Sustainable Supplier Management - A Review of Models Supporting Sustainable Supplier Selection, Monitoring, and Development

International Journal of Production Research
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Sustainable supplier management – a review of

models supporting sustainable supplier selection,
monitoring and development
Konrad Zimmer, Magnus Fröhling & Frank Schultmann
To cite this article: Konrad Zimmer, Magnus Fröhling & Frank Schultmann (2015):
Sustainable supplier management – a review of models supporting sustainable supplier
selection, monitoring and development, International Journal of Production Research, DOI:
10.1080/00207543.2015.1079340
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Download by: [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] Date: 03 October 2015, At: 09:05
International Journal of Production Research, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2015.1079340
Sustainable supplier management – a review of models supporting sustainable supplier

selection, monitoring and development
Konrad Zimmera*, Magnus Fröhlinga and Frank Schultmanna,b
a
Institute of Industrial Production (IIP), Department of Economics and Management, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT),
Germany; bEntrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre (ECIC), University of Adelaide, Australia
(Received 6 November 2014; accepted 4 July 2015)
In the last two decades, pressure from various stakeholders has forced many companies to establish environmental and
social improvements both in their company and their supply chains. The growing number of journal publications and
Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 09:05 03 October 2015
conference proceedings confirms this change also in academia. The aim of this paper is to analyse and review scientific
literature on sustainable supplier management (SSM) with a focus on formal models supporting decision-making in sus-
tainable supplier selection, monitoring and development. For this purpose, a framework on SSM is proposed and a com-
prehensive content analysis including a criteria analysis is carried out. Beyond this, in total 143 peer-reviewed
publications between 1997 and 2014 have been analysed to identify both established and overlooked research fields.
Major findings are the rapidly growing interest of this topic in academia in recent years, the predominance of Analytic
Hierarchy Process, Analytic Network Process and fuzzy-based approaches, the focus on the final evaluation and selection
process step and the rare investigation of social and quantitative metrics. This review may be useful for practitioners and
scientists as it outlines major characteristics in this field, which can serve as a basis for further research.
Keywords: decision support systems; purchasing; literature review; sustainability; supplier selection; evaluation criteria
1. Introduction
Increasing outsourcing activities to suppliers and their upstream supply chains led to a high importance of the purchasing
function in companies (Ash 2007; Dou and Sarkis 2010). Thus, it is not uncommon that nowadays supply chains generate
a value added of over 80% of the final product (Hartley and Choi 1996; Bai and Sarkis 2011). As a consequence, suppli-
ers and supply chains became increasingly critical for the success of companies (Handfield et al. 2002). It is therefore no
longer only a competition among companies but also among their supply chains (Lambert and Cooper 2000; Li et al.
2006; Bai and Sarkis 2014). In addition, especially within the last two decades, stricter regulations and pressure from
various stakeholders have forced many companies to establish environmental and social improvements both in their com-
pany and their manufacturing supply chains (Azzone and Bertelè 1994; Sarkis 1998; Büyüközkan 2012).
This combination of growing importance of supply chains and environmental and social issues already stimulated
companies to incorporate social and environmental aspects in their supplier management (Govindan, Khodaverdi, and
Jafarian 2013; Azadnia, Saman, and Wong 2015). In summary, triggers and drivers of this development have been stric-
ter regulations, increased competition, exacerbating scarcity of resources, requirements of shareholders and various
stakeholders and growing customer expectations (Epstein and Roy 2001; Walker, Di Sisto, and McBain 2008). However,
the integration of social and environmental issues became a necessary step for the long-term competitiveness of focal
companies and their supply chains (Bai and Sarkis 2010b; Dou, Zhu, and Sarkis 2014).
To derive the greatest benefit from sustainable supplier management (SSM), organizations must integrate all mem-
bers of the upstream supply chain. Consequently, SSM plays a major role in sustainable supply chain design, encourag-
ing to economic, environmental and social performance improvements beyond first-tier suppliers (Lamming and
Hampson 1996; Handfield et al. 2002; Verghese and Lewis 2007; Büyüközkan 2012; Büyüközkan and Çifçi 2012a). In
this context of sustainability, focal companies are therefore often held responsible for their upstream supply chains (Dai
and Blackhurst 2012; Theißen and Spinler 2014). Nevertheless, the integration of the environmental and social dimen-
sion in SSM is by far not a simple task. Buyers must purchase goods and services of those suppliers, and supply chains
that can provide them not only at the lowest costs, best quality and highest flexibility but also in a socially and
environmentally responsible manner (Handfield et al. 2002). In this context, formal decision support models have
*Corresponding author. Email: konrad.zimmer@kit.edu
© 2015 Taylor & Francis

2 K. Zimmer et al.
emerged as a way for companies to achieve competitive advantages and to support buyers (Genovese et al. 2013;
Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet 2013; Nielsen et al. 2014; Govindan et al. 2015).
While the focus of the majority of related scientific publications laid predominantly on theory-driven, conceptual,
empirical or case studies as outlined by Seuring and Müller (2008), numerous papers on formal decision support models
have been published in recent years (Hassini, Surti, and Searcy 2012; Herva and Roca 2013; Seuring 2013;
Brandenburg et al. 2014; Taticchi et al. forthcoming). Especially in SSM, formal models supporting decision-making in
supplier selection, supplier monitoring and supplier development have been increasingly studied predominantly in the
last 4 years. However, comprehensive literature reviews on formal quantitative and qualitative decision support models
in SSM are scarce. Some comprehensive reviews exist, but they focus on environmental supplier selection, do not con-
sider social aspects and need an update since more than half of all related papers have been published after their
analysis (Genovese et al. 2013; Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet 2013; Govindan et al. 2015). Literature reviews addressing
the three dimensions of sustainability in related research fields exist on a broader level (cf. Section 3). They analyse the
literature on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), but lack process-specific issues of supplier selection, moni-
toring and development with regard to sustainability. In contrast, this review focuses on formal decision support models
in SSM rather than on the broader research field of SSCM.
Thereby, the following research questions shall be answered:

(1) How can current formal decision support models in SSM be characterised and structured?
(2) What are the overlooked and unaddressed research fields in SSM?
(3) What are the major applied modelling approaches and criteria?
(4) What are the promising areas for further research in SSM?
It is the aim of this paper to answer these questions by proposing a general framework on SSM and by presenting a
content analysis including a criteria analysis of related literature from 1997 to 2014. The results provide a characterisa-
tion of the analysed literature sample and an overview of the state of the art and a common understanding of decision
support modelling in SSM. Therefore, both research gaps and established fields of research are discussed. These findings
aim to assist researchers as well as practitioners, and consequently form a good basis for future research.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, a general framework on SSM is proposed for
classifying the available models. In the third section, a brief overview of related literature reviews in SSCM and SSM is
given to substantiate the need of this content and criteria analysis. Then, we describe the applied methodology in
Section 4, which is followed by the presentation of the results obtained from the content analysis and the criteria
analysis in Section 5. Finally we discuss the outcomes, draw conclusions and give suggestions for future research.
2. Basic concepts in SSM

Since various comprehensions of sustainability exist, we adopt the triple bottom line framework developed by Elkington
(1998), who divides the performance of organizations in an economic, environmental and social dimension. In this
paper, we understand SSM as the management of all activities along the upstream supply chain related to the purchased
component to maximize triple bottom line performance (Sarkis 2003; Pagell, Zhaohui, and Wasserman 2010). Within
SSM triple bottom line performance, evaluation can be used for multiple purposes such as sustainable supplier selection,
sustainable supplier development and sustainable supplier monitoring (Hervani, Helms, and Sarkis 2005; Gimenez and
Tachizawa 2012; Bai and Sarkis 2014). For the purpose of this paper, we understand sustainable supplier selection, sus-
tainable supplier development and sustainable supplier monitoring as independent but interrelated core processes in
SSM as introduced similarly by Hahn, Watts, and Kim (1990), Talluri and Sarkis (2002), Koplin, Seuring, and
Mesterharm (2007) and Foerstl et al. (2010). This context is illustrated in Figure 1. In the following, we will briefly
introduce our comprehension of these three terms.
The supplier selection process consists of several tasks (de Boer, Labro, and Morlacchi 2001; Igarashi, de Boer, and
Fet 2013): it typically starts by identifying the needs and specifications and continues with the formulation of criteria.
Traditionally, these criteria serve for evaluations in the supplier selection process as well as the supplier monitoring and
development process. After a first rough evaluation and qualification step with submitted supplier information, a final
detailed evaluation and selection takes place among the qualified suppliers. Based on Akman and Piskin (2013) and
Genovese et al. (2010), we understand sustainable supplier selection as a process for companies, to identify and evaluate
appropriate suppliers and their upstream supply chains with the aim to select those options, which perform the best
along the upstream supply chain with regard to the three dimensions of sustainability.
Supplier monitoring is an independent but interrelated process, which follows the supplier selection process
(Kleinsorge, Schary, and Tanner 1992; Ittner et al. 1999). For this paper, we understand sustainable supplier monitoring
International Journal of Production Research 3
Sustainable supplier development
Evaluation and Formulation of

selection of development
activities activities
Sustainable supplier selection Sustainable supplier monitoring

Identifying
Formulation of Evaluation and Evaluation and Continuous
needs and
criteria qualification final selection evaluation
specifications
Replacement of supplier
Evaluation and Formulation of Evaluation and Formulation of

selection of development selection of development
activities activities activities activities
Sustainable supplier development Sustainable supplier development
Figure 1. Proposed framework on SSM (adopted from Hahn, Watts, and Kim 1990; Krause, Handfield, and Scannell 1998; de Boer,
Labro, and Morlacchi 2001, Wu and Barnes 2011; Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet 2013).
as the continuous analysis and evaluation of supplier and supply chain information with regard to the compliance of
defined minimum requirements and the performance improvement taking into account the three dimensions of
sustainability (Hervani, Helms, and Sarkis 2005; Koplin 2006; Ragazzi, Crescentini, and Castelli 2012). Thus, supplier
monitoring evaluations can serve as a basis for supplier replacements, as a trigger for supplier development activities
and as a means to continuously monitor the progress and success of development efforts.
The supplier development process is generally triggered by an evaluation of the supplier’s and supply chain’s
performance either within the supplier selection process or within the supplier monitoring process (Hahn, Watts, and
Kim 1990). In this context, the foci of the three illustrated supplier development processes in Figure 1 differ: the focus
of the development process triggered in the course of the qualification process lays in the achievement of the buyer’s
minimum requirements, whereas the focus of the development process triggered in the course of the final selection or
the continuous evaluation lays predominantly in performance-related improvements higher than the minimum require-
ments. Once the performance is evaluated, the development process starts by setting up appropriate development activi-
ties. Afterwards, the expected performance of potential development activities gets evaluated and the best activities will
be selected for implementation. Hence, performance evaluation is demonstrably an integral part of the development,
selection and monitoring process (Bai and Sarkis 2011). Subsequently, after the implementation of the selected develop-
ment activities, the supplier’s and supply chain’s performance gets evaluated again for the purpose of qualification, final
selection or continuous improvement.
3. Discussion of related literature reviews

In the last decade, several literature reviews have been published on SSCM (Srivastava 2007; Carter and Rogers 2008;
Seuring and Müller 2008; Gold, Seuring, and Beske 2010a; Gupta and Palsule-Desai 2011; Sarkis, Zhu, and Lai 2011;
Hoejmose and Adrien-Kirby 2012; Miemczyk, Johnsen, and Macquet 2012; Ahi and Searcy 2013; Taticchi, Tonelli, and
Pasqualino 2013; Schaltegger and Burritt 2014). As focused in this literature review, related literature reviews analysing
qualitative and quantitative decision support models and performance measures in SSCM have also been published in
recent years (Hassini, Surti, and Searcy 2012; Herva and Roca 2013; Brandenburg et al. 2014; Ahi and Searcy 2015;
Taticchi et al. forthcoming). However, while these reviews contributed significantly in structuring the research field of
SSCM and in building new theoretical foundations, they have not also been able to consider more detailed and process-
specific issues arising in SSM as a subfield of SSCM.
Within SSM literature, the research on supplier selection problems goes back to the 1960s when Dickson (1966)
published his seminal paper on supplier selection criteria. Since then many papers as well as a few literature reviews
have been published in this research field (Weber, Current, and Benton 1991; Degraeve, Labro, and FRoodhooft 2000;
de Boer, Labro, and Morlacchi 2001; Ho, Xiaowei, and Dey 2010; Agarwal et al. 2011; Wu and Barnes 2011; Chai,
Liu, and Ngai 2013; Aguezzoul 2014). Within the scope of our literature search in SSM, we have neither found any
4 K. Zimmer et al.
Table 1. Recent reviews on sustainable supplier selection.
Time Number of reviewed Dimension(s) of

Author (year) horizon papers sustainability Research focus
Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet 1991–2011 60 Environmental Framework development, analytical and
(2013) empirical studies
Genovese et al. (2013) 1997–2010 28 Environmental Framework development, analytical studies,
case study
Govindan et al. (2015) 1997–2011 32 Environmental Analytical studies, supplier selection criteria
Nielsen et al. (2014) 1997–2014 57 Environmental Framework development, supplier selection
criteria
review of supplier monitoring nor supplier development models. The same applies to reviews of sustainable supplier
monitoring and development, whereas reviews on sustainable supplier selection exist.
In the last two years Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet (2013), Genovese et al. (2013), Nielsen et al. (2014) and Govindan
et al. (2015) studied the environmental supplier selection literature of the last two decades. Table 1 gives an overview
of these reviews in terms of time horizon, number of reviewed papers, considered dimension(s) of sustainability and
research focus. With a larger scope, Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet (2013) analyzed 60 empirical and analytical publications
from 1991 to 2011 and developed a conceptual framework on environmental supplier selection. They found out that
models on the final choice of the supplier selection process are most dominant in environmental supplier selection litera-
ture. Moreover, they stated that very few empirical and conceptual studies have been conducted and that the interest in
academia has constantly been growing. More focused but with a smaller number of reviewed papers, Genovese et al.
(2013) and Govindan et al. (2015) reviewed quantitative models supporting environmental supplier selection. They con-
cluded that most models are single approaches and that the most popular approach is the Analytic Hierarchy Process
(AHP) followed by the Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Govindan et al.
(2015) also presented an overview of used criteria within their reviewed 32 publications. Nielsen et al. (2014) deepened
this criteria analysis by reviewing 57 papers on environmental supplier selection and five literature reviews on general
supplier selection criteria. Both Govindan et al. (2015) and Nielsen et al. (2014) found out that the criterion ‘environ-
mental management system’ is the most common criterion in environmental supplier selection literature. Surprisingly,
this is not in line with the results of the broader criteria analysis in SSCM of Ahi and Searcy (2015), where quality, air
emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and energy use are the most common criteria.
To summarize, existing literature reviews of sustainable supplier selection focused on environmental supplier selec-
tion and neglected social aspects. Furthermore, related comprehensive literature reviews on sustainable supplier monitor-
ing or development are absent. Even more important is the fact that more than the half of the existing papers in this
field (89 out of 143, cf. Section 5.1) have been published between 2012 and 2014. Therefore, these papers have not
been considered in Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet (2013), Genovese et al. (2013), Govindan et al. (2015) and Nielsen et al.
(2014). For those reasons, there is a clear need for a comprehensive literature review of formal decision support models
in SSM.
4. Research methodology
4.1 Content analysis
Literature reviews are valuable comprehensive studies used to investigate research in emergent fields and to help guide
future research and directions (Govindan et al. 2015). This paper follows a systematic process of content analysis firstly
proposed by Lage Junior and Godinho Filho (2010):
(1) Perform a literature review regarding studies on formal models in SSM (Material collection).
(2) Develop classification categories (Category selection).
(3) Present the literature review using the classification framework to organize the review (Material analysis).
(4) Analyse the review and provide suggestions for future research (Analytical outcomes).
Stage 1 and 2 are described in Sections 4.2 and 4.3, respectively. Stage 3 is introduced in Section 5 and the
analytical outcomes of stage 4 are presented in Sections 5 and 6.
4.2 Material collection

Defining clear boundaries with regard to the content analysis is a major element of a literature review (Seuring and
Müller 2008). In this context, we delimitate the research with the help of the following points:
(1) This analysis only considers English written peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals and conference
proceedings. These papers focus on qualitative and quantitative formal models in SSM supporting the decision-
making in at least one of the steps depicted in the framework of Figure 1.
(2) As a consequence theoretical, conceptual and empirical publications, works in other languages as well as con-
tributions in scientific books are excluded e.g. general empirical studies on sustainable performance evaluation
criteria and structural equation modelling.
(3) Articles in this research field only focusing on economic aspects were not considered. In this regard, we refer to
the reviews on classical supplier selection literature mentioned in Section 3.
(4) Publications developing formal models to evaluate or optimise specific areas of suppliers or supply chains (e.g.
logistics network optimisation models, reverse logistics models) without a direct link to the processes illustrated
in the framework of Figure 1 were not included.
In general, there are four different ways in doing a material collection (Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet 2013; Brandenburg
et al. 2014): keyword-based research in electronic databases, research in specific journals, analysis of thematically close
literature reviews and cross-referencing. With exception of the research in specific journals, all approaches have been
combined in this paper resulting in three steps of paper collection. As outlined in the previous section, four related
reviews have already been published in this research field. Therefore, to make the analysis more efficient, we started
analysing the cited literature of these reviews in a first step. In this way, 55 papers matched our delimitations. In a sec-
ond step, we searched nine major electronic databases (Scopus, CrossRef, EBSCOhost, ScienceDirect, Emerald Insight,
Springer Link, Taylor & Francis Online, Wiley Online Library and Google Scholar) with combinations of three keyword
groups. The first group contained the keywords ‘sustainable’, ‘green’, ‘environmental’, ‘ecological’ and ‘social’, the sec-
ond contained ‘supply chain’, ‘supplier’, ‘partner’ and ‘vendor’ and the third group included ‘performance’, ‘evalua-
tion’, ‘selection’, ‘monitoring’ and ‘development’. In total, we used 100 combinations of keywords for searching the
databases. Examples of these combinations were ‘sustainable partner evaluation’ or ‘social supplier development’. It is
worth noting, that we additionally used ‘*’ as a wild card search since many of those keywords are often slightly
amended like ‘sustainability’ instead of ‘sustainable’ (Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet 2013). After this database search, 131
relevant publications were identified. As third and last step, we complemented our literature collection using cross-
references. These three search steps led to a total of 143 papers matching the delimitations of this content analysis.
4.3 Classification and rigor of research

Analysing the identified papers on the basis of defined categories is indispensable to carry out a systematic literature
review. Therefore, we defined 12 categories grouped in the three structural dimensions ‘supply chain context’, ‘mod-
elling’ and ‘operationalisation of sustainability’ listed in Table 2. Under ‘operationalisation of sustainability’, we under-
stand how authors make the three pillars of sustainability measurable and thus distinguishable.
Prior to the analysis of the 143 papers, we derived these categories deductively from related reviews and comple-
mented them inductively during and after the content analysis (Seuring and Müller 2008; Brandenburg et al. 2014). The
supply chain context categories ‘industry’ and ‘focus of supply chain’ are obtained from publications of Wu and Barnes
(2011) and Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet (2013). The category ‘SSM process’ is based on the developed framework in
Figure 1. In the modelling dimension, the assessment is based on the categories ‘modelling approach’, ‘decision situa-
tion’, ‘type of data’, ‘sourcing’, ‘model application’ and ‘sensitivity analysis’, whereas these categories are developed
inductively with exception of the category ‘modelling approach’.
The classification in terms of ‘modelling approaches’, as illustrated in Figure 2, is derived from Chen (2011),
Bruno et al. (2012), Kannan et al. (2013) and Brandenburg et al. (2014). In terms of the category ‘sourcing’, we dis-
tinguish between modelling approaches supporting ‘single sourcing’ and ‘multiple sourcing’ decisions. According to
Treleven and Schweikhart (1988), we understand ‘single sourcing’ as a purchasing situation in which one supplier by
choice satisfies the entire buyer’s needs for a particular item. In contrast, a purchasing situation in which more than
one supplier fulfills the entire buyer’s needs for a particular item is called ‘multiple sourcing’ (Treleven and
Schweikhart 1988). Thus, only modeling approaches supporting the decision-making of both the selection of the best
suppliers, and the optimal quantity allocation among them are assigned to the attribute ‘multiple sourcing’ (Kannan
et al. 2013). It might be surprising for some readers, that we placed the category ‘sourcing’ in the dimension of
6 K. Zimmer et al.
Table 2. Classification categories.
Structural dimension Category Attributes
Supply chain context Industry Automotive, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, electronics, grocery, mining and quarrying,
paper, textile and others
Focus of supply Direct supplier or upstream supply chain
chain
SSM process Identifying needs and specifications
Formulation of criteria
Evaluation and qualification
Evaluation and final selection
Continuous evaluation
Formulation of development activities
Evaluation and selection of activities
Modelling Modelling Qualitative (Q), MP, MA, AI, MA combined, MI combined, Hybrid: Q + MA, Hybrid:
approach MP + MA, Hybrid: MP + AI, Hybrid: MA + AI, Hybrid: Q + MA + AI, Hybrid:
MP + MA + AI
Decision Formulation of criteria or development activities, determination of criteria weightings,
situation evaluation and decision-making
Type of data Expert opinion, supplier’s data or combined data
Sourcing Single sourcing or multiple sourcing
Model Theoretical approach (none), numerical example or real-world case
application
Sensitivity Yes or no
analysis
Operationalisation of Sustainability Environmental, social, economic-environmental, socio-economic, socio-environmental,

sustainability dimension holistic (only-economic papers excluded)
SSM criteria See hierarchical structure of Figure 3
Levels of 2, 3, 4 levels or not given
hierarchy
modelling. However, since all mathematical programming approaches have been proposed in cases of multiple
sourcing, we assume that the decision on single or multiple sourcing plays a crucial role in the decision on the
appropriate modelling approach.
The structural dimension ‘operationalisation of sustainability’ is assessed based on variations of the triple bot-
tom line (Carter and Rogers 2008), ‘SSM criteria’ and the number of levels in the papers’ hierarchical structures.
To perform a structured presentation of used SSM criteria, we developed a hierarchical structure of related themes
in a first step. For the development, we deductively derived an initial hierarchy from Benoît (2009), Lee et al.
(2009), Bai and Sarkis (2010a), Benoît et al. (2010), Sloan (2010), Govindan, Khodaverdi, and Jafarian (2013)
and Global Reporting Initiative (2013) at first. We decided to divide the hierarchical structure according to the
three dimensions of sustainability as used in several other sustainable supplier performance management literature
(Sloan 2010; Chiouy, Chou, and Yeh 2011; Erol, Sencer, and Sari 2011; Shaik and Abdul-Kader 2011; Azadnia
et al. 2013; Govindan, Khodaverdi, and Jafarian 2013). Then, we gradually refined the initial hierarchy inductively
with the help of the results of the comprehensive criteria analysis. As a last step we validated our hierarchy in
several in-depth discussions with eleven experts from the automotive industry (six experts), the chemical industry
(two experts) and academia (three researchers). Their advice was included to finalise the hierarchical structure on
the three different levels ‘dimension, ‘main theme’ and ‘theme’ as illustrated in Figure 3. The involved experts
from industry are either working in a corporate sustainability, in a sustainable purchasing or in a sustainable pro-
duct development function. It is important to state that we understand a ‘theme’ as a cluster of ‘criteria’ within a
related topic. In contrast, ‘criteria’ are qualitative or quantitative values used in the analysed publications to evalu-
ate the performance of a supplier or supply chain. During the whole content analysis, the authors have followed
the systematic approach explained in Section 4.1 in a rigorous manner to ensure replicability and the required
methodological rigor (Seuring and Gold 2012).
Sustainable Supplier Managment
Single Models Combined Models

Modelling approach
Mathematical Mathematical Artificial MA combined

Qualitative (Q)
Programming (MP) Analytical (MA) Intelligence (AI) models
MI combined
Delphi Linear Programming AHP CBR models
Ishikawa-Diagram MILP ANP Fuzzy Logic Hybrid:

Q + MA
Modelling approach
QFD Goal Programming DEA Grey System Theory
Hybrid:
MP + MA
Nonlinear TOPSIS Rough Set Theory
Programming
Method
Hybrid:
PROMETHEE Neural Networks MP + AI
ELECTRE Particle Swarm Opt. Hybrid:

MA + AI
VIKOR Genetic Algortihm
Hybrid:
Q + MA + AI
DEMATEL Differential Evolution
Hybrid:
Others MP + MA + AI
Figure 2. Classification of the category ‘Modelling approach’ (based on Chen 2011; Bruno et al. 2012; Kannan et al. 2013;
Brandenburg et al. 2014).
5. Results per category

The presentation of the content analysis in the following subsections refers to the 143 collected publications unless
stated otherwise. At first, the descriptive analysis is presented. Subsequently, we continue with the discussion of the
three structural dimensions outlined in the classification of Table 2.
5.1 Descriptive analysis

The temporal distribution of the 143 papers identified in the material collection is shown in Figure 4. With its first
publication in 1997 by Noci (1997), SSM is a relatively young research area with a growing scientific interest especially
since 2006. With exception of the slight decrease from 2010 to 2011, the fast growing interest is expected to continue.
The distribution of the papers by their authors’ affiliations, as shown in Figure 5, clearly states the global interest in
SSM issues. Surprisingly only few papers have their origin in Europe, even though many European industries have to
manage complex supply chains.
The majority of papers have been published in a wide range of journals and proceedings, as illustrated in Table 3.
However, a large part has been published in renowned journals such as the Journal of Cleaner Production or the
International Journal of Production Research.
5.2 Supply chain context

The results in Table 4 show that the most research has been done in the electronics and automotive industry so far.
Other industries such as textile, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and mining and quarrying are significantly less consid-
ered in our identified literature. This large gap is surprising since those industries are often covered in press regarding
social and environmental grievances (Anderson 2005). The dominant role of papers focusing on the electronics and
automotive industry may be explained by the rise of stricter regulations in the European Union such as WEEE (Waste
from Electronic and Electrical Equipment), RoHS (Restriction on the Use of Hazardous Substances), ErP (Ecodesign
8 K. Zimmer et al.
Dimension Main theme Theme
C111: Strategy and organisation
C11: Management C112: Internal Management

and Organization C113: Supplier management
C114: Compliance
C12: Financial C121: Cost

performance C122: Financial situation
C1: Economic C131: Quality

issues
C132: Production and logistics
C13: Capabilities C133: Technology
C134: Service
C135: Communication
C141: Public disclosure

C14: External
C142: Reputation and market structure
perception
C143: Certificates and labeling
C211: Environmental commitment

C21: Environmental
C212: Environmental management
practices
C213: Environmental capabilities
Sustainable
supplier C2: Environmental C221: Material
management issues
criteria C222: Energy
C22: Environmental C223: Emissions

performance C224: Water
C225: Waste
C226: Environmental product performance
C31: Internal C311: Social commitment

social practices C312: Social management
C321: Child and forced labor
C322: Occupational health and safety
C323: Wages and working hours

C3: Social C32: Social
C324: Training of employees
issues performance
C325: Employment relationship
C326: Discrimination and diversity
C327: Freedom of association
C331: Stakeholder involvement

C33: External
social practices C332: Society
Figure 3. Hierarchical structure of relevant themes in SSM (adopted from Benoît (2009); Lee et al. (2009); Bai and Sarkis (2010a);
Benoît et al. (2010); Sloan (2010); Govindan, Khodaverdi, and Jafarian (2013); Global Reporting Initiative (2013).
40
38
N =143
35
30
27
24
25
20
15
14
15
10 8
5
4
5 3
1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0
0
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4. Number of papers on formal SSM models since 1997.
40
36 N =143
35
30
25
20 19
15
15 13
11
10 10
10 8
5
5 4
3 3
2
1 1 1 1
0
Figure 5. Distribution of first author’s origin.
Requirement for Energy-related Product) as well as the directive 2000/53/EC for vehicle dismantling and recycling
(European Union 2000).
Figure 6 depicts which steps of the SSM processes are covered by the collected literature. We assigned the papers to
the process step as indicated in the respective paper. In those cases where this was not given, we assigned the papers to
the processes, where the respective approaches fit best. As a consequence, approaches supporting several steps or being
applicable in several steps appear more than once within the analysis. Hence, the sum of focused stages is greater than
the sample of 143 papers.
At first sight with 118 papers, Figure 6 clearly reveals the major role of the step ‘evaluation and final selection’ in
SSM literature. This result is in line with those of Igarashi, de Boer, and Fet (2013). In contrast to Igarashi, de Boer,
10 K. Zimmer et al.
Table 3. Overview of related journals.
Most cited journals Most cited conferences
Journal of Cleaner Production 13 Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management 6

International Journal of Production Research 12 Manufacturing Science and Engineering 2
Expert Systems with Applications 7 Life Cycle Engineering 2
International Journal of Production Economics 7 Others 22
European Journal of Operational Research 4
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal 4
Others 64
Table 4. Industry focus of papers.

Industry
Electronics 27
Automotive 26
Textile 8
Chemicals and pharmaceuticals 7
Mining and quarrying 7
Paper 5
Grocery 5
Industrial or manufacturing exl. automotive and electronics 3
Retail 2
Construction 1
Hotel 1
Energy 1
Not specified 54
# of papers
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Identifying needs and specifications
Formulation of criteria
Supplier selection
Evaluation and qualification
Evaluation and final selection
Supplier monitoring Continuous evaluation
Formulation of development programs

Supplier development
Program evaluation and selection
Figure 6. Focussed stages in SSM literature.
and Fet (2013), papers investigating the ‘Evaluation and final selection’ step including weighting calculations have not
automatically been assigned to the step of ‘formulation of criteria’. This is because these integrated weighting
approaches are primarily used to solve the aggregation problem and not to contribute to the formulation of evaluation
criteria. We therefore thoroughly examined all papers whether their modelling approaches contribute to the formulation
of criteria or not and assigned them to the process steps accordingly. In the course of the literature collection, no papers
have been found investigating models for the ‘identification of needs and specifications’ and the ‘formulation of
development activities’. The disregard of models in supplier monitoring and development process steps may be
explained by the advantageous bargaining power of the focal company during the supplier selection process in compar-
ison to the subsequent monitoring and development process. In conclusion, while post-selection steps are neglected,
81% of the investigated process steps are within the supplier selection process, which reflect its significant role in SSM
literature.
Most of the formal models focus on direct suppliers. Only 15 papers (10.5%) investigate decision support models
affecting the entire upstream supply chain. This may have four reasons:
(1) During the supplier selection process, second-tier suppliers and beyond are often not known since the decision
on their selection will often be made after the final selection. Therefore, an upstream analysis prior to the final
selection will be difficult in those cases.
(2) In general, companies selecting suppliers sign contracts with their first-tier suppliers. This fact makes the pro-
curement of information and the subsequent analysis and development activities of second-tier suppliers and
beyond even more difficult due to the missing contractual relationship and the unfavourable power balance situa-
tion.
(3) The complex nature of supply chains with its exponential increase of subsuppliers along the upstream supply
chain seems to be another challenge in terms of data handling and therefore requires systematic approaches.
(4) This complex nature of supply chains is even exacerbated in those industries where the rate of technological
change is high and makes up-to-date databases almost impossible (New and Brown 2011).
5.3 Modelling
5.3.1 Descriptive analysis of modelling approaches and methods
Overall, 62.2% of the analysed papers are combined models. While single models are usually less complex, combined
models can handle different purchasing situations (number of criteria or suppliers, SSM process, industry, etc.) more
adequately and one used method mostly compensates disadvantages of the other method. With 58 papers, models com-
bining mathematical analytical (MA) with artificial intelligence (AI) approaches have been introduced most often as out-
lined in Table 5. That fits very well with the results of single models using only MA or AI methods. The relatively high
degree of MA combined modelling approaches with 14 papers is therefore comprehensible as well. Other single or com-
bined modelling approaches seem to be neglected or less helpful for the purpose to support SSM. Outranking methods
such as PROMETHEE and ELECTRE seem to be more complex and less transparent to decision-makers than AHP,
TOPSIS or other MA approaches. This may have led to their rare investigations. However, PROMETHEE and other
outranking methods have been frequently proposed in the past to select best compromise alternatives (Figueira,
Mousseau, and Roy 2005; Behzadian et al. 2010), but their advantages have still to be proven in the context of SSM.
Moreover, AI single or MA + AI hybrid modelling approaches seem to represent a new trend in SSM literature, because
only very few papers have been published before 2011. In contrast, papers on MA single modelling approaches have
been investigated continuously since 1997 with a slight increase since 2010.
In general, decision situations in SSM can be summarised simplistically in the ‘formulation of criteria or develop-
ment activities’, ‘determination of criteria weightings’, and ‘evaluation and decision-making’. In this context, Table 6
shows the frequency of applied methods supporting these situations. Since several authors used the same method not
Table 5. Distribution of modelling approaches.
Single models Q 1 (0.7%)

MP 4 (2.8%)
MA 33 (23.1%)
AI 16 (11.2%)
Combined models MA combined 14 (9.8%)

AI combined 2 (1.4%)
Hybrid: Q + MA 3 (2.1%)
Hybrid: MP + MA 4 (2.8%)
Hybrid: MP + AI 1 (0.7%)
Hybrid: MA + AI 58 (40.6%)
Hybrid: Q + MA + AI 2 (1.4%)
Hybrid: MP + MA + AI 5 (3.5%)
12 K. Zimmer et al.
Table 6. Frequency of used methods according to the decision situation.
Formulation of criteria/ Determination of Evaluation and decision- Overall

Used solution approach activities weightings making popularity
Q
Delphi 5 0 0 5 (1.5%)
QFD 0 0 1 1 (0.3%)
Ishikawa-diagram 1 0 0 1 (0.3%)
MP
Linear programming 0 0 8 8 (2.5%)
MILP 0 0 2 2 (0.6%)
Goal programming 0 0 2 2 (0.6%
MA
AHP 0 44 17 61 (18.8%)
ANP 0 22 15 37 (11.4%)
TOPSIS 0 0 24 24 (7.4%)
DEA 0 10 16 26 (8.0%)
DEMATEL 0 11 0 11 (3.4%)
Multi attribute utility theory 0 2 3 5 (1.5%)
(MAUT)
PROMETHEE 0 0 3 3 (0.9%)
VIKOR 0 0 5 5 (1.5%)
AI
Fuzzy logic 1 54 47 101 (31.2%)
Grey relational analysis 0 4 12 16 (4.9%)
Rough set theory 1 1 4 6 (1.9%)
Neural networks 0 0 3 3 (0.9%)
Genetic algorithm 0 0 3 3 (0.9%)
Particle swarm optimization 0 0 2 2 (0.6%)
Differential evolution 0 0 1 1 (0.3%)
CBR 0 0 1 1 (0.3%)
only in one situation, but sometimes in two or three situations, the sum of the used methods is higher than our sample
of 143 collected papers.
The most common methods in SSM are Fuzzy Logic (31.1%), AHP (18.8%) and ANP (11.4%). The frequent use of
fuzzy logic may have two major reasons: Firstly, Fuzzy Logic can generally be combined very well with MA methods.
Secondly, it can deal with linguistic judgments of experts and can transfer them adequately into crisp numbers. Simi-
larly, AHP and ANP have proven the ability to consider subjective opinions and to be combinable with other methods
that usually handle objective data (Subramanian and Ramanathan 2012). Only few models have been presented support-
ing the ‘formulation of criteria or development activities’. However, Delphi studies are the most common way to sup-
port this decision situation even if there is no paper on the formulation of development activities. Consequently, future
works should investigate the Delphi method in the context of the formulation of development activities. In contrast to
reviews on classical supplier selection (Ho, Xu, and Dey 2010; Chai, Liu, and Ngai 2013), methods such as ELECTRE,
SMART or nonlinear modelling have not been investigated in SSM, which therefore may indicate an interesting research
gap.
Methods such as Linear modelling, MILP, VIKOR or DEMATEL are used only since 2011 and represent a relatively
young field and a small share with 9% of the applied methods. Very interesting is the large increase of publications in
2014 using DEA. Nine out of 16 papers, integrating the DEA method, appeared only in 2014. This may have to do with
the fact, that issues along the entire supply chain became more important and that DEA is, among others, a suitable
method to evaluate the efficiency of members of the supply chain. Another interesting fact is the growing interest in
TOPSIS. A great deal of attention was given to it since 2010 and especially in 2013 and 2014 when eight papers,
respectively, have been published.
Table 7 outlines the analysis results of the remaining four categories of the structural dimension ‘Modelling’. The
rare use of real quantitative supplier data has probably to do with the fact that no common indicators among suppliers
Table 7. Analysis results of the categories ‘type of data’, ‘sourcing’, ‘model application’ and ‘sensitivity analysis’.
Type of data Sourcing Model application Sensitivity analysis
Expert opinion 91 Single sourcing 126 Theoretical approach 4 Yes 28
Supplier’s data 23 Multiple sourcing 17 Numerical example 67 No 100
Combined data 29 Real-world case 72 Not relevant 15
and focal companies have been established so far to ask for. Moreover, additional information can influence the price
negotiations negatively from the supplier’s point of view, since social and environmental data can lead to conclusions
with regard to the cost structure of the supplier. Consequently, it is easier to take expert judgments accepting their disad-
vantages. Thus, future works should develop adequate and comparable indicators and investigate how to handle the
issue of sensitive data. Especially in supplier monitoring, common indicators of specific industries should be developed
to facilitate annual supplier enquiries and performance comparisons. In this context, established methods such as AHP,
ANP, Fuzzy or Delphi could be applied to find, rank and develop industry specific criteria and indicator sets. Experts
from different companies and stakeholders should be involved in this process.
With 126 publications, most authors concentrated on modelling approaches supporting the decision-making of single
sourcing instead of multiple sourcing problems. This may be simply motivated by the less complexity of single sourcing
problems in general or more specific advantages such as more cooperative and closer relationships, higher quality, trans-
portation economics, lower lead times and total costs, and general scale effects in various fields (Larson and Kulchitsky
1998; Wisner 2011). However, with regard to multiple sourcing problems, mathematical programming approaches have
been used in recent years but would provide a good possibility to drive the research on multiple sourcing problems.
Supplier diversification via multiple sourcing appears promising to balance upcoming sustainability related supply chain
risks, particularly in case of unveiled grievances.
The high share of numerical examples (67 papers) and real-world cases (72 papers) is a good trend, which advances
the transfer from scientific literature into practice. In comparison to the results presented in Genovese et al. (2013),
meanwhile the share of real-world case studies has increased from 40% to 50%. However, we found no paper applying
several modelling approaches on the same supplier data to validate their results.
A neglected but important part of such multi-criteria decision support approaches are sensitivity analyses (Belton
and Vickers 1990). Only 28 publications carried out a sensitivity analysis while 100 papers missed that. For the remain-
ing 15 studies, a sensitivity analysis was not necessary because they calculated weightings, but did not apply them in a
further step. However, sensitivity analyses can be very helpful to prove the robustness of weightings, to convince expert
groups in decision-making or to make adjustments through a feedback loop as a consequence (Dou and Sarkis 2010).
For further details about the analysed papers, we would like to refer to the supplementary data of this paper that can be
downloaded on the journal’s website.
5.3.2 Classification of analysed papers

Table 8 classifies all 143 collected papers of this content analysis with regard to the modelling approach and the SSM
process step. Hence, it is a combination of Figure 6 and Table 5 with a detailed mapping of the analysed papers. All
papers are assigned to those areas, to which they are contributing. Since we found no paper investigating the ‘identifica-
tion of needs and specifications’ and the ‘formulation of development activities’, we omitted them in Table 8.
This overview has three purposes: Firstly, all collected papers of this content analysis are indicated at least once and
assigned, respectively, regarding their content. This helps readers to confirm the presented results of this review and to
examine the replicability of the collected papers. Secondly, interested readers can instantly identify rarely investigated
research areas and research gaps. Thirdly, it assists to find relevant literature for specific issues in SSM efficiently. Hence,
Table 8 is a beneficial illustration of current research and represents one of the major outcomes of this content analysis.
5.4 Sustainable supplier evaluation criteria

5.4.1 Distribution of applied sustainability dimensions
In this section, we classify and discuss our paper sample in terms of the categories ‘sustainability dimension’, ‘SSM
criteria’ and ‘levels of hierarchy’.
Table 8. Classification of collected papers with regard to the modelling approach and SSM process step.
14
Supplier selection Supplier monitoring Supplier development

Modelling approach
Evaluation and Evaluation and selection of
Formulation of criteria qualification Evaluation and final selection Continuous evaluation activities
15 7 118 19 13
Q Enarsson (1998) – – – –
MP – Trapp and Sarkis Chaabane, Paquet, and Ramudhin Wang, Lai, and Shi (2011), Trapp and Sarkis (forthcoming)
(forthcoming) (2009), Wang, Lai, and Shi Zhang et al. (2014)
(2011), Zhang et al. (2014), Trapp
and Sarkis (forthcoming)
MA Chiou, Hsu, and Chen (2011), Falatoonitoosi, Noci (1997), Sarkis (2003), Gao Sarkis (2003), Tsoulfas and Sarkis (2003)
Paul and Jayant (2014), Shen, Ahmed, and and Zhou (2004), Hsu and Hu Pappis (2008), Zhu, Dou, and
Muduli, and Barve Sorooshian (2007), Huang and Keskar (2007), Sarkis (2010), Yakovleva, Sarkis,
(forthcoming) (2014), Shi et al. Farzad et al. (2008), Hutchins and and Sloan (2012), Dey and
(forthcoming) Sutherland (2008), Hsu and Hu Cheffi (2013), Acquaye et al.
(2009), Dou and Sarkis (2010), (2014), Tajbakhsh and Hassini
Kumar and Jain (2010), Verdecho, (2014)
Alfaro-Saiz, and Rodríguez-
Rodríguez (2010), Shaik and
Abdul-Kader (2011), Agarwal and
Vijayvargy (2012), Hou (2012),
Uysal (2012), Falatoonitoosi,
K. Zimmer et al.
Leman, and Sorooshian (2013),

Hsu et al. (2013), Nie (2013), Xu
et al. (2013), Zhe et al. (2013),
Dobos and Vörösmarty (2014),
Falatoonitoosi, Ahmed, and
Sorooshian (2014), Paul and
Jayant (2014), Theißen and
Spinler (2014), Shi et al.
(forthcomong)
AI – Beng and Omar Humphreys et al. (2006), Bai and Bai et al. (2012), Singh, Olugu, Bai and Sarkis (2010b)
(2014) Sarkis (2010b), Keskin et al. and Fallahpour (2014)
(2010), Amindoust et al. (2012),
Baskaran, Nachiappan, and
Rahman (2012), Hashemi et al.
(2013), Tuzkaya (2013),
Viswanadham and Samvedi
(2013), Zhang et al. (2013),
Ghadimi and Heavey (2014),
Sahu, Datta, and Mahapatra
(2014), Sarkis and Dhavale
(2015), Kannan et al. (2015)
(Continued)
Table 8. (Continued).

Modelling approach
15 7 118 19 13
MA combined Wu, Hsieh, and Chang (2013) – Kannan et al. (2008), Wen and Akman (2015) Akman (2015)
Chi (2010), Ma and Liu (2011),
Kuo and Lin (2012), Tsui and
Wen (2012), Zhang (2012),
Akman and Piskin (2013), Wu,
Hsieh, and Chang (2013), Hsu,
Kuo, and Chiou (2014), Hsu,
Kuo, Shyu, et al. (2014), Kumar,
Jain, and Kumar (2014),
Sivakumar, Kannan, and
Murugesan (forthcoming), Tsui,
Tzeng, and Wen (forthcoming)
AI combined – – Bai and Sarkis (2010a), Chen – –

et al. (2010)
Hybrid:Q + MA Dai and Blackhurst (2012), – Handfield et al. (2002), Dai and – –
Banaeian et al. (2014) Blackhurst (2012), Banaeian et al.
(2014)
Hybrid:MP + MA – – Tsai and Hung (2009), Lin et al. Chaabane, Ramudhin, and Paquet –
(2012), Jakhar (2014) (2012)
Hybrid:MP + AI – – Boosothonsatit, Kara, and – –

Ibbotson (2012)
International Journal of Production Research
Hybrid:MA + AI Lin, Chen, and Nguyen (2011), Humphreys, Humphreys, McIvor, and Chan Bai, Sarkis, and Wei (2010), Bai, Sarkis, and Wei (2010),
Lee et al. (2012), Fallahian- McIvor, and (2003), Humphreys, Wong, and Erol, Sencer, and Sari (2011), Ji, Büyüközkan and Çifçi (2012b),
Najafabadi et al. (2013), Mavi Chan (2003), Chan (2003), Zhang and Li Xie, and Dong (2012), Sahu, Ji, Xie, and Dong (2012), Sahu,
et al. (2013), Shaverdi et al. Humphreys, (2003), Lu, Wu, and Kuo (2007), Datta, and Mahapatra (2013), Bai Datta, and Mahapatra (2013),
(2013), Bai and Sarkis (2014), Wong, and Chan Chiou, Hsu, and Hwang (2008), and Sarkis (2014), Wang and Chan (2013), Bai and
Bhattacharya et al. (2014) (2003), Azadnia Ge (2009), Li and Zhao (2009), Mirhedayatian, Azadi, and Sarkis (2014), Dou, Zhu, and
et al. (2012) Sun and Ye (2009), Tuzkaya et al. Farzipoor Saen (2014) Sarkis (2014), Mirhedayatian,
(2009), Awasthi, Chauhan, and Azadi, and Farzipoor Saen
Goyal (2010), Bai, Sarkis, and (2014), Kusi-Sarpong et al.
Wei, (2010), Che (2010), Che (forthcoming)
et al. (2010), Tseng (2010),
Büyüközkan and Çifçi (2011),
Chiouy, Chou, and Yeh (2011),
(Continued)
15
Table 8. (Continued).
16

Modelling approach
15 7 118 19 13
Çifçi and Büyüközkan (2011),

Kuo et al. (2011), Tseng (2011),
Tseng et al. (2011), Wittstruck
and Teuteberg (2011), Yeh and
Chuang (2011), Azadnia et al.
(2012), Büyüközkan (2012),
Büyüközkan and Çifçi (2012a),
Datta et al. (2012), Ji, Xie, and
Dong (2012), Peng (2012),
Wittstruck and Teuteberg (2012),
Amindoust, Ahmed, and
Saghafinia (2013), Azadnia et al.
(2013), Bali, Kose, and Gumus
(2013), Govindan, Khodaverdi,
and Jafarian (2013), Sahu et al.
(2013), Shen et al. (2013), Tseng
and Chiu (2013), Wen, Longxiu,
and Wang (2013), Bai and Sarkis
(2014), Chaharsooghi and Ashrafi
(2014), Jauhar et al. (2014),
K. Zimmer et al.
Kannan et al. (2014), Khamseh

and Mahmoodi (2014),
Mirhedayatian, Azadi, and
Farzipoor Saen (2014), Orji and
Wei (2014), Yazdani (2014), Zhao
and Guo (2014), Azadi et al.
(2015)
Hybrid: Lee et al. (2009) – Lee et al. (2009), Kuo et al. – –

Q + MA + A (2010)
Hybrid: – – Shaw et al. (2012), Kannan et al. – –

MP + MA + AI (2013), Shaw et al. (2013),
Bakeshlou et al. (2014), Azadnia,
Saman, and Wong (2015)
Table 9. Distribution of economic criteria.
Economic dimension
Main theme Theme Number (%)
Management and organisation Strategy and organisation 62 (2.3)

Internal management 58 (2.2)
Sub supplier management 56 (2.1)
Compliance 46 (1.7)
Financial performance Cost 253 (9.5)

Financial issues 75 (2.8)
Capabilities Quality 144 (5.4)

Production and logistics 283 (10.6)
Technology 103 (3.9)
Service 69 (2.6)
Communication 111 (4.2)
External perception Public disclosure 9 (0.3)

Reputation and market structure 95 (3.6)
Certificates and labelling 33 (1.2)
Sum 1397 (52.5)
Table 10. Distribution of environmental criteria.
Environmental dimension
Environmental practices Environmental commitment 85 (3.2)

Environmental management 157 (5.9)
Environmental capabilities 111 (4.2)
Environmental performance Materials 156 (5.9)

Energy 61 (2.3)
Emissions 109 (4.1)
Water 49 (1.8)
Waste 93 (3.5)
Environmental product performance 193 (7.3)
Sum 1014 (38.1)
Regarding the distribution of the analysed papers in terms of sustainability dimension, the majority (85 papers or
59%) developed models investigating economic and environmental issues as shown in Figure 7. All three dimensions
are considered in 40 publications (28%) while only environmental approaches have been published 15 times.
Consequently, with 125 papers a vast majority takes at least economic criteria into account even though we excluded
only economic publications in this content analysis. In contrast to these findings, the social aspects are heavily
neglected. Only one single paper concentrated on social aspects (Hutchins and Sutherland 2008) and two considered
social and environmental issues (Baskaran, Nachiappan, and Rahman 2012; Xu et al. 2013). These outcomes appear to
be consistent with the evaluation results of the broader literature review of Brandenburg et al. (2014), who identified
only four papers out of 134 integrating either social, socio-economic or socio-environmental criteria.
18 K. Zimmer et al.
Table 11. Distribution of social criteria.
Social dimension
Internal social practices Social commitment 40 (1.5)

Social management 4 (0.2)
Child labour, forced labour 7 (0.2)
Social performance Occupational health and safety 54 (2.0)

Wages, working time 20 (0.8)
Training of employees 26 (1.0)
Employment relationship 9 (0.3)
Diversity, discrimination 22 (0.8)
Collective bargaining, freedom of association 5 (0.2)
External social practices Stakeholder involvement 47 (1.7)

Corporate citizenship 18 (0.7)
Sum 241 (9.4)
2
Environmental Social
dimension dimension
15 1
Sustainability
40
85 0
n/a*
Economic
dimension
* only-economic papers have been excluded
Figure 7. Distribution of papers in terms of sustainability dimensions (based on Carter and Rogers (2008); Brandenburg et al.
(2014)).
5.4.2 Distribution of applied themes and criteria

Related criteria analyses have already been published by Nielsen et al. (2014) or recently by Ahi and Searcy (2015).
But they either focus on environmental criteria (Nielsen et al. 2014) or analyse a broader research field (Ahi and Searcy
2015). In summary, 448 unique criteria have been identified among the 2661 collected criteria. These 2661 collected
criteria consist of 52.5% economic, 38.1% environmental and only 9.4% social criteria. This underrepresentation of
social criteria is in line with the outcomes of other researches (Gold, Seuring, and Beske 2010b; Sarkis et al. 2010;
Miemczyk, Johnsen, and Macquet 2012; Seuring 2013; Ahi and Searcy 2015). In the following, we start with the
analysis of considered themes at first. Then we continue with the discussion on applied criteria.
Table 12. The ten most common economic, environmental and social criteria.
Top 10 economic criteria # Top 10 environmental criteria # Top 10 social criteria #
Quality 48 Environmental management system 67 Involvement of stakeholders 22

Flexibility 45 Resource consumption 51 Staff training 21
Price 43 Ecodesign 47 Social management commitment 17
Lead time 39 Recycling 44 Health and safety 14
Relationship 37 Controlling of ecological impacts 35 Stakeholder relations 11
Cost 36 Waste water 34 Social code of conduct 10
Technical capability 32 Energy consumption 32 Donations for sustainable projects 9
Logistics costs 27 Reuse 28 The rights of stakeholders 8
Reverse logistics 25 Air emissions 27 Safety practices 6
Rejection ratio (ppm) 23 Environmental code of conduct 23 Annual number of accidents 6
To identify the most common sustainability themes in SSM literature, we assigned all used criteria uniquely to the
corresponding theme. The resulting distribution of themes in terms of the economic, environmental and social dimension
is illustrated in Tables 9–11 according to the hierarchical structure of Figure 3. Regarding environmental themes, the
results are in line with the outcomes of Ahi and Searcy (2015) with exception of ‘energy’ and ‘waste’ which was used
significantly more often in their literature sample. The fact that ‘water’ and ‘energy’ are mentioned less often is
surprising, because renowned organizations such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the United Nations
Environmental Programme always recommend their integration in environmental analysis or initiatives (UNEP 2010;
Global Reporting Initiative 2013). Regarding the social pillar, only themes like ‘occupational health and safety’ (2.0%),
and ‘stakeholder involvement’ (1.7%) stand out slightly from the other social themes, but are still at the same low level
as the rare environmental themes ‘water’ and ‘energy’.
The most commonly applied economic, environmental and social criteria in the SSM literature sample are shown in
Table 12. The economic criteria in Table 12 are only partially indicated as the most common criteria in older criteria
reviews of Dickson (1966) and Weber, Current, and Benton (1991), but fit better with the younger reviews of Cheraghi,
Dadashzadeh, and Subramanian (2004) and Thiruchelvam and Tookey (2011). ‘Price’, ‘quality’, ‘delivery’ and ‘technical
capability’ have always been ranked among the ten most common economic criteria in these reviews, but ‘flexibility’
and ‘relationship’ seem to become more and more important as also stated by Cheraghi, Dadashzadeh, and Subramanian
(2004) and Thiruchelvam and Tookey (2011).
With exception of the criterion ‘environmental management system’, the results of the most common environmental
criteria appear to be consistent with those of the extensive criteria analysis of Ahi and Searcy (2015), but show
significant differences to those of Nielsen et al. (2014) and Govindan et al. (2015). This outcome may be explained by
the different research focus and our larger literature sample.
Apart from the study of Ahi and Searcy (2015), we found no other review analysing social metrics yet. Comparing
our results to theirs, ‘health and safety’, ‘employment’, ‘training’, ‘community’, ‘wage’ and ‘accidents’ have been indi-
cated as major areas of social sustainability in their literature sample, which is relatively close to our results being aware
of the different literature analysed. Nevertheless, it is surprising that important social issues such as ‘child and forced
labour’, ‘discrimination’ and ‘abuse of human rights’, as indicated by famous institutions such as the International
Labour Organization and the United Nations, are not ranked among the most common social criteria (Bartolomei de la
Cruz, Von Potobsky, and Swepston 1996). In this context, ‘child labour’ has been used four times, ‘discrimination’ three
times and ‘forced labour’ as well as ‘free choice of occupation’ only once.
In terms of the number of used criteria per model, the analysed papers applied 18.6 criteria in their models on
average. Another interesting fact is that many authors used a hierarchical structure similar to the four-level structure pre-
sented in Figure 3. With 74 papers, most authors applied a structure consisting of three levels, 12 papers used four
levels and the remaining 57 papers did not build a hierarchical structure.
5.4.3 Reasons for the rare use of social criteria

Since social criteria are still heavily neglected in our analysed literature sample, we discuss the possible reasons for this
development briefly. While environmentally related methods such as energy analysis and life cycle assessments are
developed since the 1970s, socially related models are only proposed since the first decade of the twenty-first century
(Guinee et al. 2011). With this regard, the first modelling approach in the SSM literature considering social aspects have
only been published in 2007 (Huang and Keskar 2007), ten years after the first SSM modelling approach with integrated
20 K. Zimmer et al.
environmental criteria (Noci 1997). The main reasons for this late integration are certainly the challenging particularities
of social issues in comparison to environmental issues. These include the different political, ethical and ideological
views of stakeholders (Baumann et al. 2013), the cultural and economic disparities between countries (Benoît Norris,
Norris, and Aulisio 2014), the difficult treatment with K.O. criteria such as child and forced labour and finally, the con-
sideration of negative social impacts on the local society due to a supplier’s non-selection (Jørgensen 2013). Moreover,
the measurement and quantification of social aspects seem to be even more difficult than environmental aspects. In par-
ticular, the cause–effect relationship as a basis for performance measurements is not known with sufficient precision to
allow quantitative evaluations (Baskaran, Nachiappan, and Rahman 2012; Chhipi-Shrestha, Hewage, and Sadiq 2015).
Apart from these particularities, the integration of social criteria implies the same hurdles as environmental criteria
do. Thus, the most frequently used social criteria of our literature sample are expert-based and remain very subjective.
Moreover, to determine precise and comparable performance values, detailed socially related supplier data is needed tak-
ing the mentioned particularities into account. However, this would in turn require a substantial effort prior to every
decision-making in SSM (Labuschagne, Brent, and van Erck 2005). In summary, it can be assumed that the integration
of social aspects in SSM modelling approaches depends on the success of the relatively easier integration of
environmental issues (Hutchins and Sutherland 2008).
6. Suggestions for future research

Decision support models in SSM received a strongly growing interest in academia since 1997, but still many challenges
remain. In the following, nine future research topics will be proposed listed in Table 13.
6.1 Industry-specific investigations and comparisons

As outlined in Table 4, investigations in other industries than automotive and electronics industry are rare. Especially,
the particularities of industries like chemicals and pharmaceuticals, mining and quarrying, grocery and construction,
where social and environmental issues are expected, should be studied in the future with real cases to advance the inte-
gration of environmental and social criteria in SSM.
6.2 Commodity or product specific supplier enquiries

More emphasis should be put on the criteria formulation and qualification step and on sustainable supplier monitoring
and development models in general. In terms of criteria formulation, only very few approaches have been published as
outlined in Table 4. In this context, it is a good way to determine a fixed set of sustainability criteria to evaluate suppliers
as implemented by most of the literature, but it would be more efficient to set up specific supplier enquiries for every
commodity or even better for every supplier decision individually (Chae 2009; Tsai and Hung 2009; Dou and Sarkis
2010; Bai and Sarkis 2014). Consequently, it should be worth asking comprehensive questions in case of high environ-
mental or social impacts and risks of suppliers or products and limit the depth of the questions to minimum requirements
in case of low impacts and risks. Life cycle assessments, country indicators or other sustainability risk approaches may
help filtering a given set of criteria to spot the important sustainability themes. This would require adaptable question-
naires and evaluation approaches but could help limiting unnecessary efforts in supplier evaluation to a minimum.
Table 13. Overview of suggested future research topics in SSM.
No. Suggested research topic
1 Industry-specific investigations and comparisons

2 Commodity or product specific supplier enquiries
3 Transparency and evaluation of supply chains
4 Comparison of existing and rarely used modelling approaches
5 Supplier qualification process and the transition to the final selection
6 Supplier development process
7 Impact of the selection of involved stakeholders in decision-making
8 Multiple sourcing to balance upcoming supply chain risks
9 Quantifiable and comparable environmental and social indicators
6.3 Transparency and evaluation of supply chains

From a theoretical point of view, future works should also investigate how a potential supply chain data exchange hub
has to be developed to overcome most of the hurdles of a transparent supply chain as listed at the end of Section 5.2.
The data exchange along the supply chain is one of the major issues, since the evaluations of all analysed modelling
approaches stand and fall with the credibility and accuracy of the received data. In this context, the challenge of how to
deal with sensitive data among suppliers depicts another interesting research topic. Therefore, a global data system, simi-
lar to the International Material Data System used by the automotive industry, might be a promising way. With regard
to transparency, the integration of strategic aspects in decision support models such as the evaluation of interdependen-
cies of suppliers and focal companies and network relationships within the upstream supply chain is very important. As
described at the end of Section 5.2, the influence on the upstream supply chain’s suppliers is one obstacle to overcome
in order to evaluate, analyse and to improve supply chain’s performance. With this regard, only Zhu, Dou, and Sarkis
(2010) developed a first approach to determine supplier’s relative power with the help of ANP.
In many cases, authors speak of supply chain models but only evaluate first-tier suppliers (Bhattacharya et al. 2014).
Authors should therefore clearly state whether they investigate entire supply chains or first-tier relationships. However,
more studies on upstream supply chain evaluation models in the context of SSM should be undertaken being aware of
the mentioned hurdles. In particular, investigations should emphasize on how various supplier performances can be
aggregated, which criteria should be assessed and how changes of supply chain members can be monitored.
6.4 Comparison of commonly and rarely used modelling approaches

As mentioned in Section 5.3.1, authors have focused on the introduction of their modelling approach and its application,
but not on the comparison to other existing approaches. Instead of developing new approaches, future studies should
therefore investigate the performance of the various existing approaches on the same supplier data. In this context, their
performance should also be tested in specific purchasing situations (number of criteria or suppliers, SSM process,
industry etc.). Moreover, a comparison to rarely used modelling approaches would be worthwhile. Within the literature
sample, MA and AI approaches are well examined. However, the focus laid especially on Fuzzy, ANP or AHP methods.
As outlined in Section 5.3.1, the applicability and advantages of rarely used approaches such as the outranking
approaches ELECTRE and PROMETHEE and AI approaches others than Fuzzy-based approaches should also be exam-
ined in the context of SSM. They could compensate the weaknesses of the existing approaches. Outranking approaches
could be applied to filter appropriate suppliers for the final selection. In purchasing functions, a frequent job rotation is
common due to reasons of compliance and partiality. Hence, expert knowledge gets lost each time a buyer changes the
department. To preserve this knowledge and to provide more objective decision support, AI approaches such as neural
networks, genetic algorithm and case-based reasoning may serve as a promising way to improve this issue. Accordingly,
we propose to test and compare such rarely used approaches in future works.
6.5 Supplier qualification process and the transition to the final selection
Although sustainable supplier qualification is a step which makes the supplier selection process more efficiently, it has
been rarely investigated until now as illustrated in Figure 6. Therefore, more emphasis should be laid on it. In particular,
models supporting the decision-maker in assigning questions to the supplier qualification or the final selection appropri-
ately should be examined in future. Moreover, research whether or how suppliers’ answers from the qualification
process should be integrated into the final selection and evaluation depicts another interesting field.
6.6 Supplier development process

As shown in Figure 6, the literature on sustainable supplier development modelling approaches is very scarce. In this
regard, three development directions may be promising. Firstly, the applicability of the proposed models on criteria for-
mulation should be examined in the context of the formulation of development activities as outlined in Section 5.3.1.
Secondly, since the simultaneous implementation of different supplier development activities can influence each other,
their mutual influence might be examined with the help of modelling approaches such as DEMATEL to assess the
potential impact. Thirdly, models should be developed, which support the selection of the most appropriate development
activities for the supplier or supply chain at hand.
22 K. Zimmer et al.
6.7 Impact of the selection of involved stakeholders in decision-making

In most models, multiple participants are involved in the weighting process. In this context, one functional unit may
have more influence on the weightings than the other. Thus, the choice on involved participants is crucial in order to
balance the short- and long-term interests from different angles (Humphreys, McIvor, and Chan 2003). Since sustainabil-
ity related risks arise from negative stakeholder reactions (Hofmann et al. 2014), weightings from different stakeholders
should be carried out as well (Dai and Blackhurst 2012; Yakovleva, Sarkis, and Sloan 2012; Theißen and Spinler 2014)
to obtain a comprehensive picture of the importance of sustainability related issues and risks.
6.8 Multiple sourcing to balance upcoming supply chain risks

When social and environmental supply chain issues become more important in future, one way to handle them better is
supplier diversification via multiple sourcing. In case of unveiled grievances, the business relationship to the supplier
can thus be ended very quickly without larger consequences. As outlined in Table 7, only 17 models on multiple
sourcing have been published so far yet not integrating social and environmental supply chain risks. Hence, further
research on multiple sourcing models appears promising to balance such upcoming supply chain risks using mathemati-
cal programming approaches.
6.9 Quantifiable and comparable environmental and social indicators

Another finding is the dominance of expert-based evaluations as illustrated in Table 7. In future, studies should integrate
both expert-based evaluations especially for intangible criteria and more importantly real supplier data. A limitation may
be the limited access to validated data (Azadnia, Saman, and Wong 2015). Hence, data uncertainties and incompleteness
can be another challenging issue. Concerning expert-based evaluations, authors should also be sensitive to the number
and the selection of experts being surveyed for these evaluation purposes as outlined by Awasthi, Chauhan, and Goyal
(2010). Although environmental criteria are commonly considered in the literature and more and more in companies,
both researchers and practitioners have difficulties in comparing them even within the same industry (Humphreys et al.
2006). Many papers did not integrate quantitative environmental and social indicators in their models even though this
would greatly contribute to the comparability of suppliers’ performances. Consequently, more research should be under-
taken to develop quantifiable and comparable indicator sets, in particular with a focus on social metrics. Continuing with
the results of the criteria analysis in Section 5.4, it must be stated that the integration of social aspects is still signifi-
cantly neglected as outlined by many other researchers. In a first step, adequate social indicators should be proposed
and their cause–effect relationship should be investigated in detail to advance the research on social supplier evaluations.
Moreover, the treatment of the particularities of social issues as outlined in Section 5.4.3 has to be solved prior to their
integration into the SSM processes.
7. Conclusions
This paper presents a literature review of formal quantitative and qualitative decision support models in SSM. The core
contribution of this paper is the crucial analysis of 143 publications based on 12 categories to reflect the state of the art in
a structured manner and provide research opportunities in this field of research. As a result, we obtained a clear character-
isation of the literature sample concerning the 12 categories e.g. SSM process, modelling approach and SSM criteria.
Besides, a general framework on SSM has been introduced, which can help the classification of future works. Further-
more, a definition of major terms in this research field is given. Linking this paper to the state-of-the-art in SSM, a review
of reviews was conducted prior to the comprehensive content analysis to clarify the need of this literature review.
Although, the number of studies has grown rapidly in recent years in this research field, still several research gaps are
remaining. Observations from this literature review pointed toward many new and promising research opportunities.
The content analysis and its validation have been conducted with due care, but still some limitations have to be noted.
Although three researchers have been involved in the content and criteria analysis, the classification of papers and criteria
remains subjective. Moreover, the analysis of modelling approaches has been made in a generic manner to outline estab-
lished and neglected fields of research. Therefore, a more detailed investigation of strengths and weaknesses of applied
and potential approaches taking into account the specific requirements of environmental and social issues in SSM leave
room for future analyses. Finally, it must be stated that our proposed hierarchical structure of Figure 3 was developed
with experts from two industries. Therefore, it might not be applicable to other industries without any amendments.
In conclusion, SSM gained rising attention in recent years. Hopefully, this trend will continue in future in both aca-
demia and practice. Especially, the consideration of the entire upstream supply chain is of great importance, since major
social and environmental grievances are expected to be at the tiers beyond the first-tier suppliers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplemental data
The underlying research materials for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2015.1079340 / description of
location [author to complete].
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Sustainable Supplier Management - A Review of Models Supporting Sustainable Supplier Selection, Monitoring, and Development

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International Journal of Production Research

ISSN: 0020-7543 (Print) 1366-588X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tprs20

Sustainable supplier management – a review of

Konrad Zimmer, Magnus Fröhling & Frank Schultmann

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2015.1079340

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Published online: 28 Sep 2015.

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Sustainable supplier management – a review of models supporting sustainable supplier

*Corresponding author. Email: konrad.zimmer@kit.edu

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

Thereby, the following research questions shall be answered:

2. Basic concepts in SSM

Sustainable supplier development

Evaluation and Formulation of

Sustainable supplier selection Sustainable supplier monitoring

Evaluation and Formulation of Evaluation and Formulation of

activities activities activities activities

Sustainable supplier development Sustainable supplier development

3. Discussion of related literature reviews

Table 1. Recent reviews on sustainable supplier selection.

Time Number of reviewed Dimension(s) of

4.2 Material collection

4.3 Classiﬁcation and rigor of research

Table 2. Classiﬁcation categories.

Structural dimension Category Attributes

Operationalisation of Sustainability Environmental, social, economic-environmental, socio-economic, socio-environmental,

Sustainable Supplier Managment

Single Models Combined Models

Mathematical Mathematical Artificial MA combined

Ishikawa-Diagram MILP ANP Fuzzy Logic Hybrid:

ELECTRE Particle Swarm Opt. Hybrid:

5. Results per category

5.1 Descriptive analysis

5.2 Supply chain context

Dimension Main theme Theme

C111: Strategy and organisation

C11: Management C112: Internal Management

C12: Financial C121: Cost

C1: Economic C131: Quality

C13: Capabilities C133: Technology

C141: Public disclosure

C211: Environmental commitment

C22: Environmental C223: Emissions

C226: Environmental product performance

C31: Internal C311: Social commitment

C321: Child and forced labor

C322: Occupational health and safety

C323: Wages and working hours

C326: Discrimination and diversity

C327: Freedom of association

C331: Stakeholder involvement

Figure 4. Number of papers on formal SSM models since 1997.

Figure 5. Distribution of ﬁrst author’s origin.

Table 3. Overview of related journals.

Most cited journals Most cited conferences

Journal of Cleaner Production 13 Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management 6

Table 4. Industry focus of papers.

Evaluation and final selection

Supplier monitoring Continuous evaluation