The role of sustainability in supply chain management in Russia: Empirical evidence from the different Industries

Abstract

Over the past decades, an implementation of sustainability in supply chain management has become a popular practice. However, most of the research on this topic focuses on developed countries, while there are few studies conducted on developing countries such as Russia. Thus, the aim of the research is to analyze the role of sustainability in supply chain management in Russia. Moreover, in order to get a holistic picture of the studied object, it is important to investigate main driving and restraining forces for sustainability implementation in supply chain management of Russian companies. The empirical part of the research is multiple case studies consisting of the analysis of three case companies from Russia. The empirical data were gathered by conducting the survey using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The analysis of the case companies reveals that the role of sustainability in supply chain management seems to be very insignificant among companies originating and operating in Russia. The level of awareness of sustainability practices among companies originating and operating in Russia seems to be low, and the Russian legislation related to environmental and social sustainability in the business sector is poorly developed. However, the case company, that originally comes from the EU, shows much better results in sustainability implementation in supply chain management, what can be explained by the fact that it adopts views related to sustainability from developed countries’ practice, where sustainability has become an integral part of supply chain management.