Fairness and Organizational Performance: Insights for Supply Chain Management

Abstract

For this briefing document we review the organizational fairness literature with a focus on the supply chain context. Supply chain fairness is an under-researched topic and we seek to close this gap through a systematic literature review. We draw upon key contributions to the psychology, economics and organizations studies literature to illuminate the salient features of fairness in social and economic systems, such as supply chains. This briefing document highlights that fairness influences economic behaviour and firm performance in important ways. The literature shows that fairness in organizational practices can foster various sources competitive advantage and hence improve organizational performance. While there is a robust literature on fairness in the human resources management (HRM) domain, fairness perceptions by other stakeholder groups are underexplored and warrant further research attention. Moreover, while the business case for supply chain fairness is well established, other salient issues remain under-researched in the academic literature. We explore avenues for future research.