MANAGING SUPPLIER SUSTAINABILITY RISK IN FINNISH TEXTILE AND CLOTHING INDUSTRY

No Thumbnail Available
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Business | Master's thesis
Date
2021
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Information and Service Management (ISM)
Language
en
Pages
104 + 2
Series
Abstract
This master’s thesis studies the concept of supplier sustainability risks and risk management of those risks in Finnish textile and clothing industry, which is a topic that has not been previously researched. The global textile and clothing industry is manual labour intensive and consumes a lot of natural resources, which creates a need for increased sustainability. Supplier sustainability risks are investigated through the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, economical). Risk management is studied through a risk management framework which includes four steps that are identification, assessment, treatment and monitoring. Sustainability and supply chain management have received plenty of attention in research both separately and together. About a decade ago, the concept of supplier sustainability risk was introduced. The theoretical background of this study begins with discussion of sustainable supply chain management and triple bottom line and then moves onto sustainability related supply chain risks and risk management. The section ends with a discussion of supplier sustainability risks related to the textile and clothing industry and introducing the risk management framework that was used for conducting the study. This qualitative multiple case study includes case companies from Finnish textile and clothing industry. The case companies include mainly manufacturers (brand owners) from textile and clothing industry. The primary data consist of 10 semi-structured interviews conducted remotely in autumn 2020, which were analysed using content analysis. Additionally, a questionnaire and a few pieces of relevant documents are used as supplementary data sources for triangulation. Based on the analysis, we discovered that the major supplier sustainability risks that Finnish textile and clothing companies face are mostly constant that follow industry specific attributes. The monitoring-based risk mitigation is the dominant treatment strategy among the studied companies, and certifications and audits are used as a comprehensive risk management instrument covering all steps. The findings of our research could be further validated by a survey study with larger sample size.
Description
Thesis advisor
Kim, Seongtae
Keywords
supplier sustainability risk, risk management, triple bottom line, sustainability
Other note
Citation