Abstract
After considering significant literature on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), it is evident that research has neglected the social dimension and still lacks in highlighting the role of sourcing intermediaries in supply chains. The apparel supply chain has increased enormously in length and complexity, driving apparel retailers to employ sourcing intermediaries who manage their sourcing activities with suppliers from developing countries overseas. Thus, the purpose of this study is to enrich existing findings on SSCM by exploring the management of social sustainability when sourcing intermediaries are in between the focal company and the respective developing country factories. More specifically, this study aims to understand the role of apparel sourcing intermediaries for the implementation of social management strategies based on the perception of multiple supply chain actors. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted in Vietnam and Europe. Ultimately ten propositions are presented, all explicitly concentrating on the apparel intermediary’s role as a significant enabler for social sustainability in apparel supply chains. The roles are social sustainability, supplier developer and coordinator, gatekeeper and safeguard, cultural broker, and social risk manager. The social sustainability roles assumed by the apparel sourcing intermediary offer great opportunities to both apparel retailers and developing country factories.
Highlights
Today’s apparel consumers expect constant change and new products have to be available on a frequent basis
This paper strived to exclusively focus on the role played by the apparel sourcing intermediary in managing social sustainability
It is noteworthy to outline that the case apparel intermediary in this study is not promoting itself as a sustainable company, but rather provides social sustainability as a natural service, which is primarily shaped by the top management social responsibility orientation [26]
Summary
Today’s apparel consumers expect constant change and new products have to be available on a frequent basis. With its global reach and as competitive pressures increase, the shift to low-cost developing country suppliers [1,4,5,6,7] leads to increasingly complex, globally dispersed and highly dynamic apparel supply chains [2,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16] and emphasizes the focus on sustainability This race to the bottom typically results in a contradiction to the concept of sustainability, defined as the “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” by the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) [17]. Apparel retailers implement social management strategies [26,27,49] in order to tackle social issues in their supply chain and to respond to and mitigate external risks [12,16], especially when the unfavorable publicity will cause lasting damage to the apparel brand [44,46,48,50]
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