Stakeholder Participation and Transparency in Sustainable Supply Chain Governance for Urban Circular Economy Transitions: A Systematic Review

Abstract

As sustainable supply chain (SSC) practices continue to advance, scholarly attention has increasingly focused on the relationship between governance challenges and transparency mechanisms within sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). However, whether improving transparency alone is sufficient to achieve the intended governance outcomes remains a persistent point of theoretical and practical debate. This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) of research published over the past decade on SSCM governance structures and transparency mechanisms. We critically examine transparency as a governance instrument and assess its inherent limitations. The findings indicate that while enhanced transparency can partially mitigate information asymmetry and accountability deficits, transparency by itself is insufficient to dismantle entrenched power structures or to secure the substantive participation of marginalized stakeholders. Building on these insights, we discuss implications for urban circular economy transitions. We argue that effective urban circular economy governance requires embedding more pluralistic, participatory, and accountability-oriented transparency within dynamic, multi-stakeholder collaborative arrangements to strengthen procedural inclusion, shared accountability, and power-sensitive participation and outlines future research directions that link transparency design to inclusive sustainability transitions.