Social sustainability is concerned with the human side of sustainability. The literature indicates a growing movement towards adopting social practices in the supply chain, and despite the diffusion of the topic, it appears that social sustainability is relatively new in the service sector in general and in the healthcare sector in particular. This study explored this issue and identified the motivators, barriers, and enablers of social sustainability in a healthcare supply chain with the lens of “stakeholder theory” and a focus on four stakeholder groups: suppliers, employees, patients/community and owners/government. These aspects were further explored using a structured research method and specific research objectives. The SIPOC chart was used to list the healthcare suppliers, the inputs (such as employees) supplied and used by main processes in healthcare, the outputs (products and services) of these processes, and their customers (patients and community). This facilitates linkages of different supply chain stakeholders. This is exploratory research; data were collected from various departments of 10 hospitals of United Arab Emirates (UAE), and a comprehensive depiction of what drives, inhibits, and facilitates social sustainability practices in healthcare as perceived by all stakeholders' groups was formulated. Study results confirmed that, while separate attention to each stakeholder group is important, a comprehensive analysis of all stakeholders’ perceptions of what constitutes a socially sustainable supply chain would offer more benefits and help hospital managers balance the expectations of all involved parties.

社会可持续性关系到可持续性的人文方面。文献表明，在供应链中采用社会实践的趋势正在不断发展，尽管话题已经传播开来，但看来社会可持续性在整个服务行业，尤其​​是医疗保健行业中相对较新。这项研究探讨了这个问题，并以“利益相关者理论”为视角，并着重于四个利益相关者群体：供应商，雇员，患者/社区和所有者/政府，确定了医疗保健供应链中社会可持续发展的动机，障碍和促成因素。使用结构化研究方法和特定研究目标进一步探讨了这些方面。SIPOC图表用于列出医疗保健供应商，医疗保健主要流程提供和使用的输入（例如员工），这些流程的输出（产品和服务）及其客户（患者和社区）。这促进了不同供应链利益相关者之间的联系。这是探索性研究；从阿拉伯联合酋长国（UAE）的10家医院的各个部门收集数据，并对所有利益相关者团体所认为的驱动，抑制和促进医疗保健方面的社会可持续性实践进行了全面描述。研究结果证实，尽管对每个利益相关者群体的单独关注很重要，