From interdependence to performance: how supplier adaptability and innovativeness drive hotel sustainability

While suppliers possess the capacity to enhance firms’ sustainable performance, leveraging the supply base to advance hotel sustainability remains a persistent paradox. Drawing on complex adaptive system (CAS) theory, this study examines how supply chain management attributes of interdependence, adaptability and innovativeness contribute to hotels’ economic, social and environmental performance. Data collected from 224 hotels in Tanzania were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings indicate that firm-supplier interdependence positively influences social and economic performance but exerts no significant effect on environmental performance. Supplier adaptability emerges as a critical enabler of all three dimensions of sustainable performance. Furthermore, supplier adaptability partially mediates the relationship between firm-supplier interdependence and both social and economic performance, while fully mediating its relationship with environmental performance. Supply management innovativeness moderates the effect of supplier adaptability on social performance but demonstrates no significant moderating influence on economic or environmental performance. By applying CAS theory, this research advances the hotel supply chain management literature by demonstrating that supplier adaptability serves as a pivotal mechanism linking firm-supplier interdependence to sustainable performance, a relationship further conditioned by supply management innovativeness.