Market performance and social sustainability practices across manufacturing supply chains: the role of sustainability information exchange and corporate motives Open Access

Global supply chains remain socially unsustainable (Hohn and Durach, 2023) even 10 years after the introduction of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). The International Labour Organisation estimates that about 49.6 million people globally are victims of modern slavery as of today (Lotfi and Walker, 2024) with most of them in forced labour across supply chains of different products (Szablewska and Kubacki, 2023; Rogerson et al., 2025). Boohoo, a fashion manufacturing firm, has been criticised for paying employees’ wages less than half of the minimum wage in its supply chain in 2020, while Tony’s Chocolonely, a chocolate manufacturing firm, admitted to using 1,700 child employees in its production and supply chain in 2021 (Yu et al., 2024). The supply chains in Ghana are no exception; 21.8% of children are engaged in child labour-related activities (Adonteng-Kissi, 2018), while females are paid 30% less wages than males for the same job (Danquah et al., 2021). These social sustainability issues pose significant reputational damage for supply chain partners (Yagci Sokat and Altay, 2023) and limit market performance (Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). Some studies (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Chan et al., 2022; Chavez et al., 2021; Hohn and Durach, 2023) argue that sustainability motives, sustainability information exchange and collaborative social sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices not only address global social challenges but also provide market performance benefits.

Supply chain practice view (SCPV) posits that the success of supply chains in achieving desired performance goals is highly dependent on the imitable practices implemented by all supply chain partners (Carter et al., 2017; Kirchoff and Falasca, 2022). Hence, many firms use inter-organisational sustainability practices such as collaborative social SSCM practices (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021) and sustainability information exchange to achieve expected performance goals (Chavez et al., 2021). Collaborative social SSCM practices are defined as supply chain partners’ set of activities to address employee and community welfare and safety issues across their supply chains (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021). Collaborative social SSCM practices offer a range of benefits such as market value, customer satisfaction (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) and market shares and sales growth (Wang and Dai, 2018), which contributes to positive supply chain market performance. Supply chain market performance refers to consumer satisfaction, market share, and revenue growth generated from collaborative practices of firms across supply chains (Agyabeng-Mensah, Afum et al., 2020; Chan et al., 2022).

Meanwhile, the effectiveness of these practices in achieving positive market performance can be undermined by mistrust, information asymmetry and a lack of transparency throughout supply chains and with stakeholders outside of them (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021). In this context, collaborative social SSCM practices necessitate the exchange of sustainability information, which entails the reciprocal sharing of details regarding sustainability goals, strategies, responsibilities and accomplishments with both supply chain and non-supply chain partners (Chavez et al., 2021; Lai et al., 2015). Such information exchange enhances symmetry and transparency, allowing supply chain members to broaden their understanding of sustainability management and raising awareness among consumers and other stakeholders about their sustainability practices (Agyabeng-Mensah et al., 2024). This fosters trust and the sharing of valuable resources among supply chain partners, enhances corporate reputation and customer satisfaction, mitigates regulatory fines and supports revenue and market share growth (Lai et al., 2015).

Furthermore, sustainability information exchange and collaborative social SSCM practices may fall short in achieving expected market performance in uncertain business environments driven by diverse stakeholder demands and expectations, thus, necessitating supply chains to grasp their sustainability motives (Chan et al., 2022). Sustainability motives connote the various reasons supply chain members practice sustainability (Gao et al., 2022). Stakeholders’ varying expectations constitute supply chains’ diverse motives for practising sustainability (Hohn and Durach, 2023). Sustainability motives promote better-informed sustainability decisions, including engaging in sustainability information exchange and adopting appropriate collaborative social SSCM practices, and increased commitment to the success of these practices to meet varying stakeholder demands (Gao et al., 2022; Kitsis and Chen, 2020). This is consistent with stakeholder theory’s (ST) assertion that supply chains engage in sustainability practices to meet diverse stakeholder demands (Freeman et al., 2021; Paulraj et al., 2015).

There is a wide body of studies (Agyabeng-Mensah et al., 2024; Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Kitsis and Chen, 2020) investigating these factors in SSCM literature separately. Most of these studies focus on green SSCM practices (Asif et al., 2020; Chan et al., 2022; Chavez et al., 2023; Kitsis and Chen, 2020; Shahzad et al., 2024), while social SSCM practices remain largely neglected (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Lim et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). Given that social SSCM is still in its infancy (Yu et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b), specifically, empirical studies are lacking on how sustainability motives, collaborative social SSCM practices and sustainability information exchange interact to influence supply chain market performance. In this regard, it remains challenging to determine whether the adoption of collaborative social SSCM practices and sustainability information exchange generates market value and whether sustainability motives maximise the market potential of these practices. This might compromise collaboration and sustainability information exchange among firms across supply chains to address social issues, especially in emerging countries, where it is needed most due to resource constraints. As Ahmadi et al. (2024) emphasise, addressing research gaps through empirical research enhances practitioners’ understanding. Thus, it is imperative and timely to investigate whether synergy exists among these factors to inform managers’ decisions to nurture strategic motives and invest in productive practices to address social sustainability issues to create market value for their supply chains.

Given the preceding research gaps in social SSCM literature, this study proposes and tests a novel theoretical model that examines the relationships between sustainability motives (morally induced, stakeholder relationship induced and performance-based motives), collaborative social SSCM practices, sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance across manufacturing supply chains in Ghana. Specifically, this study dwells on ST and SCPV to examine: (1) the relationship between sustainability motives and collaborative social SSCM practices, (2) the mediating role of sustainability information exchange between collaborative social SSCM practices and supply chain market performance and (3) the moderating role of sustainability motives (stakeholder relationship induced, and performance-based motives) between sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance.

In addressing the research question, this study aims to contribute to social SSCM literature and practice on various fronts. First, it expands the understanding of drivers of social SSCM practices by highlighting three motive-based antecedents, moving beyond previous focuses on institutional norms (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) and capabilities (Nath and Agrawal, 2020). Our study contributes to the existing literature by offering a broader perspective on drivers of social SSCM practices. Second, this study deepens our limited knowledge of social SSCM practices’ benefits and the mechanisms through which social SSCM practices boost performance. Previous studies (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Fernando et al., 2022; Mani et al., 2020; Picasso et al., 2023) have emphasised the social and operational performance implications of social SSCM practices of individual firms. Our study provides a more nuanced view of the benefits of social SSCM practices by framing market performance as an outcome of collaborative social SSCM practices and incorporating sustainability information exchange as a mediator at the supply chain level. Third, this study elucidates the boundary condition affecting the efficacy of social SSCM practices and sustainability information exchange by examining the contingency role of sustainability motives, thus properly positioning SCPV and ST in social SSCM literature. Finally, it provides actionable insights for practitioners in emerging markets, emphasising the importance of aligning sustainability motives and sustainability information exchange with collaborative social SSCM practices to enhance market performance.

The ensuing sections of this study are presented as follows: Section 2 presents a literature review and hypothesis development; Section 3 presents the methodology; Section 4 presents data analysis and empirical results; and Section 5 presents the discussion and conclusion.

Motives can be complex when organisations such as supply chains engage in sustainability practices due to the need to meet the expectations of several stakeholders (Gao et al., 2022). Several attempts have been made in SSCM literature to examine various factors motivating supply chains to practice sustainability (Gao et al., 2022; Kitsis and Chen, 2020). Unfortunately, these studies (Chan et al., 2022; Gao et al., 2022; Kitsis and Chen, 2020; Shahzad et al., 2024) have focused on the motives driving the environmental aspect of SSCM practices while neglecting the social aspects. For instance, Kitsis and Chen (2020) examine multiple motives such as instrumental (performance-based motives), relational motives and moral motives driving green operations, sourcing and logistics. Chan et al. (2022) examined regulatory-based motives and performance-based motives on proactive versus reactive environmental strategies. Gao et al. (2022) focused on internal and external motives driving internal and external green SSCM practices. Shahzad et al. (2024) examined relational, instrumental and moral motives as drivers of green sourcing.

In SSCM literature, sustainability motives can broadly be categorised into morally induced motives (Hohn and Durach, 2023), performance-based motives (Chan et al., 2022) and stakeholder relationship-induced motives (Kitsis and Chen, 2020). Performance-based motives involve the belief that practising sustainability generates market value and profitability for the organisation (Chan et al., 2022) by improving corporate reputation, achieving competitive advantage and reducing operational costs (Kitsis and Chen, 2020). Stakeholder relationship-induced motives are the belief that sustainability practices help organisations build and maintain good relationships with stakeholders (Shahzad et al., 2023). Morally induced motives are the belief that engaging in sustainability practices is just right to do (Kitsis and Chen, 2020).

According to social SSCM studies (Kirchoff and Falasca, 2022; Shaw et al., 2021) drawing primarily on ST, firms across supply chains engage in SSCM practices to meet the different expectations of stakeholders such as shareholders, investors, consumers, regulatory authorities, non-governmental organisations and others (Mani et al., 2018; Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018). Thus, based on extant literature and providing a more holistic assessment of sustainability motives, this study concentrates on morally induced motives, performance-based motives and stakeholder relationship-induced motives.

Social SSCM practices can be broadly defined as activities by which a firm or a chain of firms engages to address product and process aspects of the supply chain that affect the safety, health and welfare of stakeholders (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Mani et al., 2020). Although social SSCM literature is nascent, several studies offer different conceptualisations. Some studies (Marshall et al., 2015; Mirzaei et al., 2023; Nath and Agrawal, 2020) categorise social SSCM practices into basic and advanced practices. Other scholars (Mani et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) focused on six areas of social SSCM – philanthropy, safety, equity, health, human rights and ethics – in the Chinese context. Fernando et al. (2022) explored social SSCM practices in key areas of the supply chain, such as procurement, design, production and distribution. Alghababsheh and Gallear (2021) investigated the assessment and collaborative practices of social SSCM practices. Our understanding of the nature of social SSCM practices is guided by a nascent but important theoretical perspective – SCPV (Carter et al., 2017). Previous SSCM studies (Kirchoff and Falasca, 2022; Shaw et al., 2021) drawing primarily on SCPV have suggested that to achieve the desired performance for all supply chain partners, firms across supply chains should engage in the same imitable and transferable practices. Thus, our study focuses on collaborative social SSCM practices to explain the market performance of the supply chain partners. Collaboration social SSCM practices involve a set of activities by which supply chain partners engage to effectively address employee and community welfare and safety issues across their supply chains (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021).

In addition, prior studies highlight the significance of a sustainability culture and entrepreneurial orientation (Marshall et al., 2015), social sustainability orientation (Croom et al., 2018), lean and agility (Nath and Agrawal, 2020), stakeholder pressure (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018; Vidal et al., 2023) and normative institution Guanxi (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) as the drivers of social SSCM practices. Concerning the benefits of social SSCM practices, the literature has focused on firm reputation (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018), social performance (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Fernando et al., 2022), operational performance (Croom et al., 2018; Mani et al., 2020; Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018; Nath and Agrawal, 2020) and economic performance (Mani et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). Despite these insights, limited studies comprehensively assess the various motives driving social SSCM practices and their market benefits. A lack of understanding of these motives and market benefits can hamper the effectiveness of SSCM (Chan et al., 2022; Kitsis and Chen, 2020).

SSCM literature underscores the importance of sustainability information exchange as a key requirement for supply chain collaboration (Chavez et al., 2021, 2023; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). SSCM literature (Chavez et al., 2021; Lai et al., 2015) distinguishes two types of sustainability information exchange: internal and external. Internal sustainability information exchange involves sharing information across various functions of a firm to achieve supply chain goals (Titah et al., 2016). External information exchange involves the mutual and voluntary exchange of information with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders on goals, responsibilities, strategies, benefits, practices and performance standards (Chavez et al., 2021; Lai et al., 2015). External information exchange has been recognised to maximise the performance of all supply chain members (Titah et al., 2016) and has been designated as the most important (Han et al., 2019) we focus on the external perspective of sustainability information exchange in this study as it aligns with the main tenet of SCPV. The exchange of sustainability information with suppliers, customers and other stakeholders has been identified as a critical practice and an integration competency that supports performance (Chavez et al., 2023). It allows supply chains to improve product design, sourcing of materials, production and distribution (Chavez et al., 2021) and increase awareness of their sustainability effort (Chavez et al., 2023). Information exchange with consumers, NGOs and regulatory authorities is vital for supply chains to demonstrate that they are responsible for obtaining legitimacy (Lai et al., 2015). In this study, sustainability information exchange focuses on information exchange with suppliers, customers and non-supply chain partners (Agyabeng-Mensah et al., 2024). While the performance importance of sustainability information exchange in SSCM has been recognised for a long time (Lai et al., 2015), the market benefit has not received due attention. SSCM literature has explored the impact of environmental information exchange on cost performance (Chavez et al., 2023), environmental performance (Chavez et al., 2021; Lai et al., 2015) and financial performance (Kong et al., 2021).

This study draws on ST and SCPV to examine the relationship between sustainability motives, collaborative social SSCM practices, sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance. Social SSCM literature has used the natural resource-based view (Fernando et al., 2022), dynamic capability theory (Nath and Agrawal, 2020), resource dependency (Mani et al., 2018), relational view (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021) and legitimacy theory (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018) to examine the benefits of unique practices and resources for individual firms in the supply chain. Conversely, as competition and risk associated with unsustainable practices shift from individual firms to supply chains (Gao et al., 2022), firms across supply chains are collaborating to practice imitable and transferrable practices to achieve collective performance goals (Carter et al., 2017; Kirchoff and Falasca, 2022). This assertion corroborates SCPV, an extension of a practice-based view (Bromiley and Rau, 2014), which explains how a set of imitable and transferrable practices of a network of firms generates collective performance benefits for them (Carter et al., 2017). SCPV highlights the importance of supply chain practices in achieving positive performance outcomes instead of a competitive advantage for a few leading firms (Carter et al., 2017; Shaw et al., 2021). The few studies drawing on SCPV focus on the performance of environmental differentiation (Kirchoff and Falasca, 2022) and digital procurement (Kosmol et al., 2019), and identifying the important enablers, inhibitors and benefits of environmental supply chain performance (Shaw et al., 2021). With little focus on social SSCM practices, our study extends the application of SCPV by examining how imitable sustainability practices, such as collaborative social SSCM practices and sustainability information exchange improve the market performance of all supply chain partners.

On the other hand, ST underpins the investigation of the relationship between sustainability motives and collaborative social SSCM practices and the effect of sustainability motives’ interaction with sustainability information exchange on supply chain market performance. ST argues that firms engage in sustainability practices to meet the various expectations of stakeholders, including employees, community residents, consumers, NGOs and shareholders (Freeman et al., 2021). This theory underscores the role of stakeholders in the motivation and behaviour of supply chains (Vidal et al., 2023). Studies focused on ST argue that supply chains engage in sustainability practices to build relationships with NGOs and regulatory authorities to gain legitimacy, earn profit to maximise shareholder wealth and project the moral values of employees and management (Kitsis and Chen, 2020; Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018). Based on ST and SSCM literature and shown in this study’s theoretical model (Figure 1), three different sustainability motives supply chains’ collaborative social SSCM practices. Also, SSCM literature argues that sustainability motives determine the commitment of firms towards practising sustainability (Chen and Chen, 2019). Hence, we do not deploy sustainability motives only as drivers of collaborative social SSCM practices but also as a boundary condition that affects the impact of sustainability information exchange on supply chain market performance. Our study presents an interesting perspective on ST since most studies have deployed it to explore stakeholder pressure as a driver of social SSCM practices (Uttam et al., 2024).

In response to the call of some studies (Carter and Easton, 2011; Touboulic and Walker, 2015) for more research using combined theoretical perspectives to provide original insights into supply chain management, we aim to identify different types of sustainability motives driving collaborative social SSCM practices and affecting sustainability information exchange. These different sustainability motive types could have varying effects on collaborative social SSCM practices and sustainability information exchange outcomes. This could indeed help in developing a taxonomy specific to improving social sustainability across manufacturing supply chains. We also explain mechanisms through which collaborative social SSCM practices improve supply chain market performance through sustainability information exchange.

Sustainability culture and entrepreneurial orientation (Marshall et al., 2015), social sustainability orientation (Croom et al., 2018), lean and agility (Nath and Agrawal, 2020), stakeholder pressure (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018; Vidal et al., 2023), and normative institution Guanxi (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) are identified as key drivers of social practices in SSCM literature. Despite these efforts, there is a notable gap in social SSCM literature concerning the sustainability motives of collaborative social SSCM practices. ST claims that supply chains have several stakeholders such as investors, NGOs, regulatory organisations, employees, community members, management, etc. with varying expectations (Freeman et al., 2021; Mahajan et al., 2023). For firms to meet the expectations of investors, management and employees, they adopt practices that can optimise financial performance (Chan et al., 2022). Performance-based motives are concerned with practising sustainability to improve corporate reputation and increase market share, sales and profitability (Chan et al., 2022). For supply chains to be able to optimise shareholder wealth and remain financially sound to pay employees and management wages and bonuses, they engage in practices that promote their financial well-being (Chan et al., 2022). Some studies (Croom et al., 2018; Mani et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) claim that adopting social SSCM practices can generate improved performance metrics such as market share, revenue, return on investment and customer satisfaction.

In addition, building and maintaining good relationships with some stakeholders can be another key motivation for supply chain members to practice sustainability (Chen and Chen, 2019). Stakeholders such as consumers, trade unions, regulatory authorities, NGOs, government and local communities may have little concern with the financial well-being of supply chains (Kitsis and Chen, 2020). Nonetheless, they have demonstrated the potential to ruin supply chains whose behaviour and activities are detrimental to people’s welfare and well-being (Touboulic and Walker, 2015) through product boycotts for supply chains to survive, they must build legitimacy, which is invaluable in fostering good relationships and reinforcing goodwill with stakeholders (Shahzad et al., 2024) even if those activities reduce firm profits (Paulraj et al., 2015). In this regard, supply chains engage in social SSCM practices such as supporting community cultural and educational development, providing consumers with safe products, and paying employees’ wages above the statutory minimum rate to build good relationships with these stakeholders (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). These practices have been associated with building good relationships with stakeholders by meeting the requirements of labour laws, avoiding trade union boycotts and demonstrations and increasing consumer satisfaction (Fernando et al., 2022; Mani et al., 2020).

Another important motivation for supply chains to engage in social SSCM practices is morally induced motives. Performance-based and stakeholder relationship-induced motives, while important, are inadequate to constitute the entire motives for practising social SSCM (Paulraj et al., 2015; Shahzad et al., 2024). Supply chains’ sustainability practices do not only emanate from the desire to appease multiple stakeholders or optimise financial gains but also from moral judgements (Kitsis and Chen, 2020; Shahzad et al., 2024). Some supply chains practice social SSCM because of their intrinsic higher-order values and/or genuine concern to contribute to society and create a better world for the future (Hohn and Durach, 2023). This means that morally induced motives are embedded within the complexity of supply chain decision-making concerning sustainability practices (Chen and Chen, 2019). Since SSCM practices may prove costly to a firm (Paulraj et al., 2015), it may choose not to engage in social stewardship if it does not have a strong sense of moral “duty,” because the economic benefit is not imminent (Hohn and Durach, 2023). These morally induced motives are driven by the top management and employees whose values are influenced by community values and ethics (Cai et al., 2024; Paulraj et al., 2015). Considering this, supply chains’ desire to engage in social SSCM practices can also spring purely from their ethical duty to contribute to society. Based on SSCM literature, our study attempts to complement prior research to explore the various sustainability motives driving collaborative social SSCM practices, consistent with ST. Hence, reflecting on the above discussion, based on the ST, we hypothesise that:

Some studies have shown that social SSCM practices have significant effects on social performance (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Mani et al., 2018), economic performance (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b), operational performance (Croom et al., 2018; Nath and Agrawal, 2020) and corporate reputation (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018). Also, Chavez et al. (2021, 2023) and Lai et al. (2015) have examined the environmental and cost benefits of information exchange. Conversely, these studies have typically been conducted in isolation. Although social SSCM literature often indicates that information exchange enhances the benefits of social sustainability practices (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021), the underlying mechanisms of this relationship remain unclear. In this study, we propose that sustainability information exchange serves as a mechanism linking collaborative social SSCM practices and supply chain market performance for manufacturing supply chains.

Our argument that collaborative social SSCM practices and sustainability information exchange positively drive supply chain market performance aligns with the logic of SCPV (Carter et al., 2017). As posited by SCPV, supply chains that engage in a set of imitable and transferrable practices can gain collective performance benefits (Carter et al., 2017). Collaborative social SSCM practices represent an interaction between supply chain members engaging in imitable practices to enhance people’s well-being and safety (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021) can generate positive performance such as consumer satisfaction and market share and revenue growth (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). While it has been suggested that social SSCM practices are essential for increased market share, consumer satisfaction and revenue generation (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b), it is not enough in itself if there is no information exchange (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021). A lack of information exchange across supply chains has been suggested as one of the key contributors to the poor performance of SSCM practices (Chavez et al., 2021). Supply chains can improve the performance of collaborative social SSCM practices through information exchange (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021). Information exchange is consistently required to achieve positive performance for supply chains (Lai et al., 2015; Tajeddini et al., 2024). Sustainability information exchange contributes to the efficiency and performance of supply chains through improved visibility and transparency, trust building, and reduced uncertainty and potential opportunistic behaviours and their associated costs in supply chain relationships (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021). Also, exchanging information about sustainability goals, achievements, strategies and responsibilities with outside stakeholders including consumers, regulatory authorities and NGOs conveys a signal of conformance to regulations and policies on social sustainability as well as commitment to human development (Chavez et al., 2023; Lai et al., 2015). A chain of firms can improve social reputation (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) by sharing information about their social SSCM practices such as supporting educational and cultural development and engaging in philanthropic activities (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018; Wang and Dai, 2018). Improved corporate reputation generates organisational legitimacy, which is linked with customer satisfaction, and increased repurchasing intention (Chan et al., 2022), attracting new customers and generating market share and sales growth (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018; Wang and Dai, 2018). With this in mind, we argue that sustainability information exchange serves as the mechanism to explain the relationship between collaborative social SSCM practices and supply chain market performance. Thus, we hypothesise that:

Previous SSCM literature on sustainability information exchange and performance has generally considered boundary conditions factors that range from sustainability orientation (Chavez et al., 2021) to digital orientation (Chavez et al., 2023). Yet, the role of sustainability motives remains unexplored. Two of these sustainability motives are stakeholder relationship-induced and performance-based motives which naturally can provide a contingency structure for social practices of supply chains. Our argument that stakeholder relationship-induced and performance-based motives can buffer the effect of sustainability information exchange is drawn from ST. ST suggests that a firm’s performance relies largely on activities that meet its stakeholder expectations and demands (Freeman et al., 2021).

A lack of motivation is a key reason for the failure of sustainability initiatives (Kitsis and Chen, 2020). Sustainability motives play a crucial role in the performance of sustainability initiatives (Chen and Chen, 2019). Motives of top management greatly influence the success of SSCM initiatives (Paulraj et al., 2015) through sustainability compliance and commitment (Chen and Chen, 2019). A recent study (Chen and Chen, 2019) discloses that supply chains’ motives strongly drive their sustainability commitment and compliance, leading to high performance outcomes. For instance, as sustainability issues become pivotal in the decisions of consumers, supply chains motivated to engage in SSCM practices to improve their financial performance are committed to sharing their sustainability goals, strategies, practices and achievements with them (Kitsis and Chen, 2020), which may create customer satisfaction (Chen et al., 2018) and increase market share by attracting new customers (Kong et al., 2021). Firms whose sustainability initiatives are market-driven demonstrate commitment (Chen and Chen, 2019) to the continuous exchange of information with consumers (Wu et al., 2014) to avoid product boycotts to generate positive performance (Kim and Kim, 2024) through better product performance (Kübler et al., 2020).

Besides, stakeholder relationship-induced motives can be a crucial factor in enhancing the performance of sustainability initiatives of supply chains, including sustainability information exchange. To begin with, stakeholder relationship-induced motives serve as a reason for firms to exchange sustainability information with stakeholders that do not have a financial interest in firms (Gao et al., 2022). It ensures that firms are committed to timely and accurate information exchange about their sustainability practices with stakeholders such as NGOs, regulatory authorities and civil society organisations to promote social legitimacy (Helfaya and Moussa, 2017). Corporate legitimacy means avoidance of stakeholders’ activities that could mar the reputation of the firm and jeopardise its market positioning (Hasan et al., 2016). In addition, supply chains that practice sustainability to build relationships with stakeholders increasingly prioritise sustainability initiatives, i.e. sustainability information exchange, to meet regulatory requirements and avoid fines (Chen and Chen, 2019). As a result, they can achieve customer satisfaction and market share growth through the avoidance of unnecessary fines that would be transferred to consumers through high product prices. This suggests that indeed, firms with high stakeholder relationship-induced and performance-based motives can improve the market benefits of sustainability information exchange. Therefore, our study theorises that:

This study uses survey data to explore the predictive relationships between sustainability motives, collaborative social SSCM practices and supply chain market performance. Survey data has been used extensively in SSCM literature to examine the relationships and interactions between sustainability concepts (Agyabeng-Mensah et al., 2022, 2024). This study could ideally use objective data for measuring the understudied constructs, especially supply chain market performance. Still, there are no available complete objective data on sustainability in Ghana (Agyabeng-Mensah et al., 2024). This study’s methodological flowchart presented in Figure 2 is explained in detail in the ensuing sections.

The measurement items used for sustainability motives, collaborative social SSCM practices and supply chain market-based performance were adapted from previous SSCM studies after an extensive literature review. Besides, we conducted a pretest using six supply chain managers from manufacturing firms and their suppliers and wholesalers, as well as six academics, including assistant and senior lecturers and professors in SSCM (Yu et al., 2024). These experts were tasked to comment and make suggestions on the reliability and validity of the measurement items and their relevance to the Ghanaian context. Their feedback was used to rephrase five double-barrelled items and drop two items unrelated to the Ghanaian context.

In the end, social collaborative SSCM practices were measured with five items adapted from Croom et al. (2018), Marshall et al. (2015) and Nath and Agrawal (2020). Performance-based motives were measured with items adapted from Chan et al. (2022), Chen and Chen (2019) and Kitsis and Chen (2020). Stakeholder relationship-induced motives and morally induced motives were measured using four and three items, respectively, and the items were adapted from Chen and Chen (2019) and Kitsis and Chen (2020). Sustainability information exchange is measured with four items adapted from Chavez et al. (2021) and Lai et al. (2015). Supply chain market-based performance was measured using three items adapted from Kirchoff and Falasca (2022) and Agyabeng-Mensah et al. (2020). A six-point Likert scale from “1 = strongly disagree” to “6 = strongly agree” excluding the middle point of “neither agree nor disagree” was used for measuring the items.

This study incorporates three control variables – firm age (measured by the number of years the firm has been in operation), firm size (measured by the number of employees) and manufacturing industry (represented by a dummy variable) into its theoretical model. This study controlled for firm size and age because old or large firms might possess more relevant organisational resources to invest in SSCM practices compared to small or young firms (Cai et al., 2024; Yang and Wang, 2023). Moreover, supply chain members from different industries may be subjected to varying laws, which will influence the extent of social SSCM practices and their performance outcome (Wang et al., 2023a, 2023b). The measurement items and criteria such as factor loadings, composite reliability (CR), Cronbach’s alpha (Cα) and average variance extracted (AVE) used for measuring the reliability and validity of the constructs are displayed in Table 1.

This study sequentially combined simple random and snowballing sampling techniques (Swierczek, 2020) to sample and gather survey data from top executives (CEOs, supply chain, operations, sustainability and general managers) of manufacturing firms and their suppliers, retailers, wholesalers and distributors in Ghana. The participants in these positions had adequate information about the sustainability practices of their firm and their firm’s position in the supply chain network to answer the questionnaires (Adomako et al., 2021; Agyabeng-Mensah et al., 2022; Danso et al., 2020). First, this study randomly selected 360 manufacturing firms out of 960 manufacturing firms from the database of the Association of Ghana Industries and the Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industries. This study contacted 360 manufacturing firms through phone calls to enquire about their sustainability practices with their key suppliers and customers and their willingness to participate in this study. After the calls, 210 manufacturing firms confirmed their sustainability practices and agreed to participate in the data collection.

The manufacturing firms who agreed to participate in this study provided contact information of their key suppliers, and one of their wholesalers, distributors and retailers, they collaboratively implemented social sustainability. The firms were also contacted by phone, and they agreed to participate. This study used emails, WhatsApp and LinkedIn platforms to administer three hundred and 60 (Google Forms) and two hundred and 70 face-to-face paper questionnaires concurrently to respondents from manufacturing firms and their selected supply chain partners. The online and face-to-face questionnaires were undertaken concurrently to avoid the error of gathering multiple data from a respondent. After three rounds of sending reminders, the respondents returned 262 usable questionnaires, representing a response rate of 41.59%. The data collection was conducted from January to March 2023.

Though more time could increase the response rate, this study’s sample size is validated by the minimum sample size of 166 determined using G power software with a small effect size of 0.20, five predictors, a power of 0.99 and an error term of 0.01 before data collection. To avoid missing data and waste of responses, this study ensured that (a) the respondents fully completed the self-administered questionnaires before collecting them and (b) each question in the online survey was mandatory (Table 2).

This study examined non-response bias by comparing the early responses to the late ones. The number of employees and annual sales of the early 132 responses with the first six weeks of data collection, and the number of employees and annual sales of the late 130 responses collected over the last seven weeks (Yu et al., 2024). Since early and late responses did not differ significantly at p < 0.05, nonresponse bias is not an issue in this study. To control for desirability bias and common method variance, participants were asked to answer questions on their supply chains’ behalf rather than on subjective opinions and were assured full anonymity and that results would be published in aggregate.

In addition, this study examined the data for common method variance using a variance-inflated factor (VIF). The VIF values (1.331–1.844) are less than 3.30, confirming the absence of common method variance (Kock, 2015). This study further confirmed the lack of common method variance because Harman’s one-factor test revealed that no single factor accounts for more than 50% of the variance in the data set in all the constructs. The normality of the data was confirmed because Cramér–von Mises’s values are significant at zero (Guenther et al., 2023). The skewness and kurtosis values ranging from −0.813 to −1.305 and −0.04 to 2.158, respectively, confirmed the normality of the data and absence of outliers because the values were within the acceptable range of −2 to 2 and −7 to 7, respectively (Agyabeng-Mensah et al., 2024).

This study uses SmartPLS 4 software to analyse the survey data. PLS-SEM is designed for testing predictive and interaction relationships between multi-item constructs (Wang et al., 2023a, 2023b). PLS-SEM has been used extensively to evaluate theories/hypotheses in supply chain management (Wang et al., 2023a, 2023b). The study followed a three-stage PLS-SEM analysis involving measurement model, predictive model and structural model assessments to produce robust findings (Guenther et al., 2023). First, this study used the PLS algorithm with a subsample of 1,000 to determine the reliability and validity of the model through measurement model estimation. Second, the predictive capabilities of the model were examined using the PLS-predict algorithm. Finally, a bias-corrected and accelerated (BCa) bootstrap with a 95% confidence interval with a subsample of 10,000 was used to estimate the structural model containing the control variables to ascertain the statistical significance of the hypotheses (Streukens and Leroi-Werelds, 2016).

Measurement model assessment is used to determine the reliability and validity of the construct. (Guenther et al., 2023). The model is reliable and valid since item loadings, Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, AVEs and heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) ratio values meet all the recommended thresholds (Guenther et al., 2023). Table 1 shows that composite reliability (0.782–0.899) and Cronbach’s alpha (0.785–0.896) values are higher than the 0.70 minimum thresholds, and AVEs (0.523–0.767) are greater than the 0.50 minimum threshold (Guenther et al., 2023). HTMT values (0.379–0.787), shown in Table 3, are lower than the maximum threshold of 0.85 (Guenther et al., 2023).

This study uses PLSpredict and cross-validated predictive ability test (CVPAT), coefficient of determination (R²), model fit and the significance of the path coefficient to evaluate the structural model (Guenther et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2023a, 2023b). The R² values suggest that the sustainability motives explain 32.7% of collaborative social SSCM practices, collaborative social SSCM practices explain 30% of sustainability information exchange, and collaborative social SSCM practices, sustainability information exchange and collaborative social SSCM practices explain 50.2% of supply chain market performance.

Also, this study’s model has high predictive capabilities because the endogenous constructs (collaborative social SSCM practices, sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance) and their items have Q²predict values greater than 0.000 and PLS-SEM_RMSE (root mean square of error) and PLS-SEM_MAE (mean absolute error) values are less than their linear model (LM)_RMSE and LM_MAE values. Besides, this study confirms the predictive capability of the model using CVPAT (Table 4). The study finds that the overall average loss difference values for PLS-SEM vs Indicator average and PLS-SEM vs Linear model of the endogenous variables are significant at t-values = 4.565, p = 0.000 and t = 2.919, p = 0.004, respectively. Finally, the results reveal that the model is fit to produce sound findings since standardised root mean residual (SRMR) values of 0.078 for saturated and estimated models are less than the maximum threshold of 0.080 (Dash and Paul, 2021).

After examining the constructs’ validity, reliability and predictive capability, this study applied a bias-corrected (BCa) bootstrapping approach with 10,000 resamples and a confidence interval (CI) of 0.95 to examine the model’s direct, mediating and moderating relationships. The findings in Table 5 suggest that performance-based motives (β = 0.251, p = 0.003), stakeholder relationship-induced motives (β = 0.204, p = 0.012) and morally induced motives (β = 0.242, p = 0.000) have positive direct effects on collaborative social SSCM practices, supporting H1a–H1c. Comparing the size of path coefficients of H1a–H1c, performance-based motives are the most important driver of collaborative social SSCM practices, followed by morally induced motives and, lastly, stakeholder relationship-induced motives. In addition, we find a positive effect of collaborative social SSCM practices on sustainability information exchange (β = 0.427, p = 0.000), while sustainability information exchange has a positive impact on supply chain market performance (β = 0.571, p = 0.000), supporting H2 and H3. Therefore, the results displayed in Table 6 confirm that sustainability information exchange mediates the relationships between collaborative social SSCM practices and supply chain market performance (t = 0.107, p = 0.003), supporting H4. Subsequently, this study finds that performance-based motives (t = 2.369, p = 0.018), and stakeholder relationship-induced motives (t = 3.040, p = 0.002) positively moderate the relationship between sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance, thus, supporting H5a and H5b. Finally, we find that firm size and industry type have a positive impact on supply chain market performance while firm age does not affect supply chain market performance. Interestingly, after removing all control variables from the model, we did not observe significant changes in the coefficients of the relationship between the main variables, thus, our results remained the same.

Social SSCM literature has greatly enhanced our understanding of drivers, boundary factors and performance implications of SSCM practices. Yet, these studies have largely overlooked the various sustainability motives driving collaborative social SSCM practices as well as how sustainability information exchange and sustainability motives influence the market performance of collaborative social SSCM practices. These oversights undermine the successful practising of social SSCM to address social challenges and achieve market goals for firms across supply chains. Thus, our study focuses on advancing our understanding of the key motives driving social SSCM practices and how sustainability motives and sustainability information exchange can be leveraged effectively to improve the market benefits of collaborative social SSCM practices. Specifically, we dwell on ST and SCPV to empirically examine the relationship between sustainability motives (performance-based motives, morally induced motives, stakeholder relationship-induced motives), collaborative social SSCM practices, sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance across manufacturing supply chains in Ghana. The findings are discussed below.

Our study finds that performance-based motives, stakeholder relationship-induced motives and morally induced motives have positive effects on collaborative social SSCM practices. However, performance-based motives have the greatest influence on collaborative social SSCM practices. Generally, this empirical evidence confirms the assertion of previous studies (Chen and Chen, 2019; Kitsis and Chen, 2020; Paulraj et al., 2015; Shahzad et al., 2024) that emphasise the multiplicity of motives driving SSCM practices. These results also support the underlying tenet of ST which suggests that various corporate stakeholders’ interests and expectations can be driving forces behind sustainability practices. Specifically, our findings are unconventional as most SSCM studies (Chen and Chen, 2019; Kitsis and Chen, 2020; Paulraj et al., 2015; Shahzad et al., 2024) identified the stakeholder-relationship-induced motives and morally induced motives as the key driving factors for sustainability practices. For instance, Mani et al. (2020) and Zhang et al. (2024a, 2024b) underscore government and regulatory bodies and social norms as the key drivers of social SSCM practices of manufacturing firms. Our findings offer a fundamental departure from the prevalent notion of drivers of social SSCM practices and suggest practising social SSCM practices across manufacturing supply chains is in pursuit of product differentiation, corporate reputation, competitive advantage, market growth and profitability. Therefore, if major stakeholders in the market such as consumers would constantly provide positive responses to manufacturing supply chains’ social practices, it is likely that they would be motivated to address social issues even more proactively.

In addition, our study confirms the mediating role of sustainability information exchange between collaborative social SSCM practices and supply chain market performance. Our finding emphasises the synergy between sustainability information exchange and collaborative social SSCM practices. This aligns with SCPV, which accentuates the exploration of synergistic effects between a set of imitable and transferrable practices in achieving collective performance benefits for all supply chain partners (Carter et al., 2017). Our study provides empirical corroboration of studies stressing the potential mediating factors between social SSCM practices and performance (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021). It is logical to find that these sustainability practices result in higher performance in the marketplace because performance-induced motives are the major drivers of collaborative social SSCM practices. Still, our findings differ from previous studies (Mani et al., 2020b; Nath and Agrawal, 2020; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) and counter to the prevailing belief that firms can achieve performance increments including customer satisfaction, market share and revenue growth through only social SSCM practices. Contrarily, we argue that firms across manufacturing supply chains enhance their market benefits from social SSCM practices by effectively communicating their sustainability objectives, accomplishments, strategies and practices with their supply chain partners and other stakeholders. By exchanging sustainability information, firms across manufacturing supply chains can foster trust, transparency, visibility and information symmetry among themselves and their key stakeholders, including customers, which enhances overall market performance. Given this, we highlight the crucial role of sustainability information exchange in translating collaborative social SSCM practices into market benefits by helping supply chains address market uncertainty from information asymmetry, mistrust and scepticism that hinder successful sustainability practices.

Finally, our findings reveal a positive moderating effect of performance-based and stakeholder-relationship-induced motives on the relationship between sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance. Our findings align with previous studies (Chavez et al., 2021, 2023; Lai et al., 2015) that underscore the impact of boundary conditions on the performance implications of sustainability information exchange. Our study proves that the positive impact of sustainability information exchange on supply chain market performance is stronger when stakeholder relationship building, and profitability pursuit are embedded in firms’ motivation for engaging in sustainability practices. The presence of performance-based and stakeholder-relationship-induced motives thus amplifies the market benefits of exchanging sustainability information. We stress the critical role of sustainability motives in improving the market performance of manufacturing supply chains. Consequently, it is important to consider sustainability motives when engaging in sustainability information exchange to enhance market performance for all supply chain partners.

This study contributes to social SSCM literature in four ways. First, our study contributes to social SSCM literature by deepening our understanding of drivers of social SSCM practices by highlighting three motive-based antecedents. Previous studies (Nath and Agrawal, 2020; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) have failed to address the influence of different motives on social SSCM practices. Our study contributes to this area of inquiry by specifically identifying performance-based motives, stakeholder relationship-induced motives and morally induced motives as significant sources of motivation for collaborative social SSCM practices. This extension is vital because previous studies emphasise the significant role of institutional norms (Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b) and dynamic capabilities (Nath and Agrawal, 2020) in firms’ practice of social SSCM practices. This nuanced understanding extends the dialogue in social SSCM literature by challenging the prevailing belief that institutional norms and dynamic capabilities are the strategic levers that trigger firms’ social SSCM practices.

Second, this study reveals the mechanisms by which collaborative social SSCM practices impact supply chain market performance through sustainability information exchange. Given that social SSCM practices are still at an early stage (Picasso et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b), previous studies have overlooked their market benefits and the pathways essential for translating these practices into effective market outcomes. Past studies (Alghababsheh and Gallear, 2021; Fernando et al., 2022; Mani et al., 2020; Picasso et al., 2023) have emphasised the social and operational performance implications of social SSCM practices of individual firms. In this context, this study contributes to social SSCM literature by offering empirical evidence highlighting the mediating effect of sustainability information exchange in translating collaborative SSCM practices into positive market performance. Thus, our study deepens our limited knowledge of the mechanisms through which supply chains deploy social SSCM practices to strengthen their market positioning. We add to and offer a more nuanced view of social SSCM literature on performance by framing market performance as an outcome of collaborative social SSCM practices through sustainability information exchange at the supply chain level.

Third, our study contributes to the SSCM discussion on boundary conditions affecting the efficacy of sustainability information exchange by demonstrating the moderating effect of performance-based motives and stakeholder relationship-induced motives. Previous studies highlight digital orientation (Chavez et al., 2023), sustainability orientation (Chavez et al., 2021) and environmental munificence (Lai et al., 2015), while often overlooking the critical role played by motives in shaping the efficacy of sustainability information exchange. In this regard, sustainability motives as important intrinsic boundary conditions have not received the needed attention. Our findings on performance-based motives and stakeholder relationship-induced motives as moderators in the relationship between sustainability information exchange and supply chain market performance introduce a compelling twist that resources (Chavez et al., 2021, 2023) and industry conditions (Lai et al., 2015) are not the only factors that are important to the performance of sustainability information exchange. In light of this, we enrich this line of the literature by revealing that performance-based motives and stakeholder relationship-induced motives help to shape the market benefits of sustainability information exchange.

Fourth, we contribute to SCPV and ST by highlighting how sustainability motives, collaborative social SSCM practices and sustainability information exchange can enhance the market performance of firms across manufacturing supply chains. Concerning ST, our study identifies the multiple sustainability motives driving collaborative social SSCM practices and serving as boundary conditions for the impact of sustainability information exchange on supply chain market performance. This nuanced perspective is crucial to ST literature since previous studies have principally deployed ST to examine stakeholder pressure as a driver of a firm’s social sustainability practices (Uttam et al., 2024). On the other hand, our study contributes to the development of SCPV by revealing the synergistic impact of sustainability information exchange and collaborative social SSCM practices on supply chain market performance. Previous SSCM studies on SCPV concentrate on environmental differentiation (Kirchoff and Falasca, 2022) and digital procurement (Kosmol et al., 2019) while highlighting key enablers, inhibitors and benefits of environmental supply chain performance (Shaw et al., 2021).

Considering that social SSCM practices are still in the early stages of development (Picasso et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b), it is crucial to build an effective implementation process to realise the full market potential of social SSCM practices. Our study not only enriches the theoretical landscape of social SSCM but also equips manufacturing supply chains with actionable knowledge to make informed decisions that promote collaborative social SSCM practices. First, this study finds that performance-based, stakeholders-relationship-induced and morally induced motives drive collaborative social SSCM practices. The general assumption is that firms’ social sustainability practices emanate mainly from extrinsic factors such as societal norms and regulatory compliance which firms comply with to gain legitimacy (Mani et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2024a, 2024b). Meanwhile, this study innovatively finds that intrinsic motivators such as performance-based motives focused on enhancing corporate reputation and achieving product differentiation, competitive advantage, and market share and revenue growth are the greatest drivers of practising social SSCM across manufacturing supply chains in Ghana. It should be highlighted that pitching on performance-based motives alone while ignoring moral values and building good relationships with key stakeholders exposes manufacturing supply chains’ social sustainability practices to a high risk of failure. This is because manufacturing supply chains are most likely to focus on social sustainability practices that will generate outcomes that align with their immediate financial interests.

Yet, manufacturing supply chains require social sustainability practices that align with their moral values to move beyond the fringe of compliance to truthfully commit to sustainability and build strong relationships with stakeholders to gain legitimacy. This study’s findings encourage manufacturing supply chains to recognise complementarity among morally induced, stakeholder relationship-induced and performance-based motives in selecting social SSCM practices capable of building and maintaining rapport with important stakeholders such as employees, labour organisations, regulatory authorities and NGOs and project their moral values while seeking to achieve their financial goals.

Second, this study finds that collaborative social SSCM practices have a positive impact on a supply chain market-based performance through sustainability information exchange. This finding means that manufacturing supply chains in Ghana and similar developing countries should not stick to the conventional view that social SSCM practices are associated with only operational and social benefits such as lead time and cost reduction, quality delivery, flexibility, human rights, child labour and safety and labour condition improvement but they can generate market benefits such as consumer satisfaction and growth in revenue and market share across manufacturing supply chains. This finding encourages manufacturing supply chains to collaboratively practice social SSCM, such as participating in philanthropic activities, producing safe products for consumers, offering support for community’s educational and cultural development, providing opportunities for employees’ educational development and adequately remunerating employees and exchange sustainability information with relevant stakeholders to improve market-based performance. In this case, this study encourages manufacturing supply chains to invest in technological capabilities such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics and blockchain to acquire, process and share accurate and timely sustainability information with consumers and relevant stakeholders to eliminate information asymmetry and improve supply chain visibility and transparency – thus increasing their market reach, customer satisfaction and revenue.

The findings from this study offer some important public policy and societal implications. This study’s findings suggest that in manufacturing supply chains’ efforts to improve their market-based performance, they engage in social sustainability practices such as philanthropic activities, and community educational and cultural development initiatives with significant implications on societal welfare and development. These sustainability practices are costly with no immediate financial benefits. An important step that public policy officials can take to promote these initiatives is to provide policies such as tax rebates on the cost of philanthropic and community development initiatives. By doing so, policymakers can rope in many manufacturing supply chains to practise social sustainability that has societal implications.

Besides, this study encourages governments to make policy frameworks that promote stakeholder sustainability awareness and are binding on successive governments to adequately fund regulatory authorities and provide financial support for the operations of NGOs, and organised labour organisations that promote social sustainability. These stakeholders’ expectations drive manufacturing supply chains to engage in sustainability practices. This is crucial in developing countries like Ghana where government institutions including regulatory bodies are not adequately funded and empowered, consumer sustainability awareness is budding, and NGOs and labour organisations receive little to no support from the government.

In promoting consumer and related stakeholder awareness, an important step policymakers can take is to provide increased transparency on how firms across manufacturing supply chains are performing on ESG dimensions. By doing so, consumers and other stakeholders will have access to adequate information that they can use to assess the social sustainability impact of manufacturing supply chains’ operations. An important implication is that consumers and related stakeholders will have more data at their disposal to make informed purchasing decisions, hence motivating manufacturing supply chains to improve their social sustainability practices.

Finally, this study is highly relevant to the United Nations’ SDGs, particularly SDG1, No Poverty, SDG 4, Quality Education, SDG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth and SDG9, Build Resilient Infrastructure, Promote Inclusive and Sustainable Industrialisation and Foster Innovation. Our study indicates that producing safe products for consumers, offering support for community’s educational and cultural development, providing opportunities for employees’ educational development, adequately remunerating employees and exchanging sustainability information with stakeholders generate positive market outcomes. This empirical evidence can encourage manufacturing supply chains to provide decent working conditions (SDG8), support employees’ and communities’ educational development to improve quality education (SDG4) and pay employees adequate wages to eradicate poverty (SDG1). This study underscores the importance of sustainability information exchange, which can drive manufacturing supply chains to invest in innovative digital capabilities such as AI, Internet of Things, blockchain and big data analytic capabilities to acquire, process and share information to promote sustainable industrialisation and innovation (SDG 9).

This study’s model is limited to manufacturing supply chains in Ghana. In addition, given that this study is a cross-sectional assessment of manufacturing supply chains in Ghana, contextual circumstances might have influenced the data. While this study took precautions to mitigate response biases, respondents with less knowledge about social SSCM practices and the overall strategy of the supply chain may have unconsciously misrepresented their opinions. This is also a shortcoming of single-respondent surveys where data cannot be triangulated. In addition, with insignificant moderating effects, different contingent variables and performance outcomes such as blockchain, AI, supply chain modern slavery capability, corporate reputation and employee and community-oriented performance could also be explored. For example, do AI and supply chain modern slavery capabilities moderate the relationship between social SSCM practices and employee and community-oriented performances? Are there trade-offs between market-based, operational and social performance implications of social SSCM practices? Finally, future studies can explore other important variables such as supply chain learning capabilities and supply chain sustainability culture.

Ethical approval before data collection and informed consent of all participants were obtained.