Socially responsible supplier development: Construct development and measurement validation

Socially responsible supplier development: Construct development and measurement validation

Chinese manufacturing has recently been plagued by a raft of product safety problems such as melamine-tainted milk, lead-tainted toys, toxic toothpaste, defective tyres, and fake medicines. A probable cause of these incidents is a lack of business ethics in the suppliers concerned. In the literature...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of production economics Vol. 140; no. 1; pp. 160 - 167
Main Authors: Lu, Rainy X.A., Lee, Peter K.C., Cheng, T.C.E.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01-11-2012
Elsevier Sequoia S.A
Subjects:
Business
Business ethics
China
Corporate social responsibility
Economics
Ethics
Food contamination & poisoning
Manufacturers
Manufacturing
Milk
Scale development and validation
Social responsibility
Studies
Supplier development
Suppliers
Supply chain management
Survey
Toothpaste
Toxic
Vendor supplier relations
China
Corporate social responsibility
Survey
Supplier development
Scale development and validation
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Summary:Chinese manufacturing has recently been plagued by a raft of product safety problems such as melamine-tainted milk, lead-tainted toys, toxic toothpaste, defective tyres, and fake medicines. A probable cause of these incidents is a lack of business ethics in the suppliers concerned. In the literature much has been suggested on the use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to improve firms’ ethical behaviors and on the use of supplier development (SD) to improve suppliers’ capabilities. This research integrates the literature on CSR and SD to develop a new approach, called socially responsible supplier development (SRSD), to address suppliers’ ethical problems. SRSD suggests leveraging a buying firm's concerted supplier development efforts to improve its important suppliers’ capabilities in CSR implementation. We develop and validate scales for measuring SRSD practices. In addition, we provide empirical evidence on the validity of existing CSR scales for Chinese manufacturing firms. Our results are based on analysis of the data of 160 pairs of buyer–supplier relationships in four manufacturing industries in China. The results indicate that all the scale items possess adequate reliability and validity to reflect SRSD and CSR. We also discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:0925-5273
1873-7579
DOI:10.1016/j.ijpe.2012.01.032