Green supply chain, green leadership, consumer preferences, sustainability attitudes, and sustainable business advantage: a case of Vietnamese textile industry

Abstract

Surging environmental issues confiscate stakeholders' attention due to growing competition. Sustainable performance in this regard is viewed as a suitable tool because it not only gauges firm's financial performance but also covers social and environmental areas. However, sustainable performance cannot be achieved without creating sustainable business advantage. Green supply chain practices are known to be implemented in terms of sustainability as they are cross-looped as well as cross-organizational. The practices help in the reduction of environmental impact of business activities without compromising on quality, performance, cost, and energy usage efficiency. The reason encourages the authors to explore the role of selected green supply chain factors, customer preference, and leadership factors in shaping sustainable business advantage. The study has examined the association by adopting the quantitative research method. The researcher has gathered data from 530 employees in the purchasing department, logistics, import/export officers, and packing staff. The data was analyzed statistically by employing SPSS for preliminary analysis and AMOS for testing the structural model and the hypotheses of the study. Using confirmatory factors analysis and structural equational modeling, the researcher has analyzed the study's measurement model and the hypotheses of the study. The findings of the research have depicted that there is a significant positive impact of lean management and green product design with sustainable business advantage. Moreover, there exists a mediation of customer preferences and leadership factors between green product design and sustainable business advantage. The study has a few limitations as well and uses a quantitative method; therefore, the study has recommended that future researchers utilize qualitative or mixed methods. The study has several theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: Customer preference; Environmental sustainability; Green supply chain practices; Leadership factors; Sustainable business advantage; Textile industry; Vietnam.