Established at the ISCM in 2009, the research group seeks to advance knowledge on the tripartite pursuit of environmental, social and economic objectives in a Supply Chain Management context. More precisely, the group works on questions related to sustainability and corporate social responsibility from the perspective of purchasing, logistics and the management of global supply chain relationships.

Willingness-to-pay

Industrial buyers frequently find themselves in a dilemma of purchasing goods and services at the lowest competitive price while ensuring compliance with social and environmental standards. In this stream of research, we to assess the willingness-to-pay of industrial buyers for attributes that constitute sustainable products and the factors of influencing the willingness-to-pay.

Sustainable Souring Excellence

This project seeks to develop a comprehensive framework for sustainable sourcing practices. This entails the identification of relevant key performance indicators, an IT-based risk management system for sustainable supply management, and the development of tools and techniques for the measurement and control of environmental impact. Further, a sourcing governance code and appropriate reports for stakeholders are designed. Finally, a CO2-efficient sourcing platform shall be proposed.

Sustainable Global Supplier Management

While the risks and effects of supply interruptions as well as feasible mitigation strategies have been widely discussed, the risks stemming from supplier irresponsibility, in terms of violation of ethical and environmental standards, have only recently become a prominent topic within the field of purchasing and supply management (PSM) and global sourcing. In this project, we seek to find answers to the question, how firms can design and configure SGSM processes to dynamically respond to changing sustainability requirements.

Environmental Concern

Conventional wisdom suggests that environmental concern plays a minor role in comparatively poor countries, referred to as low-cost-countries in a supply chain management context. In this project, we seek to determine the degree to which existing data support this assumption and to understand what the consequences are for strategic sourcing from such low-cost-countries.