The impact of corporate social responsibility in supply chain management: Multicriteria decision-making approach

This paper develops a decision support framework for modeling and analysis of supply chain networks with corporate social responsibility (CSR). We consider the multicriteria decision-making behavior of the various decision makers (manufacturers, retailers, and consumers), which includes the maximization of net return, the minimization of emission, and the minimization of risk. The emission and the risk are penalized by variable weights. The model allows one to investigate the interplay of the heterogeneous decision makers in the supply chain and to compute the resultant equilibrium pattern of product outputs, transactions, product prices, and levels of social responsibility activities. The results show that social responsibility activities can potentially reduce transaction costs, risk and environmental impact. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.