The Cost of a Five-Dollar Dress
Social responsibility has after the Rana Plaza collapse become an integral part of many supply chain management courses across the globe. However, workers’ rights in textile supply chains, or a lack thereof, are actually an old story, maybe as old as modern textile supply chains. This is evidenced by an article from 1933, titled The Cost of a Five-Dollar Dress. The article argues: “If your clothes’ budget has been cut down and you buy bargain dresses, it is only fair you should know who pays part of your bill—the women who made the dress.” It seems that, by moving from one location to another, the social problem of the textile industry has acted like a nomad. Apart from the location – then New York City, now Dhaka – not much seems to have changed within the last century. Still today, the real cost of a five-dollar dress is paid not in dollars or euros, but by the workers upstream in the supply chain with their safety and health condition.
Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2018
Emerald has recently announced the winners of their 2018 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence. Numerous SCM-related articles have received outstanding paper or highly commended awards, and might thus serve as excellent articles to read during summer. Several winning articles relate to external (Abdallah, Abdullah & Saleh, Fawcett et al. and Ralston, Richey & Grawe) and internal (Guo et al., Makepeace, Tatham & Wu and Roh et al.) supply chain relationships. Other articles are about risk management (Jahre, Min, Park & Ahn and Oliveira & Handfield) and resilience (Ali, Mahfouz & Arisha and Tukamuhabwa, Stevenson & Busby). Other winning articles deal with sustainability (Busse et al., Dubey, Gunasekaran & Papadopoulos and Ghani et al.), complexity (Gerschberger, Manuj & Freinberger and Sayed, Hendry & Bell), the Internet of things (Haddud et al. and Yan), disruptive innovation (Pérez, Dos Santos & Cambra-Fierro) and the human factor in SCM (Schorsch, Wallenburg & Wieland). Finally, McKinnon‘s article engages in the journal ranking debate, and our own methodological paper, Wieland et al., provides guidelines for scale purification.
