How sociology and politics shape sustainable supply chain finance: Insights from a comprehensive literature review

Sustainable supply chain finance (SSCF) aims to strengthen supplier liquidity while advancing sustainability goals across global value chains. Yet, despite growing scholarly attention, research in this field continues to emphasize financial optimization and digital efficiency, with limited understanding of the social and political conditions that determine whether SSCF initiatives succeed. To address this issue, we conducted an integrated review using bibliometric, topic modeling, and in-depth content analysis of peer-reviewed SSCF studies. Our findings show that current knowledge is organized around established technical domains—SCF solutions, trade credit and credit-risk mechanisms, green finance, sustainability applications, advanced decision-support methods, and firm financing policies. These themes reveal important progress but also expose areas where SSCF research remains partial or silent. Most notably, we identify five underdeveloped directions that emerged directly from the limitations observed in our analysis: the role of social movements in shaping accountability, cultural narratives that condition local legitimacy, the need for transnational regulatory harmonization, political-risk perception among investors, and intersectional inequalities affecting financing access. These overlooked dimensions explain why many SSCF programs deliver narrow benefits or fail to extend support to vulnerable actors in upstream supply positions. Building on these insights, our proposed agenda brings sociopolitical forces to the forefront of SSCF research. Foregrounding sociopolitical forces in SSCF scholarship is a necessary condition for transcending efficiency-driven and risk-centric paradigms, and for advancing financing practices that meaningfully support transparency, equity in supplier relations, and sustained sustainability transitions across global supply networks.