Unveiling unbalance on sustainable supply chain research: Did we forget something?

Abstract

Even though it has been theorized that initiatives on sustainable development should pursue an equilibrium among social, environmental and economic dimensions, several studies have pointed that an unbalance exists regarding the consideration of the three dimensions. However, there is little evidence to support such unbalance. Thus, in this article, we propose a tool to determinate sustainable dimensions balance by representing sustainable efforts according to their orientation. To test our tool, we reviewed about ten years of literature from top tier journals dealing with Sustainable Supply Chain issues to establish the sustainable efforts undertaken. Our results visually unveil unbalance on research in this field and show that most research is oriented to environmental and economic aspects, leaving social issues aside.