Abstract
Investigating sustainability practices and performance outcomes is seen as a key priority by many international entities, such as the United Nations and the European Union, to ensure high sustainability levels in global societies. In this regard, the energy sector is considered a key industry. However, literature investigating sustainability practices and performance outcomes in energy production supply chains (SCs) is scarce. A recent literature review showed that the current research on energy production SCs is split into sub-sector investigations and a comprehensive analysis of the different end-to-end energy production SCs is currently missing. By shedding light on energy production SCs, We argue that external factors i.e., energy source, supply chain position, geographic location, and firm size may lead to multiple institutional patterns along the SC, i.e., external factors may lead to multiple institutional fields along the chain, in these institutional fields, different institutional pressures and logics, and isomorphic patterns can exist, in response, they may lead to different sustainability practices, resulting different sustainable performance outcomes. In this paper, based on institutional theory, a conceptual framework is proposed. It revises a theoretical framework about sustainability categories and supply chain management practices, by adding a path of influence of external factors. The frameworks will serve as a useful guideline for strategy development in enhancing sustainability practices and performance outcomes, specifically in the energy sector.