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This study extends research on buyer firm roles in improving supplier sustainability practices by considering institutions – norms and rules – in the organisational field in which suppliers and sub-suppliers operate, exerting pressures on these actors to align their respectivepractices. We introducethe resource-based view to arrive at a framework outlining key capabilities for institutional entrepreneurs that seek institutionalisation of corporate sustainability standards (CSS) as a new institution across a multi-tier supply chain. The paper draws on the results of an exploratory research study using six comparative case studies within four industries. While institutional entrepreneurship explains how organisations drive institutional change, the resource-based view outlines criteria for organisational capabilities enabling the focal firm to achieve the targeted institutional change. Our analysis suggests five key capabilities enabling a buying firm to effectively institutionalise their requirements in multi-tier supply chains: (1) inter-firm dialogue, (2) risk management, (3) external stakeholder collaboration, (4) cross-functional integration, and (5) continuous improvement. The key organisational capabilities identified help to extend the theory of institutional entrepreneurship with concepts that facilitate institutional change in multi-tier supply chains with respect to corporate sustainability. This exploratory work opens up avenues of additional research in general and supply chain theory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental regulations are important organizational strategic drivers. Environmental regulatory mechanisms include "carrots" or "sticks"—they can be incentive or coercion‐based. This study empirically investigates stock market reactions to various environmental regulatory mechanisms. Using a sample of 334 environmental regulatory events reported by 212 listed Chinese firms between 2010 and 2020, we find that monetary reward has a greater positive market reaction towards governmental reward than non‐monetary reward. We also find that governmental operational disruption penalties have a greater negative market reaction than operational non‐disruption penalties. Governmental levels of the environmental regulation implementation subject do not play a moderating role in the relationship between governmental regulations and firm market value. These findings provide various policy and organizational insights as businesses seek to meet legitimacy gains in response environmental regulatory mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs) are now entering their decade of action. We are supporting this decade by further encouraging the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) and its scholarly community to lead on contributing to global SDGs through research, knowledge development, and dissemination. There are islands of excellence that are evident from the past 60 years of IJPR research – especially in ecologically sustainable production-related SDG. There are also serious SDG gaps – for example, general environmental, gender, and inclusiveness research – that can provide additional insights that can greatly advance the IJPR disciplines. This thematic analysis ends with a number of recommendations that seek to expand our experiences and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a central policy within China's regional development and foreign trade strategy. Traditional trade has typically depended on economic valuation of resources, while the embedded environmental value is rarely considered. This situation exists in most BRI trade evaluations. To address BRI environmental sustainability issues, we consider the role of pivotal Chinese provinces and their key trade partners (ASEAN countries) as an illustration for the environmental value of resource exchanges. Emergy accounting is used as the valuation tool for a sample period of seventeen years. Key results include: (1) Emergy valuations show sustainability of sample provinces decreased over time; (2) ASEAN countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam play significant resource roles for provincial economic systems; (3) Diverse trends in trade between pivotal provinces and ASEAN countries resulted in an unbalanced trade structure from trade. Policy implications are proposed to promote a more globally sustainable and fair trade using BRI as an established trade policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]