The impact of ISO 26000 implementation on sustainable supply chain management and competitive advantage

In the wake of increased globalization and rapid technological advancement, organizations are facing increasingly complex business issues and problems with their stakeholders, who now have access to more information about the business practices of the organization. One of the most challenging issues is corporate social responsibility (CSR). As a result of rising concerns about CSR, the ISO 26000 standard was introduced in 2010, specifying rules and procedures governing social responsibility practices that all types of organizations were recommended to implement. Consequently, companies have become increasingly interested in understanding the benefits of implementing ISO 26000 standard so that they can better justify the required investment. The purpose of this study is to investigate firm\u27s effect on competitive advantage by managing sustainable supply chains through the implementation of ISO 26000 standard. This study empirically examines the relationship between CSR practices (ISO 26000 standard) and the management of sustainable supply chains. This study also investigates the impact of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) on competitive advantage, including process efficiency, dynamic capabilities, and innovation. Additionally, this study assesses the moderating effect of firm size on the relationships posited in this study. This study builds upon, as the theoretical framework, the stakeholder theory, transactional cost economics, and the resource based view. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted via Survey Monkey and the data was collected from 262 respondents whose job positions are related to supply chain management in U.S. based manufacturing and service firms. The structural equation modeling (SEM) statistics technique using AMOS 20.0 software was applied to test hypotheses in this research model. The results of this study showed that implementing ISO 26000 standard is positively related to managing sustainable supply chains. The results also revealed that managing supply chains through the implementation of CSR guidelines has a significant positive impact on gaining process efficiency, dynamic capabilities, and innovation. The study further found that there is partial support for the moderating impact of firm size; sustainable supply chains managed by small firms had a statistically significant positive impact on both process efficiency and innovation