The impacts of critical success factors for implementing green supply chain management towards sustainability: an empirical investigation of Indian automobile industry

•Focused on Critical Success Factors (CSFs) to implement GSCM towards sustainability.•Made empirical investigation of GSCM implementation issues of Indian automobile industry.•Formulated and tested ten hypotheses towards effective implementation of GSCM.•Regulatory CSF reported as the most important in promoting the green practices.•Internal Management and Competitiveness CSFs found crucial to achieve performances.

The management of ‘sustainable’ issues in supply chain is attracting much attention from the academia and corporate world. Sustainability has turn out to be a major concern for organizations to integrate ecological and societal issues in their business strategy. Therefore, this paper explores the importance of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) to implement Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) towards sustainability taking into account the automobile industry of India. The hypothesized relationships of the proposed framework have been tested by analyzing data collected from 123 Indian automobile organizations. This study examined impacts of CSFs to implement GSCM towards sustainability on current green practices implemented by Indian automobile industry and expected organizational performance outcomes by using multiple regression analysis. The findings point out that the ‘Regulatory’ CSF has been identified which plays the most important role in promoting the green practices. ‘Internal Management’ and ‘Competitiveness’ CSFs playing a crucial role towards achievement of expected performance outcomes. The present research will assist the practitioners/managers to understand various GSCM implementation issues and to improve their practices and performances towards sustainable development.

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