When Stakeholder Pressure Meets Green: Explaining Sustainable Supply Chain Management Adoption in a Late EU ‐Accession Economy

Abstract

Recent regulations have introduced unprecedented mandatory sustainability requirements for EU companies, with significant implications for firms embedded in supply chains. These requirements increasingly affect not only large companies but also small and medium‐sized enterprises that are indirectly exposed to sustainability pressures through contractual, reporting, and supply chain relationships. Stakeholder theory explains the origin and relevance of external and internal sustainability pressures, whereas the dynamic capabilities perspective provides a conceptual lens for interpreting how firms organize internal managerial, performance‐control, and technological capabilities when responding to such pressures. The study develops and empirically tests a conceptual model examining the direct and interactive effects of stakeholder pressure, quality of management, sustainability‐oriented performance management, and green technology innovation on SSCM adoption. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM) on data from 178 ISO‐certified Romanian medium‐sized manufacturing companies, the analysis provides context‐specific evidence on how stakeholder pressures and internal organizational conditions jointly shape sustainability‐related decisions within supply chains. The findings show that external stakeholder pressure is the strongest driver of SSCM adoption, while internal stakeholder pressure, quality of management, sustainability‐oriented performance management, and green technology innovation also have positive direct effects. The results further indicate that stakeholder pressure does not uniformly reinforce innovation‐driven sustainability strategies. Both external and internal stakeholder pressure weakens the positive relationship between green technology innovation and SSCM practices. Model‐implied interaction patterns indicate that the contribution of green innovation to SSCM adoption becomes progressively weaker as stakeholder pressure increases, suggesting that intense and visible pressure may be associated with more standardized and compliance‐oriented responses that constrain the strategic deployment of green innovation. In contrast, the positive interaction between quality of management and sustainability‐oriented performance management shows that managerial routines and sustainability‐related performance‐control systems jointly support SSCM adoption. The study contributes to SSCM literature by offering a pressure–capability interpretation of sustainability adoption in an ISO‐certified medium‐sized manufacturing context within a late EU‐accession economy.