The FairWear Campaign: An Ethical Network in the Australian Garment Industry

In many parts of the world, homework is a form of labour characterised by precariousness, lack of regulation, and invisibility and lack of protection of the workers who are often amongst the world’s poorest and most exploited. Homework is spreading, due to firm practices such as outsourcing. The analysis and understanding of complex corporate networks may assist with the identification and protection of those most at risk within the supply chain network. It can also expose some of the key ethical issues and dilemmas of supply chain management and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on a case-study of the Australian FairWear Campaign (FWC), this article identifies an ethical network that aims to increase corporate accountability (CA) via greater transparency in corporate supply chains and improve work conditions for homeworkers and increase their recognition in the supply chain.     

Recognizing Ethical Issues: An Examination of Practicing Industry Accountants and Accounting Students

The academic debate why and how companies are dealing with sustainability is dominated by two main arguments—the profit-seeking and the legitimacy-seeking view. While the first argues that companies (only) establish sustainability management measures if this helps to increase their economic success, others emphasize that companies predominantly react on societal pressure dealing with sustainability (only) to secure legitimacy. Whereas both lines of argument have gained a lot of attention in academia, little is known about their relative importance in shaping corporate practice. This papers aims to fill this gap with an empirical analysis of corporate practices of large companies in ten countries worldwide. To capture the organizations’ rationale in sustainability management practice, we systematically applied various measures related to actors and operational activities focusing on the companies’ intention to pursue sustainability management, the integration of sustainability management to the core business, and the actual implementation of related measures. Overall the findings indicate that seeking legitimacy dominates corporate sustainability management practices.     

Supply Chain Specific? Understanding the Patchy Success of Ethical Sourcing Initiatives

As a number of high profile companies have found to their cost, corporate reputations can be significantly affected by firms' management of sustainability issue, including those that are outside their direct control, such as the environmental and social impacts of their supply networks. This paper begins by examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility, reputation, and supply network conditions. It then looks at the effectiveness of one tool for managing supply network sustainability issues, ethical sourcing codes of conduct, by examining how the characteristics of three supply networks branded clothes, DIY wood products and branded confectionary affects the implementation ethical sourcing codes of conduct. It ends by setting out conclusions on why implementation of such codes has been so much more successful in some sectors than others and recommendations on effective approaches to managing sustainability issues in supply networks.     

Supply Chain Transparency as a Consumer or Corporate Tool: The Case of Nudie Jeans Co

Outsourcing has led both to the embedding of questionable sustainability practices in opaque supply chains and to anti-sweatshop challenges demanding more transparent supply chains. Previous research has argued that supply chain transparency can be both a consumer tool empowering consumers to pressure disclosing firms to improve sustainability conditions and a corporate tool for increasing revenues. Based on a study of the transparency project of Swedish company Nudie Jeans, the authors demonstrate that consumers do not leverage transparency but that transparency improves consumer willingness to buy. In doing this, the authors contribute to the literature in two important ways. First, the authors provide one of the first, if not the first, studies of whether consumers in practice leverage increased supply chain transparency, challenging the previous research claim that supply chain transparency is a useful consumer tool. Second, the authors move beyond studies of purchasing intentions and willingness to buy in experimental settings and confirm that supply chain transparency is a useful corporate tool in practice. The authors conclude by discussing the policy implications of companies being able to use transparency to increase sales without subjecting themselves to increased consumer pressure.     

Enhancing Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations: Is Extraterritoriality the Magic Potion?

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, resulting from the work of John Ruggie and his team, largely depend on state action and corporate good will for their implementation. One increasingly popular way for states to prevent and redress violations of human rights committed by companies outside their country of registration is to adopt measures with extraterritorial implications, some of which are presented in the article, or to assert direct extraterritorial jurisdiction in specific instances. Some United Nations human rights bodies and non-governmental organisations are clearly supporting the use of extraterritoriality and have argued that international human rights law places an obligation on states to embrace extraterritoriality so as to better control the activities of companies registered on their territories. In this context, the article aims to determine whether extraterritoriality is the magic potion that will help enhance corporate accountability for human rights violations committed overseas. The article explores whether such obligation exists and, beyond this, whether extraterritoriality should be further encouraged.     

The social and ethical alchemy: an integrative approach to social and ethical accountability

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest by companies in developing approaches to instill values in their decision-making processes and to manage and report on their social performance. The emerging field of social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting (SEAAR) is characterised by considerable differentiation not only in terminology, but also in methodology and focus. This article aims to analyse the key conceptual and methodological differences between internally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with ethics (behavioural) issues, and externally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with social (stakeholder) issues.
In their discussion of the benefits and potential pitfalls of exclusively internally or externally focussed approaches the authors suggest two organisational metaphors as heuristics – the Cultish and the Chameleon organisation. The authors then propose an integrative approach to SEAAR which will overcome this dissonance and initiate a mutually reinforcing process that, in the long-term, can build both internal trust and cohesiveness and external credibility. The suggested approach is characterised as social and ethical alchemy since the aim is to achieve more than the sum of the two separate parts – a business ethics programme and a social reporting process – by creating leverage and synergy between the key components.     

Business Policies on Human Rights: An Analysis of Their Content and Prevalence Among FTSE 100 Firms

The new millennium has witnessed a growing concern over the impact of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on human rights. Hence, this article explores (1) how wide-spread corporate policies on human rights are amongst large corporations, specifically the FTSE 100 constituent firms, (2) whether any sectors are particularly active in designing human rights policies and (3) where corporations have adopted such policies what their content is. In terms of adoption rates of human rights policies, evidence of exemplary approaches in individual companies contrasts with a less satisfactory engagement pattern across the sample, as 42.8% of firms do not seem to address human rights at all. With regard to the content of corporate human rights policies, the study found shallow commitments to dominate, where companies focus on a narrow range of negative rights, i.e. on respecting human rights, rather than positive ones, i.e. initiatives to protect or fulfil human rights.     

Green light for greener supply

The supply chain management function is currently undergoing a dramatic change: it is adopting an increasingly strategic role. However, this growing financial importance is matched in only a handful of exemplary companies by a greater contribution to environmental protection initiatives in the supply chain. This paper explores some of the obstacles to greater supply chain management involvement in environmental protection and offers suggestions for greener supply. At a personal level, the gap between public opinion on the environment and managerial values needs to be closed, and the support offered by management education and by professional bodies needs to be improved. Within the organisation, the reward structure for supply chain managers needs to move away from narrow economic criteria. Greener supply would also benefit from a larger supply chain management role in corporate strategy making; the function could even be offered a seat on the Board of Management. Changes to the mode of supply chain management, including improvements to the information flow on environmental issues, the decision–making tools used in the face of complex environmental challenges and novel approaches to supply chain management need to receive urgent attention.     

Corporate Responsibility in Scandinavian Supply Chains

This article examines corporate responsibility in the supply chains of four of the largest Scandinavian multinational corporations – IKEA, Nokia, Novo Nordisk, and StatoilHydro – and offers two key findings. First, these Scandinavian companies have all implemented responsible supply chain practices where suppliers in developing nations, and the communities of these suppliers, are engaged as key stakeholders and treated as partners. Second, these supply chain practices all share the common bond of having honesty and the establishment of trust-based relationships at their foundation. As a result, these Scandinavian companies have developed a “cooperative advantage” in their ability to form successful, long-term partnerships in their respective supply chains.     

Roadmapping Corporate Social Responsibility in Finnish Companies

This paper presents a roadmap of Finnish companies adopting and managing corporate social responsibility (CSR). It discusses the companies' views on CSR and highlights the practices that Finnish companies have adopted or are currently adopting. It also presents a framework that outlines the CSR processes and management prospects.Results showed that Finnish companies are progressively managing CSR. This newly revived thinking about social responsibility is viewed as an issue traced back from Finland's history of industrial development. There is no general definition of CSR; however, various concepts are connoted into it. Driven by several factors, CSR is developing gradually as indicated by the positive responses and initiatives of the companies.CSR management and practices towards employees, suppliers, community and customers are well defined locally based generally on established socially responsible behavior which could be articulated by laws and regulations, corporate values and business ethics. However, managing CSR with a global scope, problems such as; lack of information and structured management system, different views and interpretations, supply chain complexities, overlap with environmental issues, etc. often lead some companies to manage CSR haphazardly. Views and management of CSR are also influenced by some distinct Finnish cultural attributes.An initial conceptual framework for CSR is drawn reflecting the current practices and prospects for management strategies. Such framework can be used in organizing and streamlining CSR elements for effective management approaches and measuring of performance. It could be expected that in due time, the efforts of the companies will become more evident, organized and systematically managed.     

Corporate Responsibility in Scandinavian Supply Chains

This article examines corporate responsibility in the supply chains of four of the largest Scandinavian multinational corporations – IKEA, Nokia, Novo Nordisk, and StatoilHydro – and offers two key findings. First, these Scandinavian companies have all implemented responsible supply chain practices where suppliers in developing nations, and the communities of these suppliers, are engaged as key stakeholders and treated as partners. Second, these supply chain practices all share the common bond of having honesty and the establishment of trust-based relationships at their foundation. As a result, these Scandinavian companies have developed a “cooperative advantage” in their ability to form successful, long-term partnerships in their respective supply chains.     

Women Workers, Industrialization, Global Supply Chains and Corporate Codes of Conduct

The restructured globalized economy has provided women with employment opportunities. Globalisation has also meant a shift towards self-regulation of multinationals as part of the restructuring of the world economy that increases among others things, flexible employment practices, worsening of labour conditions and lower wages for many women workers around the world. In this context, as part of the global trend emphasising Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the 1980s, one important development has been the growth of voluntary Corporate Codes of Conduct to improve labour conditions. This article reviews from a feminist interdisciplinary perspective the broad academic literature on women workers, covering the more classical debate on women workers in the industrialization process and entering into women workers in the global supply chains and women workers and corporate codes of conduct. The main argument is that this research on women workers is crucial to frame the issues of business ethics and in particular CSR and Codes of Conduct in the context of women in the global political economy. When this crucial knowledge is ignored, then the ethical policies of the companies also ignore the real situation of the women workers at the bottom of their supply chains. This article is based on my PhD on Nicaraguan women workers in factories (maquilas) and banana plantations and corporate codes of conduct (Prieto, 2006, unpublished).     

Social Role Conceptions and CSR Policy Success

Businesses are eager to present themselves as honest and reliable corporate citizens who care about the overall well-being of society. This article researches whether different role conceptions of businesses regarding social issues are related to their success in dealing with social demands. Do socially active companies have a better social reputation than inactive companies? This relationship is determined by first extracting the social role conceptions of the companies from their Corporate Social Responsibility reports and then comparing this data to their social reputations. The analysis shows that there is indeed a relationship between these two variables. Companies with a broad social role conception score significantly better on their social reputations than companies with a narrow role conception. Social role conceptions therefore matter when dealing with social demands.     

How global is the Global Compact?

Launched by the United Nations in 2000, the Global Compact (GC) promotes private sector compliance with 10 basic principles covering human rights, labour standards, the environment, and anti-corruption. Its sponsors aim to establish a global corporate social responsibility (CSR) network based on a pledge to observe the 10 principles adopted by companies across the range of company size and regional origin, backed by a modest reporting system and collaborative programmes. The author analyzes the GC's progress toward building a global network from its launch through 2006 and finds that, while the GC's nominal membership base of nearly 3000 companies makes it the largest system among collective action institutions (CAIs) for corporate responsibility, the GC has not reached 'critical mass'. Deficiencies in its nascent global network include limited market penetration among the largest corporations, a membership heavily weighted toward Western European companies, and major weaknesses in compliance with its reporting system. The author concludes that the GC must improve both penetration and compliance if it is to succeed in building a global standard for CSR.     

Sustainable Supply Chains in the Age of AI and Digitization: Research Challenges and Opportunities

Sustainability has become a global corporate mandate with implementation impacted by two key trends. The first is recognition that global supply chains have a profound impact on sustainability which requires “greening” the entire supply chain. The second is technology—digitization, artificial intelligence (AI), and “big data”—which have become ubiquitous. These technologies are impacting every aspect of how companies organize and manage their supply chains and have a powerful impact on sustainability. In this essay, we synthesize current dominant themes in research on sustainable supply chains in the age of digitization. We also highlight potential new research opportunities and challenges and showcase the papers in our STF.     

CSR Practices and Corporate Strategy: Evidence from a Longitudinal Case Study

This paper aims to contribute to the present debate about business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that the Journal of Business Ethics is hosting. Numerous contributions argued theoretical frameworks and taxonomies of CSR practices. The authors want to ground in this knowledge and provide further evidence about how companies adopt CSR practices to address stakeholders’ claims and consolidate their trust. Evidence was provided by a longitudinal case study about an Italian food company that is one of the largest producers of baby food. This company reshaped its corporate strategy along three decades through the adoption of CSR practices in order to win stakeholders’ trust about food safety and supply chain behaviour. The empirical exercise was informed by a literature review of the relevant contributions in terms of CSR business practices and levels of efforts to adopt them. In light of this review, the authors adopted for the research framework the taxonomy of business practices proposed by Spiller (2000, “Ethical Business and Investment: A Model for Business and Society”, Journal of Business Ethics 27, 149-160) and the levels of commitment towards CSR proposed by Stahl and Grigsby (1997, Strategic Management; Total Quality & Global Competition (Blackwell, Oxford)). The main findings are discussed in order to argue theoretical implications and identify further areas of research and debate.     

The Multinational Corporation and Global Governance: Modelling Global Public Policy Networks

Globalization has increased the economic power of the multinational corporation (MNC), engendering calls for greater corporate social responsibility (CSR) from these companies. However, the current mechanisms of global governance are inadequate to codify and enforce recognized CSR standards. One method by which companies can impact positively on global governance is through the mechanism of Global Public Policy Networks (GPPN). These networks build on the individual strength of MNCs, domestic governments, and non-governmental organizations to create expected standards of behaviour in such areas as labour rights, environmental standards, and working conditions. This article models GPPN in the issue area of CSR. The potential benefits of GPPN include better overall coordination among industry and government in establishing what social expectations the modern MNC will be expected to fill. David Detomasi is an assistant professor of international business at the School of Business, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario Canada. His research areas include corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and business and society.     

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a corporate code of conduct

Peter Frankental, Head of Business Networks, Amnesty International, explores the role of The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a corporate code of conduct. Frankental observes a changing business context, which overall increases the risk to business of dealing with other parties, including countries, subcontractors, joint venture partners and their stockholders. The paper proceeds to examine the barriers to integration of human rights, and identifies dilemmas that firms need to resolve. While in the author's view ethical behaviour does not confer competitive advantages in the short run, companies that base their codes of conduct on the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights are likely to find themselves in the stronger position to protect their reputation, brands and assets in the longer term.     

An integrated approach to managing extended supply chain networks

In an effort to improve their competitive position in a rapidly changing marketplace, many companies have replaced their traditional supply chains with extended supply chain networks built on a foundation of supply chain collaboration. These extended networks require the use of decision support tools and technologies to improve both operating efficiencies and customer service, but many companies have struggled to realize the expected benefits of these tools and the increased collaboration. This article recommends that companies adopt an integrated strategy of people, processes, and technology to achieve their competitive supply chain goals. Our recommendation is backed by the results of a survey we conducted of senior-level practitioners concerning the importance and challenges of supply chain collaboration. The article concludes with a set of managerial recommendations to improve a company’s collaborative efforts within its supply chain.     

Detecting Supply Chain Innovation Potential for Sustainable Development

In a world of limited resources, it could be argued that companies that aspire to be good corporate citizens need to focus on making best use of resources. User value and environmental harm are created in supply chains and it could therefore be argued that company business ethics should be extended from the company to the entire value chain from the first supplier to the last customer. Starting with a delineation of the linkages between business ethics, corporate sustainability, and the stakeholder concept, this article argues that supply chains generally have a great innovation potential for sustainable development. This potential could be highlighted with system thinking and the use of change management knowledge, promoting not only innovations within technology but also within organizational improvement. We propose process models and performance indicators as means of highlighting improvement potential and thus breaking down normative business ethics’ requirements to an opertionalizable corporate level: Good business ethics should focus on maximizing stakeholder value in relation to harm done. Our results indicate that focusing on supply chains reveals previously unknown innovation potential that seems to be related to limited system understanding. The assumption is that increased visibility of opportunities will act as a driver for change. Results also highlight the importance of focusing on sustainability effects of the core business and clearly relating value created to harm done.