The impact of food supply chain traceability on sustainability performance

Increasing quality and risk issues have made food supply chain traceability a worldwide societal concern. This paper aims to examine how exactly traceability practices improve firm sustainability performance. Through structural equation modeling approach, based on a survey of 450 Chinese firms, this paper explores the impact of traceability practices on a firm’s sustainability performance while examining the mediating role of dynamic capabilities as well as the moderating effect exerted by environmental dynamism. The results show that: (1) Input traceability practice, process traceability practice, and output traceability practice have a significant positive impact on firm’s sustainability performance; (2) Dynamic capabilities play a partial mediation role in the relationship between the aforementioned three traceability practices and sustainability performance; (3) Environmental dynamism has a moderating effect on the relationship between dynamic capabilities and sustainability performance. As environmental dynamism increased, the dynamic capabilities have a stronger positive impact on firm sustainability performance.