Adoption of social sustainability practices in developing countries: a case study of Vietnamese handicraft organisations
Creators: name: TRAN, Thi
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 350903
subject: Logistics

description: Globalisation of the world economy has raised concerns about social sustainability incidents in business organisations in developing countries. These incidents are mainly due to repeated accidents resulting from poor labour conditions and unsafe working environments, the presence of child labour, and the use of unfriendly environmental manufacturing processes. The consequences of such incidents have indicated that the adoption of social sustainability practices (SSP) is discouraging. This reality shows an urgent need for better understanding the adoption of SSP by organisations and along multiple tiers of supply chains in the pursuit of sustainable development. <br><br>

The objective of this study is to holistically investigate the adoption of SSP by organisations in developing countries. Taking Vietnamese handicraft organisations as a case study, the study specifically aims to (a) identify the emerging adoption patters of SSP; (b) explore the direct roles of organisational behaviour, stakeholder pressures, and organisational readiness in SSP adoption; (c) examine the indirect roles of stakeholder pressures and organisational behaviour in SSP adoption; and (d) investigate the controlling roles of organisational size, exportation orientation, standard adoption, and adoption pattern in SSP adoption. <br><br>

To achieve the aims of this study, a comprehensive review of the related literature leads to the development of a conceptual framework built on the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework, which is widely used for the investigation of innovation adoption by business organisations. The institutional theory is further employed to underpin the proposed framework for providing a better understanding of the adoption of SSP by organisations in institutional settings commonly found in developing economies. The framework is then tested and validated using cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, and structural equation modelling with data collected from a survey of 310 Vietnamese handicraft organisations. <br><br>

The study reveals five emerging adoption patterns of SSP in the surveyed organisations, namely proactive adoption, high average adoption, average adoption, low average adoption, and laggard adoption. It provides sufficient evidence that organisational behaviour and readiness impact directly on the adoption of SSP, while stakeholder pressures do not show a significant indirect impact. The study further confirms the mediating roles of organisational behaviour and readiness in the adoption. It highlights the controlling roles of organisational size, exportation orientation, standard adoption, and adoption pattern in such adoption.<br><br>

This study contributes to the sustainability research from both theoretical and practical terms. Theoretically, the study is novel in that it leverages the TOE framework and incorporates the institutional theory to comprehensively examine the adoption of SSP in organisations in the context of developing countries. It is the first attempt to identify the critical role of internationalisation readiness in predicting organisational readiness for the adoption of SSP. This, therefore, sheds new light to the application of the TOE framework and offers a new research avenue related to the role of internationalisation readiness in social sustainability and supply chain management. Practically, the findings provide useful guidelines on how to improve the adoption of SSP by organisations in developing countries. Such guidelines can assist owners, managers, policymakers, and sustainability practitioners to formulate specific policies and strategies in promoting the adoption of SSP in organisations from the perspective of integrated supply chains.