6 Conclusion
This research contributes to theory, policy, and practice in four ways. First, it connects the issues of sustainable supply chain management and corruption. Although the literature contains a few studies recognizing the problem of corruption in supply chains (e.g., Silvestre, 2015a), this is the first attempt to comprehensively analyze evidence of corruption in a supply chain. This research adds an emerging economy’s perspective to the sustainable supply chain management debate, by exploring an export-oriented food supply chain that has been deemed to be ethical, but is fully permeated with corruption. Further research on corruption in supply chains should focus on multiple sectors of less-developed, emerging, and developed economies. Such research will further increase our understanding of the dynamics of corruption, the role of power differentials between key players, and the impact of corruption on supply chains’ financial, environmental, and social performance.
Second, this research further elaborates the sustainable supply chain management literature by suggesting that stakeholder collaboration might not be always a “good thing,” as it is commonly suggested in the literature (Strand and Freeman, 2015). The evidence presented here suggests that stakeholder collaboration might lead to unanticipated negative outcomes, i.e., some organizations might maliciously use stakeholder management mechanisms such as MSIs to deceive the public and to opportunistically manipulate partners to pursue their own self-interests. Future research in this area should focus on how and why such unethical and illegal initiatives play a role in supply chain corruption, society’s perception of these initiatives, and what changes can be made to reduce the chance of these unreasonable activities being repeated.
