Navigating paradoxes within sustainable supply chains: a socio-technical perspective

Abstract

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) inherently produces paradoxical tensions, characterised as interdependent yet conflicting demands arising from economic, social, and environmental objectives (Cichosz et al., 2025; Zehendner et al., 2021). While these tensions are widely recognised, the systemic mechanisms driving their emergence and resolution remain insufficiently understood, which hinders effective management. Addressing this gap, this thesis employs a socio-technical perspective to investigate how paradoxical tensions manifest within SSCM systems, how organisations develop structural responses, and how organisational maturity influences strategic adaptation.
The empirical insights of this thesis were derived from an abductive, multiple-case study involving 22 organisations across five industries and 4 third parties. Data collection involved 54 semi-structured interviews, enriched by archival documents and observational insights. Findings reveal that paradoxical tensions predominantly stem from socio-technical misalignments; specifically, inconsistencies between technological subsystems, such as technology, task, and process, and social attributes, including cultural norms or power structures, create tensions. The study identifies four core tension types, learning, belonging, organising, and performing, which manifest distinctly across different supply chain activities, including procurement, production, distribution, and recycling, due to varying subsystem interdependencies.
Crucially, the research demonstrates that organisations navigate tensions through socio-technical coupling, which refers to the deliberate structural redesign of SSCM practices to align technological capabilities with social processes. When successfully implemented, this coupling enables four key strategic responses: contextualisation for adapting priorities situationally, temporal separation to sequence conflicting goals, spatial separation to allocate goals across different units, and synthesis for integrating dualities. Furthermore, the effectiveness of these strategies depends significantly on an organisation’s level of maturity. Firms follow distinct capability development pathways: specifically, legitimacy-seeking, reverse capability building, knowledge-mediated digitalisation, or systemic synthesis, depending on their existing sustainability knowledge base and level of digital readiness.
Theoretically, this work advances the SSCM literature by integrating socio-technical systems theory with paradox management, demonstrating how tensions arise from the interactions between subsystems rather than isolated factors. Practically, it offers managers a diagnostic framework for identifying tension sources, a typology of redesign strategies, and maturity-contingent roadmaps for capability development. Collectively, these contributions empower organisations to transform sustainability tensions from managerial constraints into catalysts for creating resilient and responsible value.

Date of Award	15 Nov 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Nottingham
Supervisor	Hing Kai Chan (Supervisor) & Tiantian Zhang (Supervisor)