The Impacts of Social Sustainability Practices on Supply Chain Performance: Mediating Role of Supply Chain Integration

Purpose: The importance of sustainability in the supply chain has steadily risen in recent decades as a result of the growing awareness on the social issues. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between social sustainability practices and performance outcomes, as well as explore the mediating role of supply chain integration on that relationship. Research design, data and methodology: PLS-SEM model is developed to identify the impacts of sustainability on performance outcomes and the mediating role of supply chain integration. We received 285 responses from medium and large companies located in Vietnam, and after filtering, 206 responses were used for further analysis. Results: Our findings showed that sustainability impacts significantly on integration and performance in the supply chain. Moreover, the result indicates that supplier integration and internal integration mediate the relationship between social sustainability practices and supply chain performance, while customer integration mediation role was not found significant at all. Conclusions: Our results prove that social sustainability practices can link all the stakeholders and enhance collaboration. To maintain sustainable development, firms should embrace values of sustainability to improve the well-being, working condition, and healthcare of their employees as well as the advancement of local society.