Supply Chain Management and Corporate Social Responsibility

Two recent disasters in the garment industry, the Tazreen Fashions fire (2012) and the Rana Plaza building collapse (2013), have caused outrage over the lack of social responsibility across global supply chains. In our new article, The Socially Responsible Supply Chain: An Imperative for Global Corporations, Robert Handfield and I discuss three core principles that are essential for ensuring socially responsible business practices and successfully managing the extended global supply chain: First, a program to audit both products and suppliers needs to be implemented; this program must go beyond direct relationships with tier-one suppliers. Second, visibility is important for those categories of supply that cannot be directly controlled; hereby, electronic and smart technologies promise new opportunities. Finally, collaboration is needed to successfully managing a socially responsible supply chain; this includes collaboration across the industry, with local partners, and with universities. It is time to become serious about socially responsible supply chain management.

Wieland, A., & Handfield, R.B. (2013). The Socially Responsible Supply Chain: An Imperative for Global Corporations. Supply Chain Management Review, 17 (5), 22-29

Tags: , , , , , , ,

About Andreas Wieland

Andreas Wieland is an Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at Copenhagen Business School. His current research interests include resilient and socially responsible supply chains.

9 responses to “Supply Chain Management and Corporate Social Responsibility”

  1. Henry Mutebi says :

    Dear Dr. Wieland. Thanks for the new post. Indeed supply chain actors must be socially sensetive while performing their supply chain activity. This is still a problem in developing countries (sub-sahara) like Uganda because of the initial cost involved in incorporating the society in the supply chain activities. This has hindered the strategy very much and there is also a lack of awareness of the benefits involved with implementing social corporate responsibility.
    Thanks
    from
    Henry Mutebi (MUBS)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Supply Chain Management Research

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading