Purpose

Extant research shows collaboration among supply chain (SC) partners can address the significant environmental impacts of industrial food systems, but can be risky and resource-intensive. Past studies have predominantly treated buyer–supplier sustainability collaborations as a single aggregate concept missing the theoretical richness. This study aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of these collaborations for jointly improving sustainable food supply networks.

Design/methodology/approach

A multiple case study was conducted covering 8 SCs in the Dutch food processing industry, using data from 27 interviewees and extensive secondary material.

Findings

By applying the dynamic relational view, this study identifies three types of buyer–supplier collaboration, reflecting three paths of sustainable value creation: (1) the bilateral path, featuring equal participation and extensive collaboration, yielding substantial environmental and economic benefits; (2) the buyer-driven path, where the buyer leads the collaboration to address sustainability issues that are raised by stakeholders, relying on supplier expertise to improve SC traceability and sustainability reputation, albeit at higher costs; (3) the supplier-driven path, where the supplier leads the collaboration for incremental environmental and economic improvements.

Practical implications

The taxonomy results provide practical guidelines to assist managers in selecting the most suitable collaboration type for their specific sustainability goals and more effectively address sustainability challenges.

Originality/value

The three identified types of collaboration form a novel taxonomy for improving sustainability in food supply networks, representing different paths for SC partners to achieve progressively more substantial sustainability improvements. This taxonomy challenges the perspective that adopting sustainability invariably leads to increased costs by providing evidence of simultaneous economic and environmental improvements.

中文翻译：

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共同改进的不同途径：食品供应网络可持续发展的买家与供应商合作分类

 目的

现有研究表明，供应链 (SC) 合作伙伴之间的合作可以解决工业食品系统对环境的重大影响，但可能存在风险且资源密集型。过去的研究主要将买方与供应商的可持续发展合作视为一个单一的聚合概念，缺乏理论的丰富性。本研究旨在更细致地了解这些合作，以共同改善可持续粮食供应网络。

设计/方法论/途径

使用 27 名受访者的数据和广泛的二手材料进行了一项涵盖荷兰食品加工行业 8 个 SC 的多案例研究。

 发现

运用动态关系视角，本研究确定了买方与供应商合作的三种类型，体现了可持续价值创造的三种路径：（1）双边路径，平等参与、广泛合作，产生显着的环境和经济效益； （2）买方驱动路径，买方主导合作解决利益相关者提出的可持续发展问题，依靠供应商的专业知识来提高供应链可追溯性和可持续发展声誉，尽管成本较高； (3) 供应商驱动路径，由供应商主导协作，以实现渐进的环境和经济改善。

 实际意义

分类结果提供了实用指南，可帮助管理者为其特定的可持续发展目标选择最合适的协作类型，并更有效地应对可持续发展挑战。

 原创性/价值

这三种确定的合作类型形成了一种用于改善食品供应网络可持续性的新颖分类法，代表了供应链合作伙伴逐步实现更实质性可持续性改进的不同路径。这种分类法通过提供经济和环境同步改善的证据，挑战了采用可持续性必然会导致成本增加的观点。