Extending social sustainability to suppliers: the role of GVC governance strategies and supplier country institutions

The disaggregation and geographic dispersion of global value chains (GVCs) have expanded the responsibility of international buyers from firm-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) towards social sustainability of their emerging country suppliers. We theorize, in this paper, that the effectiven...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Authors: Castaldi, Sarah 1986- (Author) ; Wilhelm, Miriam 1978- (Author) ; Beugelsdijk, Sjoerd 1976- (Author) ; Vaart, Jacob Taco van der 1965- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2023
In: Journal of business ethics
Further subjects:B Social sustainability
B Supplier country institutions
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B GVC governance strategy
B Global value chain
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:The disaggregation and geographic dispersion of global value chains (GVCs) have expanded the responsibility of international buyers from firm-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) towards social sustainability of their emerging country suppliers. We theorize, in this paper, that the effectiveness of lead firms' GVC governance strategies for social sustainability-which can be audit-based or cooperation-based-depends on the local institutional context of the supplier. Supplier country institutions exert legal and civil society pressures for social sustainability, which shape suppliers' attitude and receptiveness towards lead firm requests. Using unique primary data from 356 garment and footwear suppliers in 11 emerging countries, which supply to Western European or North American buyers, we show that GVC governance strategies are particularly effective for suppliers' social sustainability implementation when there is 'contextual fit' with local institutional pressures for social sustainability in the supplier country. Our study identifies the boundary conditions of GVC governance modes, and demonstrates a complementary relationship between organizational arrangements and their institutional-level counterparts in the context of social sustainability.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05083-4