Stakeholders Role in Supply Chain

Journal of Business Economics
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-022-01117-5
ORIGINAL PAPER
Stakeholder roles in sustainable supply chain

management: a literature review
Erik Siems1 · Stefan Seuring1 · Lara Schilling1
Accepted: 2 October 2022

© The Author(s) 2022
Abstract
Since ecological deterioration and social discrepancy are intensifying, multiple
stakeholders are driving companies to incorporate sustainability in their supply
chains. Thus, integrating non-traditional supply chain stakeholders, such as non-
governmental organizations and competitors, in supply chain practices is essential
for achieving a more sustainable supply chain. Hence, this research aims to show
how stakeholders and their roles are related to sustainable supply chain management
practices. A systematic literature review including 78 peer-reviewed English journal
articles published between 2000 and 2020 was conducted. The results suggest that
multiple supply chain external and internal stakeholders drive, facilitate, or inspect
the implementation of sustainable supply chain management practices. While gov-
ernmental and non-governmental organizations are key drivers for implementing
sustainable supply chain management practices, they can also support their imple-
mentation. Moreover, proactive engagement with external supply chain stakehold-
ers facilitates the organizational learning process through capability development,
increasing understanding and awareness of sustainability, and creating knowledge.
This study strengthens the value of proactive and collaborative measurements to
deal with stakeholder issues before putting pressure on a company, which can result
in reputation and legitimacy loss. These insights enrich the theoretical debate while
explaining stakeholders’ relevance and roles in the sustainable supply chain manage-
ment context. However, the study has some limitations regarding the chosen sus-
tainable supply chain management and stakeholder constructs and potential within-
study bias, offering possibilities for further research.
Keywords Sustainable supply chain management · Stakeholder roles ·

Collaboration · Engagement · Systematic literature review
JEL codes M1
* Erik Siems
[email protected]
1
Chair of Supply Chain Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Kassel,
Kassel, Germany
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E. Siems et al.
1 Introduction
Although sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) can be a significant source

of competitive advantage, implementing the underlying SSCM practices typically
requires more resources and knowledge than a single focal firm possesses (Beske
and Seuring 2014; Oelze et al. 2016). SSCM means that organizations and their sup-
ply chain (SC) partners aim to meet economic, environmental, and social require-
ments stemming from stakeholders by managing SC flows accordingly (Seuring and
Müller 2008). Thus, Pagell and Wu (2009) proposed that working with non-tradi-
tional SC members, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), competitors,
or other stakeholders, is essential for SSCM. So far, multiple studies have perceived
stakeholders as drivers rather than taking an integrative approach with a more dif-
ferentiated view toward stakeholders in the SSCM debate (e.g., Hörisch et al. 2014;
Meixell and Luoma 2015; Rebs et al. 2019). For example, Meixell and Luoma
(2015) conducted a literature review and analyzed stakeholder pressure in the con-
text of awareness, adoption, and integration of SSCM practices to show how stake-
holder pressure affects SC sustainability. According to Maas et al.’s (2018) quantita-
tive analysis, stakeholder pressure leads to the integration of environmental practices
and enhancement of the company’s financial performance. While Maas et al. (2018)
only considered the environmental dimension, Rebs et al.’s (2019) study indicated
that stakeholders’ pressure impacts SSCM performance cross-dimensionally. Fur-
thermore, Fritz et al. (2018) suggested an iterative process to reveal SC stakeholders
and how they identify and manage their concerns. Stakeholder engagement, thus,
facilitates the detection of further stakeholders along the SC. Hence, although these
studies consider stakeholders as drivers or recipients of initiatives taken by compa-
nies, additional stakeholder roles remain indistinct.
According to Liu et al. (2018), stakeholders can take the valuable role of driver,
facilitator, or inspector within the process of supplier development, a sub-compo-
nent of SSCM, to close knowledge or resource gaps. We argue that the same is likely
to hold for SSCM practices in general (e.g., Busse et al. 2017; Meixell and Luoma
2015; Oelze et al. 2016). For instance, Busse et al. (2017) proposed that stakehold-
ers can support companies in detecting SC sustainability risks, particularly when
they face low SC visibility. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has ana-
lyzed different stakeholders and their roles within SSCM practices so far.
By taking this into account, the following research question was derived:
• How are stakeholders and their roles related to SSCM practices?
Several SSCM concepts deal with the question of how a sustainable SC might be
achieved (Pagell and Wu 2009; Seuring and Müller 2008) and even what a truly sus-
tainable SC means (Gold and Schleper 2017). Beske and Seuring’s (2014) concep-
tual framework offers a starting point because it incorporates pivotal SSCM studies,
such as Pagell and Wu (2009), and operationalizes SSCM through a generic list of
SSCM practices. Furthermore, it is well accepted in the current debate and has been
used in multiple studies (e.g., Khalid et al. 2015; Sauer and Seuring 2017).
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Stakeholder roles in sustainable supply chain management:…
As this paper seeks to enrich the theoretical debate on stakeholder roles in SSCM,
the literature is analyzed with the help of Beske and Seuring’s (2014) and Liu et al.’s
(2018) frameworks. These frameworks serve as the theoretical starting point for
assessing the roles of stakeholders as drivers of SSCM practices with the help of
a literature review (e.g., Meixell and Luoma 2015). This research is relevant for at
least two reasons. First, it extends the stakeholder perspective in SSCM and explores
the current state of research concerning stakeholders and their roles in an SSCM
context. Second, the aggregated view ensured by reviewing the literature will guide
both academics and business practitioners, as shown by other literature reviews in
SSCM (e.g., Meixell and Luoma 2015; Rebs et al. 2019; Siems et al. 2021). Thus,
exploring the current state of research concerning stakeholder roles in SSCM could
identify research gaps and future research directions in the academic debate. Aca-
demics can learn about so far unexplored stakeholder roles to foster the implementa-
tion of SSCM practices. For practitioners, this study is important to identify stake-
holders and the roles they take in the implementation of SSCM practices.
For this purpose, the next section of this paper builds the underlying terminologi-
cal foundation. The methodology section outlines the literature review grounded in
qualitative content analysis and contingency analysis. This is followed by the pres-
entation of the results and discussion of the identified issues. Lastly, we outline our
research limitations and propose possible future research opportunities.
2 Conceptualization
2.1 Stakeholder theory
In general, stakeholder theory describes how organizations deal and interact with
individuals or groups (i.e., stakeholders) that exert an influence or are influenced
by their business operations (Freeman 2010). As SSCM aims to meet sustainability
requirements stemming from stakeholders, it is crucial to identify them. Yet multi-
ple definitions of stakeholders exist—either broad and inclusive ones or narrow and
pragmatic ones (Donaldson and Preston 1995). For example, Donaldson and Pres-
ton (1995) defined stakeholders as “persons or groups with legitimate interests in
procedural and/or substantive aspects of corporate activity” (p. 85). This definition
emphasizes that an actor needs at least a legitimate claim or stake in the organiza-
tion to be considered a stakeholder. Scholars have identified various stakeholders
for a firm (Meixell and Luoma 2015; Parmar et al. 2010). While some studies have
clustered stakeholders against generic classes, such as NGOs, citizens, or employees
(e.g., Busse et al. 2017; Freeman 2010), other researchers have classified stakehold-
ers even more broadly, resulting in fuzzy and unclear subdivisions (e.g., Rebs et al.
2019). According to Park-Poaps and Rees (2010), firms’ stakeholders vary depend-
ing on different factors, such as their perceived importance, the time, or the context.
However, Svensson et al. (2016) proposed the five dimensions of the focal company,
downstream stakeholders, societal stakeholders, market stakeholders, and upstream
stakeholders to frame the different stakeholders for the sustainable SC context
(see Table 1). For example, the focal company contains top management, middle
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Table 1 Stakeholder dimensions adapted from Svensson et al. (2016)
Dimension Stakeholder construct example Example in the analyzed literature
Upstream stakeholders This group contains upstream internal SC stakeholders such as raw material pro- (Busse et al. 2017; Camargo et al. 2019)
ducers, suppliers, and suppliers’ suppliers
Focal company This group contains internal stakeholders of the focal company, such as top leader- (Meqdadi et al. 2020; Roy et al. 2020)
ship, middle management, and employees
Downstream stakeholders This group contains downstream internal SC stakeholders such as retailers, whole- (Chkanikova 2016; Nayak et al. 2019)
salers, and logistical intermediaries
Market stakeholders This group contains stakeholders such as unions, competitors, and financial inter- (Camargo et al. 2019; Sajjad et al. 2019)
mediaries
Societal stakeholders This group contains social stakeholders such as NGOs, governmental actors, and (Aboelmaged 2012; Stekelorum et al. 2020)
research institutes/universities
Stakeholder without specification* This item covers the general mentioning of the term stakeholder (Roscoe et al. 2020; Silva and Schaltegger 2019)
*During the coding process, we identified the need to add “Stakeholder without specification” since multiple studies proposed SSCM practices but only linked to stake-
holder as a broad term
E. Siems et al.
management, or employees as subordinated stakeholders. Norris et al.’s (2021) con-

ceptual study emphasized that employees can provide knowledge capital and crea-
tivity to create value for all involved stakeholders at a more comprehensive level.
Although we consider the five dimensions to be a good starting point to frame
stakeholders in the SC context, according to our SC understanding, the subordi-
nated stakeholders differ from the original suggestion. For example, customers are
separated from end-users—when the underlying study allows such a precise sepa-
ration—to enable a more precise analysis. Both stakeholders are shifted to down-
stream stakeholders instead of market stakeholders since they are frequently consid-
ered essential SC actors (e.g., Fritz et al. 2018; Rebs et al. 2019; Seuring and Müller
2008).
Different stakeholder approaches have emerged over the years (Hörisch et al.
2014). According to Donaldson and Preston (1995), these can be traditionally dis-
tinguished into descriptive/empirical, instrumental, and normative approaches. A
descriptive/empirical approach seeks to describe the extent to which organizations
and stakeholders’ interests are managed and to link theoretical assumptions in real-
ity and practice (Donaldson and Preston 1995; Richter and Dow 2017). An instru-
mental approach strives to analyze how the management of stakeholder interests can
be linked to achieving conventional business objectives, such as economic growth
or profitability. This has been criticized because of the indication that more ethical
actions should contribute to better financial performance (Hörisch et al. 2014; Rich-
ter and Dow 2017). A normative approach defines moral and philosophical values
and advice according to the management’s behavior and the company (Donaldson
and Preston 1995). However, Hörisch et al. (2014) and Parmar et al. (2010) pro-
posed integrating the three different approaches (integrative stakeholder theory), as
they are directly linked to each other and cannot be considered in isolation.
Stakeholder theory was generally criticized for having a weak normative basis;
thus, Richter and Dow (2017) proposed a deliberative approach emphasizing the rel-
evance of dialogue and participation to reach corporate legitimacy. This allows “to
(…) understand the role of legitimacy for a stakeholder claim, (…) provide insights
into the operationalization of stakeholder dialogues, and (…) enhance the under-
standing of the responsibilities of corporations toward stakeholders in times of glo-
balization” (p. 440).
Based on these five different approaches, different understandings of SSCM
emerge. The derivation of the stakeholders’ SSCM requirements and resulting
objective can be accomplished through a more descriptive, instrumental, norma-
tive, integrative, or deliberative approach. Thus, these approaches are taken up in the
analysis of the coding material (see Table 6).
2.2 Stakeholder roles and sustainable supply chain management
Interest in sustainable SCs has been growing for over a decade and has become
mainstream in academic discourse (Ahi and Searcy 2013; Ansari and Kant 2017).
According to Touboulic and Walker (2015), SSCM definitions include more aspects
and perspectives and have become more precise and multifaceted since 2000, but
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E. Siems et al.
most contain similarities. We follow the well-cited definition put forward by Seur-
ing and Müller (2008) of SSCM as “the management of material, information and
capital flows as well as cooperation among companies along the supply chain while
taking goals from all three dimensions of sustainable development, i.e., economic,
environmental and social, into account which are derived from customer and stake-
holder requirements” (p. 1700). In addition to emphasizing stakeholders’ crucial
role through the definition, stakeholder theory is one of the most applied theories in
the SSCM field (Touboulic and Walker 2015). For example, Maas et al. (2018) used
stakeholder theory to argue why stakeholders’ pressure triggers companies to adopt
environmental practices.
Most recent research has examined how several sustainability practices can
address different stakeholder claims and how different strategies might impact an
organization’s economic, environmental, or social performance (e.g., Busse et al.
2017; Maas et al. 2018; Rebs et al. 2019). For example, Rebs et al. (2019) used a
system dynamics model to analyze stakeholder influence (governmental and other
external stakeholders’ pressure) on sustainable SC performance.
Thus, the intersection of stakeholders and the SC itself and how stakeholders may
contribute to a more sustainable SC are rarely analyzed or defined. Scholars have
recently identified the link between stakeholders and sustainable risk management
in SCs as a major research opportunity for the future (Reefke and Sundaram 2017).
Carmagnac (2021) proposed four roles of non-traditional SC stakeholders: insti-
gating a change, supporting training or the development of standards, facilitating the
organization of actors, and leading the SC transformation. Unlike traditional stake-
holders such as buyers and suppliers, non-traditional stakeholders comprise NGOs,
social enterprises, local communities, or multi-stakeholder initiatives (Carmagnac,
2021). Liu et al.’s (2018) study also covered the aforementioned roles. Hence, the
instigating and leading role is framed as the driver while the facilitator embraces
the supporter and facilitator role. Furthermore, Liu et al. (2018) suggested the addi-
tional role of an inspector for stakeholders in the context of supplier development
(see Table 2). Nevertheless, other studies indicated stakeholders’ possible contribu-
tions to SSCM practices (e.g., Busse et al. 2017; Meixell and Luoma 2015; Siems
and Seuring 2021).
By taking different roles, stakeholders can act as a driver, facilitator, or inspec-
tor to ensure the implementation of SSCM practices. The aforementioned frame-
work of Beske and Seuring (2014) comprehensively operationalized SSCM and has
been used multiple times already and been extended to different contexts, such as
the mineral (Sauer and Seuring 2017) or Base of the Pyramid (Khalid et al. 2015).
The framework contains five categories and several subordinated practices. While a
category is defined as “an umbrella term to group and sort the different practices and
link them to relevant issues,”a practice is understood as “the customary, habitual or
expected procedure or way of doing something” (Beske and Seuring, p. 323). The
five main categories are (1) orientation, (2) continuity, (3) collaboration, (4) risk
management, and (5) proactivity (see Table 3). We refrain from offering a pure repe-
tition of the framework and present it later in the order of the findings. Nevertheless,
to underline the suitability of these constructs and their line of argumentation, the
following section elaborates on how stakeholders can be linked to these categories.
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Table 2 Overview of stakeholder roles adapted from Liu et al. (2018)
Categories and constructs Description Example in the analyzed literature
Stakeholder roles
Drivers Stakeholders who drive awareness for sustainability (e.g., pressure or incentives) (Camargo et al. 2019; Foerstl et al. 2015)
Facilitators Facilitators provide knowledge and resources in order to support a company when (Dahlmann and Roehrich 2019; León-Bravo et al. 2019)
implementing SSCM practices

Inspectors Inspectors might evaluate or assess the implemented SSCM practices along with the (Chen and Kitsis 2017; Silvestre et al. 2018)
SC subsequently
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Table 3 Overview of SSCM practices (adapted from Beske and Seuring [2014])

Categories and constructs Description Example in the analyzed literature
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SSCM practices
Orientation
SCM The orientation to a TBL approach means taking a more holistic SCM (Gualandris et al. 2015; Sajjad et al. 2019)
TBL view by the top management and is of strategic relevance
SC continuity
Long-term relationships Due to supplier development or selection by incorporating non-tradi- (Busse 2016; Dahlmann and Roehrich 2019; Silvestre et al. 2018)
Partner development tional SC actors, long-term relationships are favored and result in a
more stable SC member continuity
Partner selection
Collaboration
Joint development Implementing sustainability leads to increased collaboration between (Camargo et al. 2019; Köksal et al. 2017; Oelze et al. 2016)
Technical integration internal (e.g., supplier, focal firm) and external (e.g., communities,
NGOs) SC actors, for instance, by enhancing communication and
Logistical integration
striving for technical and logistical integration
Enhanced communication
Risk management
Individual monitoring For addressing pressure by groups such as media or customers, selec- (Paulraj et al. 2017; Wilhelm et al. 2016)
Pressure group management tive monitoring or certification and standards provided, for example,
by NGOs, are common ways to manage risks
Standards and certificates
Proactivity
Learning Acting more proactive by, e.g., the involvement of stakeholders (man- (León-Bravo et al. 2019; Padhi et al. 2018; Rodríguez et al. 2016)
Stakeholder management agement) and the willingness to understand their environmental and
social issues and learn(ing) from them can also lead to innovation
Innovation
Environmental proactivity*
Social
proactivity*
*
E. Siems et al.
During the coding process, we identified the need to split the original item “life-cycle assessment” into environmental and social proactivity, which we have added
(1) The orientation to a triple-bottom-line (TBL) approach means the top man-
agement taking a more holistic supply chain management (SCM) view and is of stra-
tegic relevance (Sauer and Seuring 2017). SC external stakeholders, such as NGOs,
can drive awareness for the adoption of SSCM practices due to pressure, incentives,
or detection of sustainability blind spots/vulnerabilities, such as in the case of low
SC visibility (Meixell and Luoma 2015).
(2) Due to supplier development or selection, long-term relationships are favored
and result in more stable supplier continuity (Beske and Seuring 2014). Seuring and
Müller (2008) suggested that companies should engage in supplier development to
enhance overall performance and capabilities (e.g., via training or technical invest-
ment). Supplier selection is equally important to ensure high SC performance owing
to suppliers organizational values or capabilities (Pagell and Wu 2009; Siems et al.
2021). Different stakeholders can support the focal firm in evaluating and assessing
suppliers’ sustainability performance, especially when facing the challenge of having
no direct access to a supplier (Beske and Seuring 2014; Siems and Seuring 2021).
According to Busse et al. (2017), stakeholders can support companies to detect SC
sustainability risks, while “gatekeeper instruments” (e.g., codes of conduct or third-
party standards) can help to select suitable suppliers, monitor risks, and impact sup-
pliers’ behavior (Rebs et al. 2019). Moreover, cooperation with NGOs can lead to the
sharing of knowledge, skills, and other resources (Wankmüller and Reiner 2020).
(3) Furthermore, implementing sustainability leads to increased collaboration
between the SC actors, for instance, by enhancing communication and striving for
technical and logistical integration (Beske and Seuring 2014; Gold et al. 2010; Wank-
müller and Reiner 2020). Due to SC complexity, transparency issues, and limited
resources, focal firms sometimes have limited access to their suppliers. Therefore,
they might be unable to implement the demanded SSCM practice despite their will-
ingness to tackle it. Thus, Pagell and Wu (2009) proposed that working with non-
traditional SC members is essential for achieving a more sustainable SC. For example,
Siems and Seuring (2021) suggested that a focal firm could integrate SC external and
internal stakeholders into SSCM practices in its internal and external dimensions to
gain a more sustainable SC. Therefore, stakeholders also help facilitate SSCM prac-
tices by orchestrating resources, such as knowledge or capital (Busse et al. 2017; Liu
et al. 2018).
(4) To address stakeholder pressure, selective monitoring or certification and
standards are common for managing risks. While standards and certification are com-
monly used as minimum requirements (Khalid et al. 2015; Seuring and Müller 2008),
companies install monitoring systems to control the desired performance outcomes.
Pressure groups, such as NGOs, or the media might launch campaigns and
boycotts against targeted companies, but they are also a valuable source of
knowledge (Busse et al. 2017; Siems and Seuring 2021). According to Fritz
et al. (2018), SC internal and external stakeholders can support the process of
identifying further stakeholders and their concerns. Collaborating with those
stakeholder groups might facilitate identifying and avoiding potential sustain-
ability risks (Beske and Seuring 2014; Pagell and Wu 2009).
(5) Additionally, acting more proactively by, for example, involving
stakeholder(s) (management) and being willing to understand their issues and
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E. Siems et al.
learn(ing) from them can also lead to innovation (Pagell and Wu 2009; Seuring and
Müller 2008; Siems and Seuring 2021). Consequently, a set of possible practices is
helpful to identify opportunities for stakeholders to occupy different roles to contrib-
ute to a more sustainable SC.
Therefore, the different roles of stakeholders proposed by Liu et al. (2018), their
specific issues, and SSCM practices proposed by Beske and Seuring (2014) frame
the further research process. Tables 2 and 3 merge those deductively derived cat-
egories and constructs. The references in the third column in both tables provide
evidence that the presented constructs are still relevant in the current SSCM debate.
These constructs are used to evaluate the body of literature.
3 Methodology
Analyzing scientific literature in SSCM provides an aggregated view and is a valu-

able way to contribute to theory development (Seuring et al. 2021). The role of lit-
erature reviews can be seen in multiple studies in the SSCM context (e.g., Khalid
et al. 2015; Sauer and Seuring 2017; Siems et al. 2021). To reduce the researchers’
bias, strengthen rigorousness, and meet practitioners’ and policymakers’ operational
needs, it is essential that the literature is synthesized “in a systematic, transparent,
and reproducible manner” (Tranfield et al. 2003, p. 207). Thus, this research fol-
lows a replicable and transparent process, as recommended for literature reviews
(e.g., Meixell and Luoma 2015). The purpose is to gain an extensive overview of
the SSCM practices and stakeholder roles inherent in in the SSCM research context.
First, we conducted a literature review grounded in qualitative content analysis
(Seuring and Gold 2012). This expedient approach encompasses a systematic, rule-
governed, and reproducible design while being guided by theory to identify, evalu-
ate, and interpret the existing body of literature (Mayring 2015). A qualitative con-
tent analysis-based literature review is a recommended way to anchor a research idea
in the body of existing knowledge (Seuring et al. 2021; Seuring and Gold 2012). It is
also a valid tool for consolidating and developing an existing theory by, for instance,
outlining current research gaps. The applied structured literature review approach
suggested by Seuring and Gold (2012) also includes the more generic qualitative
content analysis by Mayring (2015) and encompasses a four-stage process compris-
ing material gathering, descriptive analysis, category definition, and material analy-
sis and evaluation. This approach is well in line with the five-phase cycle accord-
ing to Yin (2016), who suggested compiling, dis- and reassembling, and iteratively
interpreting qualitative data before conclusions can be derived.
The first step was to gather literature using the Web of Science and Scopus search
engines, two of the largest databases for peer-reviewed journals. As several stud-
ies concluded that the SSCM discourse started around 2000 (e.g., Seuring and
Müller 2008; Touboulic and Walker 2015), the search targeted the time scope of
2000–2020. 2020 was set as the end date because the research started in 2021, and
only entire years were considered. While this bears the risk of missing some recent
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studies, it ensures that the most important debates are analyzed in a consistent and
complete set of 20 years of data.
After limiting the number of articles by keywords, the identified articles from
both databases were merged and duplicates were removed. The abstracts of the
remaining articles were screened manually by following the exclusion criteria,
resulting in 78 articles (see Table 4). Excluded were articles restricted to only one
dimension of sustainability because we recognized the concept of SSCM as a holis-
tic view within all three dimensions that needed to be considered. For instance, few
authors used the term “sustainability” while being restricted in their investigations
to economic issues. Since we were exploring the intersection of stakeholder roles
and SSCM, we ruled out articles that did not make stakeholders of a company the
core purpose of the analysis, articles where stakeholders were only mentioned as
receivers of the results, or articles that applied the term “stakeholder” as a synonym
for selected groups, for example, by referring exclusively to internal SC actors.
The descriptive analysis presents formal characteristics to explain the analyzed
materials’ background. For instance, the kinds of journals in which the articles were
published, the geographic and SC foci, and the applied stakeholder approaches were
further categories for the descriptive analysis. Using existing theoretical frame-
works (see Tables 1, 2, and 3) contributes to external validity within a qualitative
content analysis. Two researchers worked through a portion of the sample and dis-
cussed their results to achieve additional validity and reliability. Subsequently, one
researcher coded the remaining articles and exchanged them with other researchers
to resolve potential ambiguities.
Second, we conducted a contingency analysis to add further insights to these
more qualitative results to reveal additional connections between the items. Gold
et al. (2010) claimed that a contingency analysis seeks to extract “association pat-
terns between categories, i.e. […] pairs of categories which occur relatively more
[or less] frequently together in one paper than the product of their single probabili-
ties would suggest” (p. 235). The actual occurrence of category pairs can be referred
Table 4 Search and reduction steps during the material collection

Search and limiting steps Identified/remaining articles
Initial search (string) Web of Science Scopus
(“SSCM” OR “sustainable supply chain*” OR “sustainable supply 442 490

chain management” OR “supply chain sustainability”) AND TOPIC:
(“stakeholder*” OR “pressure*” OR “third-party” OR “third party”
OR “non-traditional”)
Identified/remaining articles
after merging
Manual screening of abstracts by considering the following inclu- 156
sion criteria: only peer-reviewed English articles; clear focus on
stakeholders; clear SC-focus; clear sustainability focus
Manual screening of the full paper vis-à-vis the research objective 78
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E. Siems et al.
to as the observed frequency and the product of their single probabilities as the
expected frequency.
A chi-squared test was undertaken by using the calculated constructs’ frequen-
cies to identify possible relationships between constructs. To be valid and relevant,
a set of two relationships must meet two criteria. First, the pair of relationships
must appear in no less than 10% of the entire literature sample. Thus, a distraction
due to construct correlations only occurring in a minor number of articles could be
avoided. Second, the phi value must exceed |0.299|, because a lower value indicates
little strength of the pair’s relationship (Gold et al. 2010). To understand a corre-
lation of a pair, their theoretical interpretation is essential because a contingency
analysis only points out a connection between them. A transparent and documented
research process obtains further validity. For example, repeatability is possible, as
databases and keywords are given. However, this study also has its limitations. For
example, a literature review involves several biases that we aimed to minimize but
might not have entirely avoided. Furthermore, different methods exist to conduct a
contingency analysis that might lead to varying results.
4 Results
The results are structured into the descriptive analysis, qualitative content analysis,
and quantitative contingency analysis. We acknowledge that our analysis represents
a one-shot picture, since the analyzed studies show particular stakeholders at one
moment rather than presenting an analysis that provides evidence of changing stake-
holders and their roles over time.
4.1 Descriptive analysis
To provide further information on the data context to understand the reviewed mate-
rial better, the first part of the analysis is a descriptive analysis. Figure 1 shows a
steady increase in the number of scientific publications over the years until the peak
in 2016. Interestingly, this chart shows the decrease in published articles at the inter-
section of stakeholder and SSCM starting in 2019. Yet different authors acknowl-
edged the potential for more research on using stakeholder theory in the context of
SSCM (Rebs et al. 2019; Silva and Schaltegger 2019).
Table 5 provides an overview of the distribution of reviewed publications across
the journals. Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP) has the most published articles,
followed by Business Strategy and the Environment (BSE), and with four publica-
tions each, Sustainability, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logis-
tics Management (IJPDLM), International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE),
and Journal of Business Ethics (JBE).
The majority of the analyzed publications did not apply or discuss a specific
stakeholder approach as proposed by Donaldson and Preston (1995). This can be
attributed to the fact that stakeholders’ appearance often per se is considered, and
no precise approaches are chosen to reconcile interests. Nonetheless, eight articles
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Fig. 1 Distribution of reviewed articles over time (n = 78)
Table 5 Distribution of Name Number

reviewed articles over journals
(n = 78) JCLPRO 12
BSE 7
SUSTAINABILITY 4
IJPDLM 4
IJPE 4
JBE 4
JSCM 2
RCR 2
IMM 2
IJOPM 2
PPC 2
Rest appeared less than two times
used an instrumental approach, and five articles adopted a descriptive and inte-
grative approach as discussed by Hörisch et al. (2014) (see Table 6). While the
studies with an instrumental stakeholder view focused on why companies should
consider stakeholders to achieve a competitive advantage (e.g., Awan et al. 2017;
Maas et al. 2018; Roscoe et al. 2020), those with a descriptive view sought to
distinguish different stakeholders from each other (e.g., Gualandris et al. 2015).
The studies with an integrative approach analyze the relationships between
companies and their stakeholders where the involved actors work collaboratively
to increase mutual benefit for all parties instead of purely seeking to augment the
company’s economic return (e.g., Matos and Silvestre 2013; Sajjad et al. 2019).
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E. Siems et al.
Table 6 Distribution of Approach Number

reviewed articles over
stakeholder approaches (n = 78) No approach 59
Instrumental approach 8
Descriptive approach 5
Integrative approach 5
Normative approach 1
Deliberative approach 0
Furthermore, the only study with a normative approach argues that organizations
must continuously realign their capabilities and sustainability practices to align with
their stakeholders’ expectations since they build their foundation.
Although most articles did not explicitly mention an approach, some indicated
somewhat descriptive ideas to explain specific constructs from the SSCM (stake-
holder) debate (Kumar and Rahman 2017; Silvestre et al. 2018). However, instead
of a differentiated discussion, as put forward by, for example, Busse (2016) or Saj-
jad et al. (2019), those studies with no stakeholder approach referred to stakeholder
pressure as the reason for incorporating sustainability into SCs. In contrast to the
already listed approaches, normative and deliberative approaches are (almost) not
considered. This is owing to the fact that approaches based on moral behavior and
the principles of deliberative democracy are not considered valid approaches to
address stakeholder interests.
The following section presents the results of the content analysis-based literature
review.
4.2 Qualitative content analysis of stakeholder roles in the sustainable supply

chain management context
Only those codings with a clear overlap between one construct from each debate—
that is, stakeholders, their role, and SSCM practices—were considered in the quali-
tative content analysis.
Table 7 shows the distribution of identified stakeholders in their roles coded
against the dimensions proposed by Svensson et al. (2016). Although Svensson et al.
(2016) suggested different stakeholders for their dimensions, Table 7 considers only
the identified stakeholders, inductively extended on the basis of the findings (e.g.,
financial intermediaries). Stakeholders were only considered in the case of a clear
link between a role and an SSCM construct.
The analysis reveals that “societal stakeholders” show the highest occurrence in
the entire sample. As expected, many articles presented NGOs as one of the big-
gest contributors to a more sustainable SC. For example, NGOs, owing to their on-
the-ground understanding, can bridge the expectations of upstream SC stakehold-
ers, such as consumers, with the downstream SC stage (Gurzawska 2020). Hence,
they can facilitate the process of translating consumer expectations into an appro-
priate SC measurement. Furthermore, they pressure focal firms by making public
13
Table 7 Distribution of Drivers Facilitators Inspectors

stakeholders to their roles
Upstream stakeholders
Suppliers 14 15 9
The focal company
Shareholder 12 0 1
Top leadership/management 22 14 3
Employees 20 9 2
Downstream stakeholder
Customers 45 5 3
End users 19 1 1
Retailer 2 2 2
Market stakeholders
Financial intermediaries 5 3 0
Unions 7 1 1
Competitor 19 5 1
Industry association 5 8 4
Societal stakeholders
NGO 35 31 16
Research institute / universities 2 7 0
(local) Communities 14 4 4
Media 20 5 2
Governmental entities 44 17 11
Stakeholder without specifica- 23 7 1
tion
Appearance of a combination of a particular stakeholder and a role is

only counted one time per paper for avoiding a distraction by a high
number of occurrences of a specific combination in one single paper
unsustainable business practices, such as environmental pollution or child labor

(Roy et al. 2020; Sajjad et al. 2019). In her case study, Wolf (2011) showed that
NGOs’ pressure focuses on upstream SC practices rather than all stages.
Governmental entities are also well distributed across the roles (see Table 7).
Both governmental organizations and NGOs are key drivers and facilitators for
implementing SSCM practices (Roy et al. 2020; Sajjad et al. 2019; Wolf 2011).
While NGOs rather support single SCs (e.g., Busse et al. 2017; Stekelorum et al.
2020), governmental actors can establish a coherent policy framework to stimulate
the industry-wide development of SSCM (Brix-Asala et al. 2018; Govindan 2018).
Noteworthy, once NGOs are well-organized and powerful, they might also be able to
shape an entire industry by, e.g., industry standards or benchmark reports.
However, Table 7 demonstrates that customers are most frequently identified
in the role of driver of SSCM. While the high occurrence of customers and end-
users was expected, the analysis reveals only retailers in the role of further down-
stream stakeholder in a few articles. Even though some studies reported retailers as
the driver, facilitator, or inspector of SSCM practices (e.g., Chkanikova 2016; Roy
13
E. Siems et al.
et al. 2020), other scholars suggested that retailers are the recipient of external stake-
holder pressure (Köksal et al. 2017; León-Bravo et al. 2019). Both groups of schol-
ars assign a core role to retailer in achieving a more sustainable SC (Chkanikova
2016; León-Bravo et al. 2019; Roy et al. 2020). Surprisingly, other stakeholders,
such as wholesalers or logistic intermediaries, could not be observed in a particular
role for driving, facilitating, or inspecting SSCM practices.
Regarding the role-specific distribution of stakeholders, the inspector role appears
underrepresented compared to the other two roles. Thus, it can be questioned why
inspector-related SSCM practices remain underrepresented to date and whether
stakeholders could play this role in the SSCM context.
Table 8 shows the distribution of stakeholder roles in the different SSCM prac-
tices. Their occurrence is calculated at the category and individual levels. Since an
article can be assigned to more than one item per category, a category’s frequency
can be lower than the sum of its subordinated frequencies (see Table 8).
For example, the constructs in the category “continuity” are linked to stake-
holders in the role of “driver” in 22 articles, to “facilitator” in 23 articles, and to
Table 8 Results from the qualitative content analysis for stakeholder roles linked to SSCM
SSCM Categories and construct Stakeholder role Driver Facilitator Inspector
Orientation 26 25 4 0
TBL 18 4 0
SCM 7 0 0
Continuity 31 22 24 9
Long-term relationships 3 4 0
SC partner selection 15 9 4
SC partner development 4 11 5
Collaboration 35 16 21 10
Technological integration 2 0 0
Logistical integration 0 1 0
Enhanced communication 11 10 8
Joint development 3 10 2
Risk management 55 40 23 16
Standards and certificates 15 9 6
Selective monitoring 12 9 9
Pressure groups 13 5 1
Proactivity 78 49 49 21
Learning 4 13 3
Stakeholder management 13 11 7
Innovation 9 9 4
Environmental pro-activity 13 10 4
Social proactivity 10 6 3
*
Appearance of a combination of a particular stakeholder role and SSCM construct is only counted one
time per paper for avoiding a distraction by a high number of occurrences of a specific combination in
one single paper
13
“inspector” in nine articles. While 16 articles contain one corresponding combina-

tion, nine articles have two combinations, four articles have three combinations, one
article has four combinations, and one article has five combinations. Therefore, the
resulting sum is 31 instead of 55.
A holistic orientation toward SCM and TBL is the first category derived from
Beske and Seuring’s (2014) framework. The analysis reveals a link between this cat-
egory and one of the three stakeholder roles in the literature sample, as shown in
Table 8. The most commonly identified role of a stakeholder is as a driver of a TBL
orientation.
However, according to the analyzed material, stakeholders drive companies
toward a TBL orientation in various ways. While governmental actors use regu-
lations or tax incentives (e.g., Roscoe et al. 2020), internal stakeholders, such as
employees, pressure their employers for a more holistic consideration of sustainabil-
ity (Chen and Kitsis 2017). The analysis also indicates that companies, driven by
external stakeholders (e.g., media and NGOs), were described as more reactive and
as having already faced reputation loss before incorporating a TBL orientation into
their SC (Busse 2016). On the contrary, focal firms, driven by customer demands
and an awareness of future trends due to changing needs, were described as more
proactive than reactive (Govindan 2018). Overall, the research has neglected how
stakeholders could be integrated into the process of defining/determining a coherent
corporate sustainability policy. However, the analysis reveals that a TBL orientation
is a holistic view that hampers the assignment to specific stakeholder roles. This
finding strengthens our decision to distinguish between environmental proactivity
and social proactivity, as Sauer and Seuring (2017) suggested.
Table 8 shows that 31 out of 78 articles mentioned stakeholder roles in the debate
on SC continuity. The results indicate that multiple studies revealed that SC partner
selection is regularly linked to customer pressure; companies tend to drop suppliers
instead of cooperating or developing them (e.g., Busse 2016; Chen and Kitsis 2017).
As Padhi et al. (2018) stated, “it may be because the firms prefer to select a supplier
with a better TBL performance than to collaborate and develop sustainability prac-
tices with existing suppliers” (p. 11). Conversely, the analysis discloses several pos-
sibilities for stakeholders to assist focal firms with supplier development. For exam-
ple, NGOs can support focal firms to identify best practices or provide resources,
such as knowledge and assistance with training programs (Govindan 2018; Rod-
ríguez et al. 2016). In addition, governmental bodies can drive and facilitate SSCM
practices in the SC with the help of regional development funds for the certification
process or suppliers’ training (Wilhelm et al. 2016). Thus, more participatory/action
research approaches with multi-stakeholder networks might support companies in
achieving more sustainable SCs.
Collaborating with non-traditional SC members (e.g., universities), as suggested
by Pagell and Wu (2009), allows the spread of superior SSCM practices across the
industry to interchange knowledge or education and identify risks (Oelze et al. 2016;
Silvestre 2015). In fact, nearly half the sample discussed stakeholder roles in the
context of collaboration constructs. Enhanced communication shows the highest
number of assigned roles (driver, facilitator, and inspector) within the collaboration
category. On the one hand, consumers drive enhanced communication between SC
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E. Siems et al.
partners due to changing (product) expectations (León-Bravo et al. 2019). On the
other hand, enhanced communication with SC internal stakeholders is required to
fulfill transparency expectations and inform them about applied sustainability prac-
tices (Chen and Kitsis 2017; Paulraj et al. 2017). Once enhanced communication
with internal SC stakeholders is established, these stakeholders can facilitate identi-
fying and addressing proactive sustainability risks or compliance violations (Sodhi
and Tang 2017). Thus, this is closely linked to risk management constructs (Oelze
et al. 2016).
However, stakeholders can join the development of projects and facilitate, for
example, the improvement of products’ environmental impact (Wilhelm et al. 2016).
Even though Beske and Seuring (2014) outlined the importance of technologi-
cal and logistical integration in the SSCM context, Table 8 shows a low frequency
of both constructs when considering stakeholders’ contributions. This contrasting
result is somewhat unexpected and might call for further research. However, Oelze
et al. (2016) stated “that there are different approaches to supplier knowledge plat-
forms” (p. 248) to improve organizational understanding. Besides, the analysis pro-
vides some indications of collaboration with stakeholders. For example, Stekelo-
rum et al. (2020) proposed that SMEs should collaborate with international NGOs
because they have the expertise and experience regarding other stakeholders and
their expectations in different geographical settings and can assist in bridging exist-
ing knowledge and resource gaps.
At the same time, the total number of findings is still relatively low compared to
other SSCM domains (i.e., risk management and proactivity). However, according
to Busse et al. (2017), focal firms need to balance and evaluate the contributions of
their stakeholders carefully. Otherwise, they might be distracted and consider only
issues that are relevant to them.
Risk management shows the second-highest frequency (see Table 8). It incor-
porates the detection of risks and requires knowledge and transparency of the SC
(Beske and Seuring 2014), which SC internal and external stakeholders can provide
once companies collaborate with them (e.g., Rodríguez et al. 2016). According to
Table 8, the most significant (risk management) practice is standards and certifica-
tions; several studies identified stakeholders as the main driver of standards and cer-
tifications (e.g., Seuring et al. 2019). For example, customers or end-users demand
standards and certifications especially for the upstream SC (Sodhi and Tang 2017).
Furthermore, multiple studies indicated that companies start to apply SSCM prac-
tices once they face pressure from stakeholders, such as media and NGOs (Wilhelm
et al. 2016). Wolf (2014) described responding to pressure as a reactive (SSCM)
strategy. Yet Roy et al. (2020) showed that “by being simply reactive to stakeholder
pressures, apparel manufacturing firms can obtain only fragmented leads when
implementing sustainability practices” (p. 11).
However, “engagement with some stakeholders can provide an early warning sys-
tem for emerging sustainability risks, anticipating unexpected negative outcomes
before they occur” (Gualandris et al. 2015, p. 8). Thus, engagement facilitates the
selective monitoring of critical SC stages due to third-party involvement in execut-
ing audits and assessing SC performance (Seuring et al. 2019; Sodhi and Tang
13
2017), strengthening the value of proactive and collaborative measurements to deal

with pressure (Oelze et al. 2016).
The analysis uncovers at least one result for the proactivity category regard-
ing underlying practices and stakeholder roles for each article of the sample (see
Table 8). Within this category, stakeholder management, a core instrument for build-
ing a reputation (Sauer and Seuring 2017), dominates the other practices, which can
be explained by the study’s research purpose in focusing on stakeholder-related
SSCM literature. However, the analyzed studies suggest that proactive engage-
ment with SC external stakeholders, such as research institutes or NGOs, facilitates
the learning process due to capability development, increased understanding, and
knowledge creation (Govindan 2018; Oelze et al. 2016). This engagement can trig-
ger joint innovations (Padhi et al. 2018). Furthermore, León-Bravo et al. (2019)
found that collaborating with NGOs can foster environmental awareness, cut costs,
and contribute to higher natural resource efficiency. According to Wolf (2011), focal
firms need a stakeholder integration capability to achieve a more sustainable SC.
Additionally, Chen and Kitsis (2017) proposed that social or environmental proac-
tivity can create a competitive advantage and, thus, drive competitors toward sus-
tainability. Therefore, the results mentioned above, particularly the aforementioned
calls for more research on social aspects in SSCM, might be a promising pathway
for further studies (Meqdadi et al. 2020; Roy et al. 2020). To promote proactive
engagements, particular attention should be paid to its interaction with collaboration
and integration capabilities which is crucial to overcome reactive stances (León-
Bravo et al., 2019; Wolf, 2011).
4.3 Quantitative contingency analysis
To better understand the stakeholder-related SSCM literature and examine which

constructs have significant relationships, we conducted a quantitative contingency
analysis via SPSS. This exploration of potential correlations between particular
SSCM practices, stakeholders, and their roles allows us to distinguish pairs that
appear disproportionately together in a portion of the sample. Table 9 contains for
each pair the one-sided significance value, phi value (showing the soundness of the
correlations), observed occurrence, and expected occurrence. It is structured from
the highest to lowest phi values. In total, the sample contains 21 pairs with signifi-
cant relationships, as shown in Fig. 2.
Looking at Fig. 2, the first observation is the nexus around “upstream stake-
holder,” which shows the highest number of contingencies (9). Despite this, “market
stakeholder,” “focal firm,” and “social proactivity” show no further connections to
other constructs, while the remaining six constructs are further linked. For example,
“focal firm” and “market stakeholders” are connected to “upstream stakeholders”
(i.e., supplier and supplier’s supplier), which are further linked to all collaboration
practices. This nexus emphasizes the line of argumentation that powerful stakehold-
ers, such as customers or end-users, demand and drive the integration of SSCM
practices, particularly for the upstream SC (Meixell and Luoma 2015).
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E. Siems et al.
Table 9 Results from the contingency analysis

Pair X2 - φ– Observed Expected
significance coefficient Frequency frequency
Societal stakeholders * Drivers (role) 0.000 0.698 74 72

Long-term relationships * Logistical integration 0.000 0.466 11 4
Upstream stakeholders * Enhanced communication 0.000 0.465 37 28
Joint development * Stakeholder management 0.000 0.460 28 19
Technological integration * Logistical integration 0.000 0.424 8 3
Upstream stakeholders * Technological Integration 0.000 0.413 16 10
Technological integration * Enhanced communica- 0.000 0.413 16 10
tion
Upstream stakeholders * Market stakeholders 0.000 0.410 45 39
Joint development * Learning 0.000 0.399 22 14
Logistical integration * Joint development 0.000 0.397 12 6
Enhanced communication * Joint development 0.000 0.397 28 20
Upstream stakeholders * Stakeholder management 0.000 0.396 34 27
Upstream stakeholders *Llong-term relationships 0.001 0.389 22 15
Upstream stakeholders * The focal company 0.001 0.388 35 28
Stakeholder Management * Innovation 0.001 0.386 26 19
Upstream stakeholders * Logistical Integration 0.001 0.380 14 8
Upstream stakeholders * Social proactivity 0.002 0.352 29 22
Drivers * Logistical integration 0.002 0.347 12 14
Joint Development * Innovation 0.002 0.346 21 14
Upstream stakeholders * Joint development 0.002 0.344 27 20
Enhanced communication * Stakeholder manage- 0.002 0.343 33 27
ment
“Technological integration” is contingent on “enhanced communication,” the

core construct of the second cluster, which is connected to “upstream stake-
holder.”
The second observation is that the other constructs, clustered around “enhanced
communication,” have different relationships. Figure 2 shows that “enhanced com-
munication” directly connects to all other collaboration constructs (i.e., “joint devel-
opment” and “technical integration”) except for logistical integration, which is indi-
rectly threefold linked. This finding underlines that collaboration with stakeholders
is essential to achieve a more sustainable SC, in line with the established SSCM
literature (Pagell and Wu 2009). “Joint development” is also contingent on three
proactivity practices (“learning,” “innovation,” and “stakeholder management”) and
“logistical integration.” The latter is connected to “upstream stakeholder,” “technical
integration,” and “long-term relationships.” This composition aligns with arguments
in the SSCM literature that striving toward sustainability means building long-term
relationships with suppliers and firmly integrating them (Beske and Seuring 2014).
Third, the line of argument around “stakeholder management” has four significant
contingencies. Two contingencies are collaboration practices (“joint development”
13
Fig. 2 (Sustainable) SC model with stakeholder consideration
and “enhanced communication”), and one is the link mentioned above to “upstream
stakeholder.” The remaining connection is another proactivity practice, “innova-
tion,” which strengthens the value of proactive and collaborative measurements to
integrate stakeholders into SC activities (Oelze et al. 2016). Thus, integrating and
learning from stakeholders facilitate the process of innovation and can result in joint
development of products, as stated by Dahlmann and Roehrich (2019).
Surprisingly, the analysis shows no contingencies for constructs from the ori-
entation and risk management category, and these constructs only appear together
with other constructs as often as was statistically expected. This result might occur
because the underlying and coded constructs are equally distributed within and over
the analyzed literature and, thus, appear with no statistical peculiarity with other
constructs (see Table 9). However, this is for the orientation category somewhat
in line with the results from the qualitative analysis, where we identified a lack of
examples where stakeholders were integrated into the process of defining/determin-
ing a coherent corporate sustainability policy (i.e., SCM and TBL orientation). This
also holds for “downstream stakeholders, " the only stakeholder group showing no
contingencies. This indicates that they are not noticeable frequently discussed with
any other group of stakeholders, roles, or SSCM practices. This might be caused
by the fact that this stakeholder group is less intensively embedded in the SSCM
debate.
The last observation concerns the relationship between “societal stakeholders”
and the “driver” role, which shows the strongest phi value of 0.698. Although social
stakeholder as a driver of sustainability is an established argument in the SSCM
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E. Siems et al.
literature (e.g., Meixell and Luoma 2015), only the construct “driver” shows one
further contingency to the collaboration practice “logistical integration.” Thus, soci-
etal stakeholders appear only as drivers more often than statistically expected even
within the SSCM literature, which emphasizes a need to consider stakeholders in
future studies. This result might call for further research with a more differentiated
stakeholder view by considering stakeholders not only as a homogeneous phenom-
enon but individually according to their associated dimension and role.
5 Discussion and contribution
5.1 Theoretical contribution
Since there is a lack of research on the intersection between stakeholder roles and
SSCM (e.g., Rebs et al. 2019), this study contributes to the debate around the role
stakeholders may play regarding SSCM practices. For example, Liu et al.’s (2018)
study focused on supplier development, representing only one component of SSCM
(Beske and Seuring 2014). Our study extends the debate around stakeholder roles
from supplier development to SSCM. It is in line with current studies that the SSCM
discourse shows shortcomings regarding stakeholder roles (e.g., Carmagnac 2021).
Hence, our findings explain stakeholders’ relevance and roles in the SSCM context,
but possible research gaps could also be identified. Thus, to the best of our knowl-
edge, this is one of the first comprehensive studies on stakeholders and their roles in
the SSCM debate.
Although most of the reviewed publications showed no specific approach (see
Table 6), the instrumental stakeholder approach—focusing on why companies
should consider stakeholders—was found the most frequently in those articles with
an approach (e.g., Awan et al. 2017; Maas et al. 2018; Roscoe et al. 2020). This is in
line with Gold and Schleper (2017), who indicated that an instrumental perspective
might dominate the discourse around SSCM because current business systems are
shaped by a North American philosophy of profit maximization.
Furthermore, this literature review indicates that some core constructs have been
largely overlooked in the SSCM debate. Against our expectations, SC continuity or
collaboration constructs had a rather moderate or even low occurrence (see Table 8),
even though SC continuity brings sustainable benefits for all SC members (Beske
and Seuring 2014). While enhanced communication (a collaboration practice)
appeared in both the content and contingency analyses, the two other collaboration
constructs (i.e., technological and logistical integration) showed low frequencies,
even though Beske and Seuring (2014) outlined the importance of technical and
logistical integration in the SSCM context.
In line with the results from the contingency analysis (see Fig. 2), previous stud-
ies argued that striving toward sustainability means building long-term relationships
with suppliers and firmly integrating them into the SC (e.g., Beske and Seuring
2014; Rebs et al. 2019).
While the results suggest that companies tend to drop suppliers instead of
cooperating with or developing them (Busse 2016; Chen and Kitsis 2017), the
13
analysis also identified possibilities for stakeholders to support focal firms in

developing their suppliers (e.g., training provided by NGOs) (Govindan 2018;
Padhi et al. 2018). Thus, more participatory research approaches (e.g., action
research) with multi-stakeholder networks might be a valuable research avenue to
support companies in achieving more sustainable SCs. Wickert et al. (2021) also
called for more research with managerial implications and impact.
By returning to Table 8 and Fig. 2, both analyses provided evidence that stake-
holder management and integration are essential for SSCM. Proactive engage-
ment with SC external stakeholders facilitates the organizational learning process
due to capability development, increased understanding and awareness of sus-
tainability, and knowledge creation (Oelze et al. 2016; Seuring et al. 2019). For
example, León-Bravo et al. (2019) found that collaborating with NGOs can raise
environmental awareness, cut costs, and increase natural resource efficiency. This
engagement can ultimately lead to competitive advantage (Chen and Kitsis 2017).
According to Wolf (2011), integrating stakeholders to collaborate and exchange
expectations requires specific capabilities and is essential for SSCM.
However, this study complements the findings of earlier research concerning
the relevance of proactive behavior within SSCM (e.g., Pagell and Wu 2009).
Several studies have indicated that companies start to apply SSCM practices
once they face pressure from stakeholders, which has been described as reac-
tive behavior and linked to reputation and legitimacy loss (Busse 2016; Wilhelm
et al. 2016; Wolf 2014). This strengthens the value of proactive and collaborative
measurements to deal with stakeholder issues before putting pressure on a com-
pany, in line with Pagell and Wu (2009) and Siems and Seuring (2021).
Furthermore, Multaharju’s (2016) conceptual work defined a framework that
shows how companies’ performance might trigger stakeholder reactions. Accord-
ing to Multaharju (2016), using an empirical research approach might be valuable
for investigating how focal firms’ sustainability performance and their entire SC
might trigger stakeholder reactions.
Although various SSCM scholars outlined the lack of research on the social
dimension in the debate in the past (e.g., Rebs et al. 2017), authors such as Meq-
dadi et al. (2020) and Roy et al. (2020) identified that there is still a need for
research on social aspects in SSCM. Thus, Roy et al. (2020) proposed analyzing
how social companies manage their stakeholder relationships under their social
(business) purpose via a case study approach with a multi-tier perspective. Simi-
larly, it might be worth investigating how focal firms’ SC sustainability perfor-
mance might trigger stakeholder reactions using an empirical research approach,
as Multaharju (2016) suggested.
According to Touboulic and Walker (2015) stakeholder theory is one of the
most commonly applied theories in the SSCM field. Yet the debate has been
somewhat limited to using stakeholders as reasoning for SSCM, with some
exceptions, such as Rodríguez et al. (2016). Thus, a more differentiated debate
involving more comprehensive approaches, such as the integrative framework put
forward by Hörisch et al. (2014), might give us more insights into incorporating
stakeholders in SC as proposed by Pagell and Wu (2009).
13
E. Siems et al.
In line with this, future research could differentiate stakeholders regarding their
sector of operation and associated tier-level. This promises important insights
because the visibility and influence of stakeholders differ among sectors and tier-
levels which might affect the roles they take in the context of SSCM.
5.2 Practical contribution
In addition to the theoretical contribution, our study has some practical implica-
tions. For example, engaging with stakeholders and their integration into business
processes can increase learning capabilities by gaining new knowledge and other
resources.
According to Stekelorum et al. (2020), collaborating with international NGOs
gives SMEs and their SC members access to the NGOs’ expertise and experience
regarding other stakeholders and their expectations. Thus, they can assist companies
in bridging existing knowledge and resource gaps which allows for improving their
SSCM practices (e.g., Siems and Seuring 2021; Wankmüller and Reiner 2020). In
addition, this accumulation of external and internal expertise can lead to innovative
ideas for meeting SSCM challenges and, thereby, gaining a competitive advantage
(Chen and Kitsis, 2017; Oelze et al., 2016). Hence, this kind of insight can help in
deciding whether to integrate stakeholders into SSCM practices.
Moreover, integrating stakeholders into SSCM processes, such as assessing the
company’s own or its suppliers’ performance, provides the opportunity to gain more
legitimacy to do business and create additional value (Norris et al. 2021). Addition-
ally, more proactive and integrative corporations with stakeholders can provide an
external view for integrating, assessing, or evaluating SSCM practices.
Besides gaining more legitimacy or a competitive advantage, engaging with SC
stakeholders can help managers fill existing knowledge and resource gaps. On the
one hand, stakeholder claims can be fulfilled internally because of extended resource
bases. On the other hand, working with stakeholders offers the chance to reach sup-
pliers beyond boundaries arising from a physical or institutional distance (Sauer and
Seuring, 2018). In this context, stakeholders can facilitate communication, assess-
ment, and evaluation of suppliers and provide support to develop training programs.
5.3 Limitations
The results contain opportunities for both practitioners and scholars, but our study
faced three major limitations. First, while we grounded our research in selected con-
structs from the SSCM literature, a more reflective approach with other stakeholder
and SSCM constructs might yield additional or different insights. For example, the
results show that the inspector role appears underrepresented compared to the other
two roles. Furthermore, analyzing the negative impact of SC internal and exter-
nal stakeholders (i.e., hindering or undermining SSCM) might provide additional
insights since our study focused instead on positive roles. Thus, it can be questioned
why inspector-related SSCM practices remain underrepresented to date and whether
the role of stakeholders could be stronger in the SSCM context.
13
Second, although we based our research on established theoretical constructs and

the data analysis followed strict rules (e.g., Mayring 2015), within-study bias could
not be entirely avoided because most of the coding was done by one researcher.
Third, the data, restricted to keywords, might cause the limited generalizability of
our results. The extensive and valuable results might be an additional ex-post justifi-
cation for our selected theoretical constructs and keywords.
However, our study’s limitations create future research opportunities, and by tak-
ing those partly contrasting results into account, future studies might yield interest-
ing insights and could extend our understanding. The next step could be an explora-
tive case study approach applying the proposed SSCM and stakeholder constructs.
Focusing in particular on both positive and negative roles would extend our under-
standing of SC internal and external stakeholders’ role in achieving a more sustain-
able SC.
6 Conclusion
Since integrating non-traditional SC stakeholders, such as NGOs and competitors, in

SC practices is essential for achieving a more sustainable SC, this study contributes
to the debate around the role stakeholders may have in SSCM practices. Our study
extends the debate around stakeholder roles from supplier development to SSCM
and provides evidence of their relevance in the SSCM context.
Based on the qualitative content analysis, the findings reveal different stakeholder
roles in the context of SSCM practices and explain their relevance. For example,
stakeholders, such as NGOs and universities, can facilitate the implementation
of SSCM practices owing to their access to valuable knowledge, skills, and other
resources. Similarly, proactive engagement with SC external stakeholders appears
to lead to a competitive advantage and drive competitors toward sustainability by
creating the need to mimic these practices. Conversely, the results indicate that com-
panies’ reactive behavior results in the risk of reputation loss and strengthens the
line of argumentation for proactive and collaboration measurements. Thus, SC inter-
nal and external stakeholders facilitate the development of learning and innovation
capabilities and support the detection of risks or improvement potential. Neverthe-
less, the inspector role of stakeholders related to SSCM practices has been underrep-
resented, according to the content and contingency analyses. Thus, further studies
could take into account these insights.
While recent studies (e.g., Maas et al. 2018; Rebs et al. 2019) considered only
stakeholder pressure and its impact on performance, our study applied a more dif-
ferentiated view regarding stakeholders.
Therefore, our study is one of the first efforts to apply a more differentiated view
to stakeholders and their roles in the SSCM debate. By considering our results,
future research could apply a case study design to gain a deeper understanding of
stakeholders and their roles in achieving a more sustainable SC.
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E. Siems et al.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Data availability A full list of papers analyzed can be obtained from the authors.
Code availability Not applicable.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of
this article.
Ethics approval Not applicable.
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Journal of Business Economics

Stakeholder roles in sustainable supply chain

Erik Siems1 · Stefan Seuring1 · Lara Schilling1

Accepted: 2 October 2022

Keywords Sustainable supply chain management · Stakeholder roles ·

Although sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) can be a significant source

• How are stakeholders and their roles related to SSCM practices?

management, or employees as subordinated stakeholders. Norris et al.’s (2021) con-

2.2 Stakeholder roles and sustainable supply chain management

implementing SSCM practices ​

Table 3 Overview of SSCM practices (adapted from Beske and Seuring [2014])

Analyzing scientific literature in SSCM provides an aggregated view and is a valu-

Table 4 Search and reduction steps during the material collection

(“SSCM” OR “sustainable supply chain*” OR “sustainable supply 442 490

Fig. 1 Distribution of reviewed articles over time (n = 78)

Table 5 Distribution of Name Number

Rest appeared less than two times

Table 6 Distribution of Approach Number

4.2 Qualitative content analysis of stakeholder roles in the sustainable supply

Table 7 Distribution of Drivers Facilitators Inspectors

Appearance of a combination of a particular stakeholder and a role is

unsustainable business practices, such as environmental pollution or child labor

“inspector” in nine articles. While 16 articles contain one corresponding combina-

2017), strengthening the value of proactive and collaborative measurements to deal

4.3 Quantitative contingency analysis

To better understand the stakeholder-related SSCM literature and examine which

Table 9 Results from the contingency analysis

Societal stakeholders * Drivers (role) 0.000 0.698 74 72

“Technological integration” is contingent on “enhanced communication,” the

Fig. 2 (Sustainable) SC model with stakeholder consideration

analysis also identified possibilities for stakeholders to support focal firms in

Second, although we based our research on established theoretical constructs and

Since integrating non-traditional SC stakeholders, such as NGOs and competitors, in

Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Code availability Not applicable.

Ethics approval Not applicable.

Consent to participate Not applicable.

Consent for publication Not applicable.

Multaharju S (2016) Framework of Stakeholder Reactions on Sustainability Risk Mitigation Practices

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2.2 Stakeholder roles and sustainable supply chain management

implementing SSCM practices

Table 3 Overview of SSCM practices (adapted from Beske and Seuring [2014])

Table 4 Search and reduction steps during the material collection

Fig. 1 Distribution of reviewed articles over time (n = 78)

Table 5 Distribution of Name Number

Table 6 Distribution of Approach Number

4.2 Qualitative content analysis of stakeholder roles in the sustainable supply

Table 7 Distribution of Drivers Facilitators Inspectors

4.3 Quantitative contingency analysis

Table 9 Results from the contingency analysis

Fig. 2 (Sustainable) SC model with stakeholder consideration