به سوی مسئولیت انعکاسی در یک زنجیره تامین نساجی Towards Reflexive Responsibility in a Textile Supply Chain

Introduction L ATE MODERN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE RAPID GROWTH OF GLOBAL TRADE AND MARKETS AS WELL AS THE GLOBALization of risks and responsibilities. It is abundantly clear that late modern risks cannot be managed only within national borders and that it is not possible for one organization alone to solve such a complex set of problems. These pre-conditions have sparked an era in which some actors involved in or affected by trade globalization have exhibited growing commitments to taking responsibility. The textile sector currently exemplifies this dynamic development. This sector is characterized by so-called late modern risks (Giddens 2002; Beck 2009); such risks are man-made, complex and dispersed across space and time. Brand-owning companies rarely own the production of the textiles. Instead, they employ the services of suppliers and sub-suppliers scattered around the globe and connected to each other through geographically complex production networks (Gereffi 1999; Coe et al. 2008; Locke 2013). Two business trends are clearly visible in the textile sector: the need both to secure a competitive advantage and to integrate environmental performance into this competitive advantage (Handfield et al. 2005). Scholars (e.g. Niinimäki and Hassi 2011; Locke 2013) pay attention to buyers’ conflicting interests. While brand owners want to ensure a positive brand image connected to responsibility, they simultaneously want to obtain high-quality products as quickly and cheaply as possible, and this effort has involved sourcing from low-cost developing countries. Fluctuating market demand, shorter product life cycles and competition for market segments have led buyers to repeatedly change suppliers, lower per-unit costs, quick turnarounds and so on, all of which in turn weaken their ability to ensure responsible management of their supply chains via codes of conduct (Locke 2013) or other instruments. These often-conflicting interests make it especially challenging to address sustainability issues. Due to increasing pressure from targeted campaigns by NGOs, the media and concerned citizens, responsibility for supply chain management has been placed on the procuring organizations, such as brand-owning companies (Coe et al. 2008; Knudsen 2013; Vermeulen 2013). However, recent scholarship has shown that the notion of the buyer as dominant and influential must be problematized (Anner et al. 2012). Many buyers rely on sourcing strategies that, in practice, limit their power over suppliers and therefore over the supply chain. For example, sourcing from low-cost supply markets implies a number of limitations and creates difficulties in controlling and managing supply chains (Åkesson et al. 2007; Boström et al. 2015). This also happens in situations with many buyers and few suppliers. The buyer thus has a low share of the total supplier market, and the supplier is not dependent on the buyer for revenue and has more information and expert knowledge than the buyer (Cox 2001; Locke et al. 2009; Knudsen 2013).