Strategic Business Responses to Shifts in Promoting Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) in Business Practices

This thesis examines the strategic collaborative response of businesses to the changing requirements of SSCM, or that combination of environmental, social, and economic aspects within the SCO context. With stakeholders focusing on sustainability as the global attention grows, industries are using SSCM to not only regulate their operations but also establish a competitive edge, improve the resiliency of their operations, and satisfy stakeholder demands and concerns. The research takes a qualitative, exploratory, and deductive approach that analyzes secondary data primarily drawn from corporate sustainability reports, literature, and regulatory documents. The study is based on CTCA, which shows the development of SSCM strategies from the 1990s to 2025, with the significant changes shifting to regulatory compliance, digital transformation, circular economy models, and AI-driven optimization. Five theoretical lenses are used to interpret the findings; they include RBV, TBL, DCT, ST, and IT, to inform the way businesses utilize internal capabilities, react to external factors, and align the company to stakeholder requirements. The paper concludes that SSCM has today emerged as a strategic necessity, which has both operational and reputational benefits. It offers a valuable perspective to managers about how sustainability can be embedded in core business processes, and it is also theoretically relevant as it synthesizes various frameworks of sustainability. Crucial gaps when it comes to SME inclusion, digital equity, and harmonization of regulations also imply the future research areas highlighted in the thesis. Finally, it puts SSCM frames as an evolving, comprehensive system, critical to successful business resilience and world sustainability.