Sustainable supply chain flexibility and its relationship to circular economy-target performance |
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Authors: | Chunguang Bai Joseph Sarkis Fengfu Yin Yijie Dou |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China cbai@uestc.edu.cn https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9461-1632;3. Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0143-804X;4. College of Electromechanical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China;5. Center for Industrial and Business Organization, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, People’s Republic of China |
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Abstract: | The circular economy (CE) is an evolving economic and sustainable development model. In this new environment, companies face a more dynamic, uncertain, and complex market environment. These challenges arise from material closed-loop flows necessary for a functioning CE. It is important to build flexibility capabilities into sustainable supply chains to address CE operational challenges. Building this operational capability needs to occur without incurring performance degradation, increasing costs, or compromising product quality. Supply chain designers have recognised the importance of sustainable supply chain flexibility (SSCF) efforts for meeting CE-targeted performance. CE-targeted performance includes reuse of materials and energy, closed flow of materials, and pollution reduction. Exploration of relationships between SSCF efforts and CE-targeted performance is limited. An objective-DEMATEL method is used to evaluate the relationship between a new SSCF measures framework and CE-targeted performance. A field study helps to identify and refine significant SSCF measures (efforts) to effectively improve CE-targeted performance. Managerial implications and future research directions for sustainable supply chain flexibility within the CE environment are presented. |
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Keywords: | Flexibility sustainable supply chain circular economy environment rough set theory DEMATEL |
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