The recent UPS Teamster strike that was narrowly avoided has brought to the fore concerns about the state of the global supply chain. As e-commerce has evolved and the immediacy of delivery has become the norm, we find ourselves questioning the sustainability of such a model.

At a time when the Journal of Business Logistics (JBL) was at a crossroads, two starry-eyed Ph.D. students wanted to understand more about the history and the maturity of the field. What better way than to talk to the “visionaries” of the logistics discipline (Davis-Sramek & Fugate, 2007). One of those visionaries was Bud Lalonde, the founding editor of JBL and a forefather of the logistics and supply chain management (L&SCM) discipline (Goldsby & Zinn, 2018). He offered us wisdom about how scholars should use their research capabilities to address social challenges. His words were quite profound at the time, and they continue to shape our careers.

This research demonstrates how collaborative feedback and resource investments in supply chain management and logistics-based partnerships influence the establishment of inter-firm collaboration, and ultimately, focal firm logistics service performance. We employ a two-stage collaboration model grounded in Service-Dominant logic and supported by empirical findings from supply chain managers. This answers calls for research addressing how information and collaboration co-create value in service ecosystems. The study further explores the conditional effects of commitment to learning, an operant resource aiding in collaboration capitalization. Accordingly, this study contributes to Service-Dominant logic, supply chain management and logistics, and service strategy literatures by successfully demonstrating that various partnership investments in and dialogical exchanges with partners enhance collaborative, value co-creation processes resulting in mutually-beneficial strategic advantages. The findings are particularly relevant given recent global supply disruptions that mandate more resilient supply chains.

While firms recognise the importance of utilizing suppliers to meet sustainable supply chain management goals, many find environmental strategy difficult to implement. Applying insights from social exchange theory, this research explores how firms may use strategic priorities, specifically environmental strategic focus and environmental sourcing practices, as levers to enhance environmental supplier collaboration. Using structural equation modeling to analyze primary data from supply chain professionals in the U.S.A., results infer that the relational norms inherent in collaboration are associated with interorganisational citizenship behaviour, a forward-looking relational outcome. Further, the research examines relationships between the antecedents and outcomes of environmental supplier collaboration as impacted by environmental regulatory pressure. When firms have made environmental sourcing practices a strategic priority, regulatory pressure is less effective in fostering supplier collaboration. Finally, in firms with relational norms for environmental supplier collaboration, regulatory pressure is more likely to lead them to engage in interorganisational citizenship behaviour.