Proposing a framework for organisational sustainable development: integrating quality management, supply chain management and sustainability

Abstract

Increasing worldwide demand for products and services is applying a significant pressure on firms and supply chains operationally and financially, along with negative implications on our planet and the public. New approaches are highly required to be adopted by all members of the society, including the businesses for sustainable development. On the other hand, enabling such integration from an organisational management perspective is not straightforward, due to complexities and conflicts associated with balanced integration of economic, environmental and social agendas. Aimed towards addressing this important research requirement, a tailored conceptual framework is presented, constructed upon the synergistic principles of quality management (QM) and supply chain management (SCM) to facilitate integration of triple bottom line sustainability into business management. As the first step of the research, a systematic literature review was conducted, evidencing research gaps, and opportunities. A conceptual framework was established, and an implementation procedure to facilitate operationalisation of the framework was developed including a business diagnostic tool contribution, aiding current state maturity assessment as one of the key implementation steps. These developments were verified, validated and improved through the Delphi method, and applied at an organisation in Cyprus as the final validation step, using the action research method. Positive relationships were established and verified conceptually between the ISO 9001 principles of QM, supply chain integration principle of SCM, and organisational triple bottom line sustainability integration. The relative importance of these principles adopted in the framework were determined based on expert Delphi panel feedback. The action research demonstrated the application of the framework, outlined its contextual implementation factors, and concluded positive effects on the sustainable development of the participating organisation. Several contributions to knowledge were made, including the refinement of existing QM and SCM concepts for organisational sustainability improvement, and formulation of a practical framework including a novel diagnostic tool to facilitate integration of triple bottom line sustainability through QM and SCM. Particularly, a new management perspective was introduced with implications to many organisational managers that adopt ISO 9001 and supply chain integration principles, setting the way for extending these principles beyond their original QM and SCM agendas towards organisational sustainable development.