A systematic literature review of modern slavery in supply chain management: State of the art, framework development and research opportunities

Abstract

Given increased awareness about modern slavery in supply chain management (SCM), this paper undertakes a systematic literature review (SLR) covering 106 published articles. We first carry out a descriptive analysis, with results showing that modern slavery research is on an upward trajectory but suffers from a lack of primary data and theory application. We then extract themes from the published articles and use them to provide theory elaboration of Gold et al. (2015) model of modern slavery in SCM. Specifically, we introduce business culture and high impact risk factors like pandemics as new institutional factors; highlight external stakeholders like recruitment agents and audit firms as integral to understanding the business context of modern slavery; and add prevention and remediation to detection and response as discrete categories in managing modern slavery risks. We also discuss the gaps in modern slavery research in supply chains. Finally, we propose that reshoring, industry 4.0 and supply chain collaboration represent SCM specialisms that can inform modern slavery research going forward.