Sustainability as Social Contract: Textile and Apparel Professionals’ Value Conflicts within the Corporate Moral Responsibility Spectrum

Rachel Lomonaco-Benzing,Jung Ha-Brookshire

doi:10.3390/su8121278

Abstract

Current discussions of sustainability in the textile and apparel (T&A) supply chain tend to focus on consumer behavior or methods of production. Few studies investigate how T&A supply chain members experience corporate sustainability initiatives within their own moral value spectrum. This study was designed to describe the gaps that might exist between personal and corporate moral values of T&A supply chain members, and how individuals manage such gaps to align personal and corporate identities. The researchers investigated the views of ten T&A supply chain members residing in the United States, both as employees and consumers of T&A companies, through semi-structured interviews. Dunfee’s extant social contracts and Schwartz’s theory of basic values were used as theoretical frameworks to better understand the participants’ lived experiences in negotiating personal and corporate expectations. The findings revealed three themes: (a) nature of the value gap; (b) frustration due to the value gap; and (c) strategies to manage the value gap. The strategies used to realign values split into either those that held sustainability as their responsibility and worked to move corporate values toward their personal values; or those that shifted the blame to others so that their values could remain untouched.

Highlights

As the textile and apparel (T&A) supply chain has become increasingly fractured across the world and corporations in recent decades due to the emphasis on low cost and rapid production [1,2], questions of corporate sustainability throughout the supply chain have increasingly surfaced from both consumers and researchers
The researchers organized the themes into three distinct categories of T&A supply chain members’ sustainability-related moral value conflicts with corporations: (a) the nature of the gap between their personal values and those of corporations; (b) feelings of frustration; and (c) the coping strategies resulting from their frustration
Current discussions on sustainability tend to focus on consumer behavior or methods of production

Summary

Introduction

As the textile and apparel (T&A) supply chain has become increasingly fractured across the world and corporations in recent decades due to the emphasis on low cost and rapid production [1,2], questions of corporate sustainability throughout the supply chain have increasingly surfaced from both consumers and researchers. The notion of engaging consumers and employees with sustainability is consistent with Ha-Brookshire and Hawley [8] who argued that satisfaction of individuals’ clothing needs and wants is the objective of the T&A supply chain. This objective refers to consumers’ social, biological, and aesthetic satisfaction, or employees’ financial satisfaction, and involves individuals’ satisfaction when the supply chain responsibly meets these needs and wants while promoting “a better society and environment” [8] The moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability (MRCS) suggests that companies are morally responsible to be sustainable beyond stakeholder satisfaction [5]

Methods

Results

Conclusion