Modern slavery and the supply chain: the limits of corporate social responsibility?

Abstract

Purpose – This conceptual paper aims to examine modern slavery in the supply chain, showing how the issue challenges conventional thinking and practice in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers the differences between modern slavery and other concerns within CSR. It examines legal attempts to encourage supply chain transparency and the use of corporate CSR methods. An example of forced labour in UK agriculture is used to develop a critique of these approaches. The paper examines the challenges facing research in this important area. Findings – The paper shows that the distinctive characteristics of modern slavery may make conventional supply chain CSR practices relatively ineffective. A holistic perspective may be needed in future research. Research limitations/implications – Researchers need to focus less on the espoused policies of corporations, and more on the enacted practice. Social implications – Modern slavery is universally accepted as a shameful blight on society; firms’ supply chain practices may be part of the problem. Originality/value – The paper’s contribution is to point to the potential differences between modern slavery and other CSR-related issues and to highlight the paradox that firms’ approaches to the issue may run in parallel with actions that foster the problem in the first place.

Indicators in Social Life Cycle Assessment: A Review of Frameworks, Theories, and Empirical Experience

“…Other less frequently addressed sectors in conceptual SLCA research include agricultural crop production (Feschet et al. ; New ), construction of buildings (Lützkendorf and Lorenz ), electric power generation, transmission, and distribution (Norris ; Wood and Hertwich ), scientific research and development services (Meyer and Upadhyayula ), waste management and remediation services (Aparcana and Salhofer ), and other multiple (Chen and Delmas ; Labuschagne et al. ) sectors.…”

The Impact of Supplier Sustainability Risk on Shareholder Value

“…Sweatshop labor is the term often used to describe oppressive working conditions. The term is often synonymous with “modern slavery” (Gold, Trautrims & Trodd, ; New, ), which is pervasive in practice but has received less attention in the OSCM literature. This negligence applies also to workplace safety, better known as occupational health and safety (OHS) (Lo, Pagell, Fan, Wiengarten & Yeung, ).…”

Implementing Socially Sustainable Practices in Challenging Institutional Contexts: Building Theory from Seven Developing Country Supplier Cases

“…This is essentially what we did when the Rana Plaza disaster occurred; but it was understandably not possible to obtain perfect symmetry between the before and after data (Huq et al 2016). New (2015) acknowledged that, in researching unsustainable social practices, researchers might find the data harder to collect and it could be necessary to adopt certain 'investigative journalist' approaches. As expected, given the sensitivity of the issues covered, access became more difficult and respondents were more reluctant to share information, and thus, it was not possible to conduct further interviews in all seven suppliers.…”

“…To conduct more substantive and critical work while investigating controversial social failures, it has been suggested that researchers should try to incorporate a wider view, i.e., to include more sources of information than the firms themselves and to try to understand the broader institutional context of the phenomena under exploration (New 2015). Therefore, similar to data collection before the Rana Plaza disaster, the post-Rana supplier interviews were also augmented by ten further interviews in four of the buyers, two NGOs, one labor union, and the Apparel Trade Body (see Table 2).…”