Information needs for a sustainable supply chain: Empirical research and proposal for actionable typologies

Lack of capacity to be informed about evolutions in the business environment has been identified as a barrier to starting sustainable initiatives in supply chains. From this perspective, Environmental Scanning can help managers satisfy their needs for external information. This research aims at identifying actionable and adaptable typologies of actors and topics to describe the information needs of organizations in an Environmental Scanning process for Sustainable Supply Chain. Resulting typology of topics is organized in seven meta-topics: Environmental, Human rights, Labor practices and decent work, Product responsibility, Society, Regulations, and Logistics. Regulation as an emerging meta-topic was transversally linked to the three Sustainable Development pillars. Concerning the actor's typology, 27 new groups of actors were identified to complement Freeman's proposed ones. Groups of actors holding most attention in terms of information needs were: Governments, Competitors, Leading actors and Forward Supply Chain actors. These typologies were corroborated as useful tools to help managers identify information needs adapted to the context of their organization.