IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i22p12526-d677942.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Supply Chains’ Failure in Workers’ Rights with Regards to the SDG Compass: A Doughnut Theory Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Maryam Lotfi

    (Department of Logistics and Operations Management, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK)

  • Helen Walker

    (Department of Logistics and Operations Management, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK)

  • Juan Rendon-Sanchez

    (SITE, Department of Management, Business School, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4ST, UK)

Abstract

Many supply chains have pledged to prevent the violation of workers’ rights as part of social sustainability in their far-flung supply chains. This paper provides a way to understand why supply chains fail to overcome the violation of workers’ rights by mapping the UN SDGs onto the social foundations of the doughnut model, with respect to workers’ rights in supply chains. We develop the sustainable supply chain doughnut model with regards to the SDGs, through which we investigate workers’ rights violations. Examples from both UK-based and world-wide supply chains illustrates our conceptual model. Supply chains have shortfalls in all aspects of the social foundation when it comes to workers as one of their main stakeholders. Until supply chains are successful in overcoming shortfalls across all elements of the social foundation, moving to the next layer of the doughnut framework is impossible, which is the safe and just space for all humans, including workers. This ‘safe and just space’ seems out of reach despite international efforts such as the SDGs. The resulting conceptual model can be the foundation for descriptive, instrumental, and normative research on workers’ rights in the supply chain as part of the social sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Maryam Lotfi & Helen Walker & Juan Rendon-Sanchez, 2021. "Supply Chains’ Failure in Workers’ Rights with Regards to the SDG Compass: A Doughnut Theory Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-15, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12526-:d:677942
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12526/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12526/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexander Trautrims & Martin C. Schleper & M. Selim Cakir & Stefan Gold, 2020. "Survival at the expense of the weakest? Managing modern slavery risks in supply chains during COVID-19," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(7-8), pages 1067-1072, August.
    2. Hannes Hofmann & Martin C. Schleper & Constantin Blome, 2018. "Conflict Minerals and Supply Chain Due Diligence: An Exploratory Study of Multi-tier Supply Chains," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 115-141, January.
    3. Mohammad Alghababsheh & David Gallear, 2021. "Socially Sustainable Supply Chain Management and Suppliers’ Social Performance: The Role of Social Capital," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 173(4), pages 855-875, November.
    4. Layna Mosley, 2017. "Workers’ rights in global value chains: possibilities for protection and for peril," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 153-168, March.
    5. Rashmi Venkatesan, 2019. "The UN Framework on Business and Human Rights: A Workers’ Rights Critique," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 635-652, July.
    6. Anita Breuer & Hannah Janetschek & Daniele Malerba, 2019. "Translating Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Interdependencies into Policy Advice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-20, April.
    7. Niestroy, Ingeborg, 2016. "How are we getting ready? The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the EU and its Member States: analysis and action so far," IDOS Discussion Papers 9/2016, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    8. Klassen, Robert D. & Vereecke, Ann, 2012. "Social issues in supply chains: Capabilities link responsibility, risk (opportunity), and performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 103-115.
    9. repec:bla:glopol:v:8:y:2017:i::p:56-65 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Luc Fransen & Brian Burgoon & Mark Anner, 2017. "Monitoring Workers’ Rights: The Limits of Voluntary Social Compliance Initiatives in Labor Repressive Regimes," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(s3), pages 56-65, May.
    11. ManMohan S. Sodhi & Christopher S. Tang, 2018. "Corporate social sustainability in supply chains: a thematic analysis of the literature," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(1-2), pages 882-901, January.
    12. Mani, Venkatesh & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Delgado, Catarina, 2018. "Supply chain social sustainability: Standard adoption practices in Portuguese manufacturing firms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 149-164.
    13. Harvey, David, 2007. "A Brief History of Neoliberalism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199283279.
    14. Cedric E. Dawkins, 2019. "A Normative Argument for Independent Voice and Labor Unions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(4), pages 1153-1165, April.
    15. Sharfuddin Ahmed Khan & Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik & Simonov Kusi‐Sarpong & Syed Imran Zaman & Syed Hasnain Alam Kazmi, 2021. "Social sustainable supply chains in the food industry: A perspective of an emerging economy," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 404-418, January.
    16. Caleb Bernacchio, 2021. "Virtue Beyond Contract: A MacIntyrean Approach to Employee Rights," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(2), pages 227-240, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Beatriz Aibar-Guzmán & Cristina Aibar-Guzmán, 2023. "Editorial for the Special Issue “Business Strategies Concerning the Sustainable Development Goals and the SDG Compass”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-5, January.
    2. Zaheer Allam & Simon Elias Bibri & Samantha A. Sharpe, 2022. "The Rising Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine War: Energy Transition, Climate Justice, Global Inequality, and Supply Chain Disruption," Resources, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-17, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jamalnia, Aboozar & Gong, Yu & Govindan, Kannan, 2023. "Sub-supplier's sustainability management in multi-tier supply chains: A systematic literature review on the contingency variables, and a conceptual framework," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    2. Robin Hogrefe & Sabine Bohnet-Joschko, 2023. "The Social Dimension of Corporate Sustainability: Review of an Evolving Research Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-22, February.
    3. Rui Guo & Zhenyong Wu, 2023. "Social sustainable supply chain performance assessment using hybrid fuzzy-AHP–DEMATEL–VIKOR: a case study in manufacturing enterprises," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(11), pages 12273-12301, November.
    4. Venkatesh, V.G. & Zhang, Abraham & Deakins, Eric & Mani, Venkatesh, 2021. "Antecedents of social sustainability noncompliance in the Indian apparel sector," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    5. Jajja, Muhammad Shakeel Sadiq & Asif, Muhammad & Montabon, Frank & Chatha, Kamran Ali, 2020. "The indirect effect of social responsibility standards on organizational performance in apparel supply chains: A developing country perspective," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    6. Kapoor, Ishaan & Pratt-Rogers, William & Kahraman, Muhammet Mustafa, 2022. "The problem of conflict minerals: A review of current approaches and a web 3.0 inspired road ahead," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. El Baz, Jamal & Ruel, Salomée & Jebli, Fedwa, 2023. "Harnessing supply chain resilience and social performance through safety and health practices in the COVID-19 era: An investigation of normative pressures and adoption timing's role," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    8. Mariana Toussaint & Pablo Cabanelas & Alicia Blanco‐González, 2021. "Social sustainability in the food value chain: An integrative approach beyond corporate social responsibility," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 103-115, January.
    9. Geyi, Dan’Asabe Godwin & Yusuf, Yahaya & Menhat, Masha S. & Abubakar, Tijjani & Ogbuke, Nnamdi J., 2020. "Agile capabilities as necessary conditions for maximising sustainable supply chain performance: An empirical investigation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    10. Siemieniako, Dariusz & Kubacki, Krzysztof & Mitręga, Maciej, 2021. "Inter-organisational relationships for social impact: A systematic literature review," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 453-469.
    11. Enrico Fontana & Muhammad Atif & Ammar Ali Gull, 2021. "Corporate social responsibility decisions in apparel supply chains: The role of negative emotions in Bangladesh and Pakistan," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(6), pages 1700-1714, November.
    12. Nikolas K. Kelling & Philipp C. Sauer & Stefan Gold & Stefan Seuring, 2021. "The Role of Institutional Uncertainty for Social Sustainability of Companies and Supply Chains," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 173(4), pages 813-833, November.
    13. Jayani Ishara Sudusinghe & Stefan Seuring, 2020. "Social Sustainability Empowering the Economic Sustainability in the Global Apparel Supply Chain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-18, March.
    14. Mohammad Najjar & Michael H. Small & Mahmoud M. Yasin, 2020. "Social Sustainability Strategy across the Supply Chain: A Conceptual Approach from the Organisational Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-16, December.
    15. Atanu Chaudhuri & Manjot Singh Bhatia & Yasanur Kayikci & Kiran J. Fernandes & Samuel Fosso-Wamba, 2023. "Improving social sustainability and reducing supply chain risks through blockchain implementation: role of outcome and behavioural mechanisms," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 327(1), pages 401-433, August.
    16. Prabhir Vishnu Poruthiyil, 2021. "Big Business and Fascism: A Dangerous Collusion," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 121-135, January.
    17. Mahesh Shaw & Abhijit Majumdar & Kannan Govindan, 2022. "Barriers of social sustainability: an improved interpretive structural model of Indian textile and clothing supply chain," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1616-1633, December.
    18. Mani, Venkatesh & Jabbour, Charbel Jose Chiappetta & Mani, Kavitha T.N., 2020. "Supply chain social sustainability in small and medium manufacturing enterprises and firms’ performance: Empirical evidence from an emerging Asian economy," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    19. Schmidt, Christoph G. & Wuttke, David A. & Heese, H. Sebastian & Wagner, Stephan M., 2023. "Antecedents of public reactions to supply chain glitches," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    20. Scott, James & Ho, William & Dey, Prasanta K. & Talluri, Srinivas, 2015. "A decision support system for supplier selection and order allocation in stochastic, multi-stakeholder and multi-criteria environments," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 226-237.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12526-:d:677942. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.