett, D. G. (2007). The Moderating Role of Employee Positive Well Being on the Relation Between Job Satisfaction and Job Performance. Journal of Occupational Health

Psychology, 12(2), 93–104.

Wright, T. A., & Huang, C. (2012). The many benefits of employee well-being in organizational research.

(32)

32

Zheng, X., Zhu, W., Zhao, H., & Zhang, C. H. I. (2015). Employee well-being in organizations: Theoretical model, scale development, and cross-cultural validation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(5), 621– 644.

Zhu, Q., Sarkis, J., & Lai, K.-H. (2012). Examining the effects of green supply chain management practices and their mediations on performance improvements. International Journal of Production Research, 50(5), 1377–1394.

Zorzini, M., Hendry, L. C., Huq, F. A., & Stevenson, M. (2015). Socially responsible sourcing: reviewing the literature and its use of theory. International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 35(1), 60–109.

8. APPENDICES

8.1 Appendix A: Concept mail

Dear sir or madam,

First of all thanks for agreeing on participating in our survey. As agreed in our phone conversation we are contacting you from Groningen University to kindly request your collaboration in our study about supply chain management and sustainability. This study is part of our Master Thesis project.

In that sense we ask you to fill the attached survey and send it back to this same e-mail address. If you prefer you can also fill in the survey in the following link:

[Hyperlink to the online survey in Qualtrics]

We just want to remind you that all responses will be treated with absolute confidentiality and the results of data analysis will be reported in our master thesis at an aggregate level. This means that the names of companies and/or individuals will not be released. We will be glad to share with you our research findings if you are interested.

Thanks for your time and effort, Sincerely,

Jeroen Blankestijn

Student of the Master of Supply Chain Management University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business Nettelbosje 2

Social Supplier Development Practices: Operational Effectiveness and the Role of Employee Well-Being

Social Supplier Development Practices: Operational Effectiveness

and the Role of Employee Well-Being

Social Supplier Development Practices: Operational Effectiveness

and the Role of Employee Well-Being

ABSTRACT

PREFACE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

3. METHODOLOGY

4. RESULTS

5. DISCUSSION

6. CONCLUSION

7. REFERENCES

8. APPENDICES