Investigating the impact of environmental forces on the sustainable supply chain with the mediating role of supplier communication and organizational capacity

The concept of sustainable supply chain behavior involves considering social, economic, and environmental issues in all organizational processes. These processes include the entire lifecycle of the supply chain, from raw material procurement to design, product development, storage, distribution, and delivery of the final product. In fact, supply chain sustainability is a business issue that affects the organization's supply chain and logistics network based on environmental factors, risk, and waste management. There has been a noticeable growth in the need for integrating environmental activities with organizational supply chain management. This study aimed to investigate the impact of environmental forces on sustainable supply chains, with the mediating role of supplier communications and organizational capacity in small and medium-sized companies in the industrial town of Toos in Mashhad. The results indicate that environmental forces have an effect on sustainable supply chains, but the direct relationship between supplier communications and organizational capacity is not confirmed, and these two variables have an indirect effect on sustainable supply chains through the mediating role between environmental forces and sustainable supply chains. Therefore, the main hypothesis regarding the relationship between environmental variables and sustainable supply chains is confirmed.