CONCLUSIONS
This research set out to address these two research questions: (1) How are supply chain structures of sustainable businesses designed to deliver on TBL objectives? and (2) How do the different configurations support sustainability? Regarding the “design,” this research puts forward that economic, environmental, and social stakeholders, output and outcome design parameters, and both physical and support chains were identified for SSCD. Regarding the “support of sustainability,” this study offered a more detailed view about how design parameters are operationalized as TBL outputs versus outcomes.
From a conceptual contribution point of view, this paper particularly aimed at “revision” (Fawcett et al. 2014, 5), as it proposes changes to the theory of the supply chain, that is, to extend the domain and variables, toward a theory of SSCD. The social businesses in Haiti offered a unique context to better understand how to achieve sustainable supply chain configurations that cover all three sustainability dimensions and offered three configurations. This research may thus become a starting point for more SSCM research on social businesses versus research on larger firms such as multinational corporations that reconsider their own models rather slowly and gradually.
With regard to limitations, the results here are derived from four cases within one social business investor company portfolio within one specific country. Although the context of Haiti has a number of advantages to study the research questions in focus in an extreme setting characterized by severe resource scarcity, future research should see whether the identified configurations are similar or different in other contexts. While Haiti was a rather specific context, meant to show pronounced designs in the face of severe constraints, this is an interesting implication for mature markets as well, although the support chains may take different forms.
