Multi-tier sustainable supply chain management investigation is in its relative infancy. The design and implementation of studies in this field need careful consideration. This paper uses a relationship perspective to examine three-tier levels of supply chains. Specifically, the paper introduces and supports the use of various antecedent factors for effective sustainable adoption of lower tier (third-tier) companies or sub-suppliers. A study design and analytical methodology, using rough set theory and a clustering approach, is introduced to identify relationships amongst the three levels. Data acquisition is currently in process in a developing country, Egypt, in the textile industry to evaluate the relationships and develop theory. Initially, in this paper an illustrative set of data is used to illustrate the effectiveness and novelty of the design and approach to arrive at some potential theoretical relationships. The approach and methodology can be useful to researchers seeking to do general supply chain and sustainability research in multi-tier settings; or other complex research that can benefit from simplified and exploratory empirical quantitative research.
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