Sustainability Discourse Within a Supply Chain Relationship: Mapping Convergence and Divergence

Abstract

Large organizations involved in supply chain relationships increasingly are creating joint sustainability initiatives. The authors investigated sustainability-related discourse directed to and created by employees representing two organizations engaged in a supply chain relationship. CRAWDAD was used to map the concepts appearing in (a) each company's sustainability-related training material, and (b) sustainability-focused interviews conducted with employees. Shared terms in the training documents included the following: corporate mission, corporate performance, corporate responsibility, product (healthy, sustainable, design), price, packaging, reduced waste, energy (reduction, use), and carbon emission. Overlaps between training texts and interview comments revolved around key corporate business goals as well as sustainability as the right thing to do. In the interviews, value statements (e.g., sustainability as the right thing to do or a "good way to do business") were especially strong. Within both text and talk, the buyer-supplier relationship was emphasized. Areas of divergence between talk and text and between organizations were identified. © 2012 by the Association for Business Communication.