Sustainability Challenges to the Steel Industry in a Developing Country: Sanctions and Security Issues at the Forefront

Abstract

This article contributes to sustainability research by investigating the complex, geopolitically induced challenges faced by industrial supply chains under international sanctions. Using Iran's steel industry as a case, it examines sustainability barriers through the lens of stakeholder theory. A mixed methods approach was employed. First, seven critical sustainability challenges were identified through a thematic analysis of qualitative data from 18 expert interviews and two panel discussions. These challenges were then quantitatively prioritized using the best–worst method (BWM) and its Bayesian extension, based on survey responses from 28 representatives across four stakeholder categories: manufacturers, government, NGOs, and buyers. The findings reveal that while challenges such as resource scarcity align with global studies, international sanctions and cyberattacks emerge as distinct, high-priority barriers in the sanctioned context. Quantitative BWM results identified resource scarcity (final weight: 0.0789) and international sanctions (final weight: 0.056) as the two highest priority challenges across the stakeholder landscape. However, significant stakeholder divergence was observed: Manufacturers emphasized sanctions as paramount, whereas NGOs and buyers downplayed their significance. These results underscore the critical need for context-sensitive policies and multistakeholder collaboration that explicitly acknowledges these prioritization disparities. The study contributes to stakeholder theory by contextualizing its application in politically constrained environments and advocates policy reforms to address the interplay among geopolitical, institutional, and operational factors in building resilient and sustainable supply chains.