A Systems Thinking Analysis of the Supply Chain Social Responsibility Literature

• Published in: Systems research and behavioral science Vol. 38; no. 4; pp. 537 - 554
• Main Authors: Basta, Mohamed, Lapalme, James, Paquet, Marc
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.08.2021; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Corporate social responsibility; Emancipation; Functionalism; Logistics; Mapping; Marginality; Paradigms; Postmodernism; Reductionism; Resurfacing; Social aspects; Social responsibility; social risk; social sustainability; Supply; supply chain management; Supply chains; Surfacing; systems thinking
• ISSN: 1092-7026; 1099-1743
• DOI: 10.1002/sres.2674

Given its material impact on bottom lines, social responsibility became essential to supply chain sustainability strategies. The authors of this paper reviewed the relevant literature and discovered its reliance on approaches like corporate social responsibility and its marginalization of systems thinking. This situation undermines the contributions of this literature, as it could be reductionist from a systemic perspective. Reductionism limits solutions to suboptimizations incapable of achieving multifinal and holistic outcomes. To assess this literature, the authors conducted a mapping study to analyse its distribution over four systemic paradigms: functionalism, interpretivism, emancipation, and postmodernism. The results showed that it clustered unevenly around these paradigms and lacked pluralism in perspective. This paper is significant as it revealed the innate inability of most of the supply chain social responsibility literature in offering creative and holistic solutions. Therefore, this literature can only resolve some social responsibility factors allowing the persistence and resurfacing of social responsibility messes.