Sustainability in global supply chains: Analyzing the practices, power relations, and temporalities of inter-organizational paradox

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Stephanie Schrage
• Subject Area: Management and Marketing
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 561567523

The growing focus on sustainability in business organizations confronts them with paradoxical tensions—conflicting yet interconnected demands that persist over time. These sustainability paradoxes occur at various organizational levels, becoming particularly complex when extending to inter-organizational dynamics in global supply chains. Global supply chains, intricate networks comprising buyers and suppliers, are marked by power imbalances and fragmented governance. Consequently, effectively addressing sustainability tensions within global supply chains necessitates Western purchasing firms to engage in collaborative inter-organizational practices with their suppliers and other stakeholders. They need to manage both the complex power relations in global supply chains and the inter-temporal characteristics of sustainability paradoxes, where they have to meet short-term profit goals, while reducing long-term risks related to social and environmental demands. Paradox theory suggests that embracing tensions with a "both/and" mindset can unlock their creative and innovative potential. While there is growing body of research on inter-organizational paradox, we lack knowledge on the temporal and power dynamics of these large-scale challenges. This project aims to investigate the practices, power relations and temporalities involved in inter-organizational sustainability paradoxes within global supply chains. It produces three academic studies. Paper 1 conducts a systematic literature review of the interdisciplinary literature on the inter-organizational management of sustainability, employing a paradox lens. Papers 2 and 3 take a qualitative, theory-building approach, focusing on the supply chain relationships of the project’s practice partner - a medium-sized, German importing company. Paper 2 conducts a comparative case study analyzing buyer-supplier relations in two contrasting supply chains. The collected data will be analyzed using Grounded Theory methods resulting in a model of types and trajectories of inter-organizational paradox management practices, given contrasting power relations. Paper 3 employs a one-year ethnographic study focused on a single supply chain and results in a process model of the evolvement of inter-organizational paradox over time, unpacking the inter-temporal characteristics of sustainability paradox as well as temporal practices. The project contributes to paradox theory by unpacking the power relations, temporalities and temporal practices of inter-organizational paradox. It also answers calls to elucidate on the collective endeavors of actors confronted with inter-organizational paradox. Moreover, the project enriches the sustainability management and supply chain literatures, systemizing them applying a paradox lens to sustainability in global supply chains.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants