UPSTREAM TEXTILE SUPPLY CHAIN BARRIERS TO TRANSPARENCY IN THE ANALYSING THE BEHAVIOURAL

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ANALYSING THE BEHAVIOURAL BARRIERS TO TRANSPARENCY IN THE UPSTREAM TEXTILE SUPPLY CHAIN

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^A^CULTURALORIENTATIONLENSONBEHAVIOURS

2020.5.07 Thesis for Two year Master, 30 ECTS

Textile Management Noopur Singh

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Acknowledgements

I would firstly like to extend my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Jonas Larsson who provided his expertise throughout the process of this dissertation. I am extremely grateful to the extensive support he provided through his valuable comments and guidance. He always offered an open space for constructive discussions that led to successful completion of this thesis.

Further, I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the colleagues at Global Fashion Agenda in Copenhagen, who extended constant support and motivation to write the thesis. The exposure during the internship was invaluable and definitely added various new insights into this dissertation.

Finally, the support of my family and my friends have always been there with me, which made the whole process very smooth and peaceful. I hope this dissertation adds to the existing knowledge in the field of textile management and that the readers can enjoy the content of the thesis.

Borås, 7^th June 2020

Noopur Singh

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Title: Analysing the behavioural barriers to transparency in the upstream textile supply chain

Publication year: 2020

Author: Noopur Singh

Supervisor: Jonas Larsson

Abstract

Transparency within the supply chain has become a key priority for textile brands in response to the growing stakeholder concerns around social and environmental impacts of the textile value chain. Textile industry is extremely labour dependent and adds massively to the environmental degradation, adding on to this the highly complex and scattered global supply chain network makes it more difficult for brands to implement transparency in their supply base. Due to the low-cost labour in developing countries, the majority of the textile suppliers is located in South Asia, where the cultural values have been found to be in sharp contrast to the Global West. Many prior studies have also highlighted the lack of supplier’s top management support as the linking barrier to sustainable initiatives. Hence, this research was designed to investigate the behaviour and attitude of top management executives towards various transparency dimensions, i.e., Traceability, Sustainability conditions (Social and environmental) and Purchasing practices, in order to understand the underlying behavioural barriers. The semi-structured interview with 9 top management executives across India and Sri Lanka revealed three major themes: (a) Transparency as business imperative, (b) Distrustful relationship with brand and (c) Tendency to externalise responsibility. The Schwartz theory of cultural orientation was used to examine the role of cultural value in explaining the identified behaviour of top management executives.

Keywords: Sustainability, Transparency, Traceability, Barriers, Cultural Values, Schwartz Theory

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Sustainable supply chain model………

Figure 2: Levels of transparency………..

Figure 3: Model for barriers to GSCM in Indian mining industries………

Figure 4: Theoretical model of relations among ten motivation types of value………..

Figure 5: Theoretical model of cultural dimensions…….………..….

Figure 6: Map of 76 nations on several cultural orientations………

Figure 7: Proposed framework of study………

List of Tables

Table 1: Definitions of basic values……….………

Table 2: Definitions of cultural orientations………..……..

Table 3: Demographic description of data set………...

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1.Introduction

This section will establish a general understanding of supply chain transparency in the prevalent landscape and discuss the research problem by identifying the gap in previous research. The formulated research questions will also be introduced at the end of this chapter.

1.1 Background

The imperative issue of environmental degradation and human rights violation has increased consumer demands for green and ethical products, compelling the fashion retailers and brands to adopt sustainable practices. The impact of the textile industry on climatic changes is massive where it contributes to 8% of annual global greenhouse emissions (Quantis, 2018). It is also the second largest consumer of the world’s entire water supply and contributes to 20% of wastewater worldwide (World Bank, 2019; Johnsen, 2019). As per the United Nations, in order to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 degree Celsius for the century, the CO2 emission will have to be reduced by 45% by 2030 (UNDP, 2015). However, owing to the fact that the textile industry is the third largest manufacturing sector which is predicted to rise by 40 million tons by 2030 (World Bank, 2019), it is a humongous challenge that will require disruptive changes and collective efforts across the entire supply chain.

Along with the other industries, the textile industry has also adopted the United Nations Sustainable development goals (SDG) to resolve the climate crisis. The recently announced European green deal and the new Circular economy action plan by the European government has reinstated the importance of transforming industries including textiles into a more sustainable one. Sustainability is often discussed in a wide spectrum which includes many aspects such as ethical sourcing, organic materials, transparency, efficient production techniques and many more. Although every aspect of sustainability is vital and urgent, transparency has been stated as the first step towards transforming the textile industry by exposing the environmental and societal loopholes within the supply chain (Fashion Revolution, 2013).

In a business context, Transparency means honesty and openness which is a quality of being easily seen through (Whatls.com, 2014). For textile supply chain actors, it translates into being open about the origin and condition of all processes, materials and people involved in the

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supply chain. Transparency forms a foundation which has the ability to facilitate all other aspects of sustainability by highlighting the existing issues within the supply chain. Based on this foundation several corrective measures can be devised and adopted by the supply chain (Doorey, 2011).

The trend of transparency

The global supply chain of the textile industry has enabled brands and retailers to locate their production facility far off from the visibility of stakeholders, masking the unethical activities and conditions in the supply chain (Egels-Zandén and Hansson, 2015). On 24th April 2013, the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh which consisted of five garment factories collapsed, killing 1138 garment workers and injuring more than 2500 others, most of which were women’s (Fashion Revolution, 2013). The collapse was caused mainly due to non-compliance of workplace safety regulations and labor rights violation. The incident was amongst the worst industrial accidents on record which awoke the world to the poor working conditions faced by workers of the ready-made garment industry in developing countries (Ilo.org, 2018). The Rana Plaza factories were producing garments for renowned international brands, many of which didn’t know that their products were being made at Rana plaza (Fashion Revolution, 2019).

This gave rise to many non-profit organisations and campaigns such as Fashion Revolution, Transparency Pledge, Clean Clothes Campaign etc. , that are working to spread awareness within the consumer about the labour conditions in the textile industry and also pressuring the brands to be disclose details of their supply chain and adopt sustainable practices (Kumar and Rehman, 2015)

In 1995, Nike and Levi-Strauss (Levis) surprised the textile industry by publishing their supplier lists (Doorey, 2011). However, after the Rana plaza incident, the call for transparency accelerated across the textile industry and consumers. Many brands have committed at different levels to improve transparency within their supply chain, while some brands claim transparency by sharing the details of only 1st tier suppliers, others go beyond to tier 2, 3 and more. The abstract definition of transparency and lack of any standard minimum requirement for transparency in the textile industry has created confusion for both brands and consumers when dealing with transparency.

In 2016, Human rights watch along with eight other international organizations formed a coalition and developed “Transparency Pledge” which set a uniform minimum standard for

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supply chain transparency based on good industry practices and invited 72 fashion companies to align their practices to the pledge (Human Rights Watch, 2018). Such commitments towards transparency are turning up to create a huge competitive advantage for brands.

Brands are under pressure to engage in transparency and reveal more information about their supply chains. The risk of failing to abide by this demand can be a huge setback for a brand's reputation and economic goals (Bateman and Bonanni, 2019). Transparency is becoming extremely important for external stakeholders as they lack visibility into the internal operations and affairs of a company. Hence, through transparency the power can be transferred from internal users to external stakeholders by decreasing the asymmetry in information (Egels- Zandén et al., 2015). Knowing the state of the supply chain enables brands to understand any malpractices both in terms of labour rights and environmental damages, giving them the opportunity to engage and rectify these violations in time before any damage is done (Human Rights Wages, 2019). Transparency facilitates collaborations and collective actions that are required to fight the climate crisis and social abuses.

In the social sustainability spectrum, transparency can act as a powerful tool that encourages corporate accountability for labour rights in a supply chain. Transparency information creates confidence within a brand's consumer that the company is well aware about the origin of their products and also encourages laborers in the supply chain to reach out to focal companies and in case of human rights violations (Surge in Garment Industry Transparency, 2019).

Apart from the factors such as consumer concerns and governmental regulations, brands have many internal benefits such as improved governance and compliance to their own policies and values. Further, transparency information can enable better sourcing decisions within a company and help managers to strategize ways to operate with better efficiencies and cost- effectiveness (Human Rights Wages, 2019).

Roadblocks to transparency

In Spite of the constant pressure from stakeholders and several benefits of transparency, it is established that it is not easy to become transparent for a brand and the process can be difficult both in terms of complexity and the resources involved. The return on investment on transparency is not high in the current market. (Fashion Transparency Index, 2019)

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The report “Fashion’s Next Trend” published by Human Rights Watch along with its coalition analysed 72 companies' transparency performance based on the “transparency pledge” which requires brands to reveal the names, addresses and other details of at least their 1st tier supplier.

Since 2017 when the first report was published, there has been a huge improvement in the number of brands abiding to the transparency pledge in 2019. Out of 72 companies in transparency pledge 22 have fully complied, 29 have published the name and address of 1st tier and 18 are not compliant. Another report published by fashion Revolution in 2019 called the “Fashion Transparency Index”, states that 35% of the 200 brands evaluated have published the list of their tier 1 factories. The number of brands disclosing information have tripled as compared to 2016.

Transparency and traceability have ranked second in the top 3 key sustainable topics in the agenda for fashion companies in the coming 5 years. Sustainable materials and supplier relationships are the other two key focus areas (McKinsey & Company, 2019). The consumers are demanding for authentic information to make informed decisions and are not satisfied with just a supplier list anymore. They are looking for radical transparency, reinstating the fact that transparency is not just a means and will develop into a stronger foundation towards sustainability in the coming years.

However, due to the complexity of textile supply chains, it is not easy for brands especially small and medium sized brands to manually track down the entire supply chain. There have been few breakthroughs in the recent past in the area technology innovation to support traceability in textile and other industries. Technology will be critical in bridging the gap between brands and suppliers. Although the usage of these technologies is rather slow and limited but many leading companies are already adopting the significance of next generation technology (MarketWatch, 2019).

As competition is shifting to the level of the supply chains, it is established that a company is only as sustainable as its supply base (Luzzini et. al., 2015). Brands are having a difficult time understanding the complicated nature of the textile supply chains and the lead firms often have difficulties in stating the names of their suppliers and their working conditions (Egels-Zandén and Hansson, 2015). The entangled and complex processes and systems, especially within non- vertically integrated production, makes it difficult to track products and understand the conditions in which they are produced (MarketWatch, 2020).

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The textile supply chain is often referred to as a complex network due to multiple supply chain actors and the spatial distances between them. Adding to this complexity, textile supply chains are highly dependent on manual labour and have multiple stakeholders with individual profit goals etc. Most of the fashion brands are located in the west (Europe and USA), whereas 60%

of the global production of clothing and footwear is located in Asia (majorly in China and India) due to low labour costs (International Labour Organization, 2018). Due to the high spatial distance between the brand location and their production site, brands have zero or limited visibility into their production facility which increases their risk of human rights and environmental violations (Human Rights Wages, 2019)

1.2 Problem Discussion

The brands, sustainability advocates and platforms in the west are usually the ones to lead and draft corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and sustainability standards, in reaction to the increasing demand of ethical and green fashion today. Brands are consistently called for the environmental and social impact of their supply chain and hence in reaction they are working to improve collaboration with their suppliers (Luzzini et. al., 2015). Brands are investing and allocating resources to increase transparency in their supply chains. However, most of the manufacturers are placed geographically distant from their focal firms and have a very different socio-economic atmosphere when compared to the brands and do not necessarily take up transparency with the same urgency. The differences in cultural values of South Asian and Western regions such as Europe and the United States have been studied and validated by refined theories of cultural orientation (Schwartz, 2006). This establishes that sustainability and transparency hold a very different meaning and priority for the manufacturers as compared to the brands.

Transparency is a prerequisite for applying green supply chain management (GSCM), as brands cannot minimise harmful effects of their supply chain and improve their environmental and social impact without mapping the origins of their products and factories. Since most of the supply base of the majority of brands are located in Asia where sustainability concept is still at a very nascent stage (Majumdar and Sinha, 2019. Egels-Zandén, 2015) it is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to achieve progress in this direction.

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Transparency and behavioural barriers

Human behaviour is dynamic, ever-changing and evolving with time, which makes it very complex to study. The ability of a person to do a job is independent of their willingness to do the job (Muduli et al., 2013), which means until the managers in the supply chain are willing to be transparent, there will be not much progress especially since they have the ability to drive other barriers to GSCM.

Many sustainable practices in the supply chain are highly dependent on economical, market and legal factors such as technology, availability of resources, regulations etc but transparency is highly dependent on human behaviour. Like other management control systems, successful implementation and practice of transparency is highly dependent on behavioural factors as established by many researchers from various disciplines (Muduli et al., 2013).Behavioural factors include aspects that have the capability to influence the behaviour of a person to work for a specific objective (Muduli et al., 2013; (Grover et al., 2006).The top management and professionals in the supply base are the ones responsible for mapping their sub-suppliers and presenting the information to brands. Top management intentions can help to fasten the progress in this regard. Top management are responsible for initiating policy implementation processes, sanctioning and plotting resources for new policies and also advancement in the area of information technology (Majumdar and Sinha, 2019). The attitudes of managers and other top executives usually determines the effectiveness of any sustainability initiatives in the supply chain (Olugu et al., 2011). Hence, in order to understand and overcome the barriers to transparency faced by brands and suppliers, it is important to examine the human behaviour and its influence on adopting transparency.

One way to understand the behaviour within a nationality or region is to use cultural theories.

A refined cultural theory by Schwartz (2006) presents few distinctive cultural orientations and also establishes dominant cultural values of 76 nations including south Asia. It states how cultural values can impact the attitude and behaviours of a person and hence can influence their roles and decisions at workplace.

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1.3 Research Gap

There have been prior studies done on identifying the barriers to sustainability and GSCM in various industries such as mining, construction automobiles, hospitality and even textiles (Balasubramanian, 2012; Muduli et al., 2013; Majumdar and Sinha, 2019). However, there are very few studies that have focused specifically on barriers to transparency in the textile supply chain. This is also explained due to the relatively recent trend of transparency in the sustainability research area.In the research done by Majumdar and Sinha (2019), they identified the top 12 barriers to GSCM based on the responses of Likert scale, received from highly experienced supply chain professionals from within the industry. Some of the barriers were lack of green suppliers, lack of reward systems, slackness in enforcement legislation, lack of eco-literacy, lack of top management support etc. They also used interpretive structural modelling (ISM) to establish a contextual relationship between the different barriers to understand the driving and dependent factors. One of the key findings of this research establishes that top management support is a linkage barrier that has the ability to effect and drive all other barriers to GSCM. Another research carried out in the mining industry by Muduli et al. (2013) focused on studying behavioural factors in adopting GSCM and also used ISM to establish contextual relationship between the behavioural factors. These studies reinstate that behavioural factors are important in implementing green practices but none of them have focused on transparency and hence this study can contribute to this gap in literature. Further, this study will also analyse the behaviour of top management with the prevalent distinctive cultural orientation of South Asian region identified by Schwartz (2006) to investigate possible relationship between cultural values and behaviours related to transparency.

1.4 Purpose and Research Question

The above studies highlight and support the importance of factors that are behaviour led such as top management support, work culture etc. and hence formed the foundation of this research.

The purpose of this study is to understand the distinctive approach of upstream suppliers towards transparency and identify the behavioural barriers faced by the upstream suppliers when adopting transparency requirements. By understanding the perspective of suppliers on transparency challenges, with a particular focus on behavioural factors will help in fulfilling the gap in research and provide insightful results that can add to the existing knowledge in textile management.

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It is imperative to study the human and cultural barriers which can be used by the policy makers and focal companies to make decisions when trying to formulate strategies to facilitate transparency in the supply chain. Hence, this research will attempt to answer the following research questions to fulfil the purpose of the study, that can ultimately motivate stakeholders to innovate solutions against the findings-

RQ 1: What are the distinctive approaches of upstream suppliers towards the concept of transparency?

Since transparency in the textile industry is used in the context of improving supply chain sustainability, it is important to understand what suppliers think about sustainability in general as well as the concept of transparency. This research intends to find out what are the distinctive reactions, attitudes, awareness, priorities and beliefs of the top management executives of the supply chain regarding sustainability and transparency. This will help to lay a foundation to understanding the values and cultural orientation of the management executives.

RQ 2: What are the behavioural barriers to transparency in the upstream textile supply chain?

The second part of the research will focus on understanding the challenges related to adopting transparency in the supply base. Previous research has identified the lack of top management support as the key linking barriers to any green initiative, hence this study will explicitly focus on understanding the underlying values and cultural orientation elaborating on the behaviour of the top management executives and their implication on adopting transparency requirements.

1.5 Delimitation

This research does not focus on any other kinds of barriers to transparency such as technological, economical, market driven etc. and only intends to determine behavioural barriers to transparency. Further, the study will be conducted with South Asian suppliers and does not include other supplier regions in Asia or other parts of the world. Lastly, only the 1^st tier supplier, i.e, the apparel manufacturers have been included in this research.

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2. Conceptual Framework

2.1 The concept of transparency

This section discusses the existing literature on transparency in reference to sustainable supply chain management. It also includes various definitions of transparency, it's dimensions such as traceability, sustainability conditions, purchasing practices etc and the levels of transparency in the textile industry.

2.1.1 Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Due to various factors such as governmental pressure (laws and regulations), environmental pressure (emissions and scarce resources), call form stakeholders and societal pressure (awoke consumers, reputation), the concept of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is progressively the centre of thought for all businesses. The concept of SSCM encompasses the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), which includes aspects of environmental, economic and societal considerations in a supply chain and is adopted by organizations on its strategic approach to sustainability (Morana, 2013). SSCM encourages and ensures good governance practices through the entire life cycles of products and services (UN Global Compact and BSR, 2010).

Textile supply chain is infamous for discharging high volumes of pollutants and hazardous materials in its production process and also making products with suppliers having low social responsibility. This has called for new sustainable management principles and theories designed to tackle the detrimental effects of the textile supply chain (Choi, 2016). Sourcing in the textile industry is characterized by outsourcing operations in developing countries often with economic, social and environmental problems. This leads to extended responsibility and risk management for the focal companies (brands) to ensure equal standards and quality in working conditions of their supply chain (Turker and Altuntas, 2014). Hence, Supply chain sustainability management is a tool to optimize supply chains and is crucial in sustaining brand integrity and ensuring long term business continuity and administering operational costs (UN Global Compact and BSR, 2010).

Carter and Rogers (2008) developed a framework for SSCM where they stated risk management, transparency, strategy and culture as four facets of triple bottom line based on

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extant review of sustainability literature. They define SSCM as “Strategic, transparent integration and achievement of an organization’s social, environmental, and economic goals in the systemic coordination of key interorganizational business processes for improving the long- term economic performance of the individual company and its supply chains.” This description of SSCM is based on triple bottom line and the four facets mentioned above and is conceptualised in the below diagram (fig1)

Figure 2: Sustainable supply chain model

2.1.2 Defining Transparency

In the last two decades, transparency has evolved as one the key tools to achieving a sustainable supply chain in the textile industry (Mol, 2015) and is also one of the facets of SSCM described in the previous section. Previously, the concept of “supply chain transparency” was not in the mainstream discussion within the textile industry, however eventually it has formed a central piece of all sustainability efforts made by the brands (Bateman and Bonanni, 2019).

Transparency of supply chains in the apparel and footwear sector is a rapidly growing trend and many fashion companies are becoming less opaque and more accountable to their stakeholders and the network of global suppliers producing their goods (Human Rights Watch, 2019).

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In spite of the ample evidence regarding the importance of transparency in the textile industry, the industry does not have a standard definition or meaning of transparency nor there is a standard tool to measure transparency. In 2017, a MIT study mapped definitions of supply chain transparency in the textile industry found a varied difference in perception across different organizations. Transparency has been defined as “visibility and accessibility of information especially concerning business practices” (Bhaduri and Ha-Brookshire, 2011).

Another definition by Bastian and Zentes interpret transparency as “the degree to which a supply chain player has access to relevant information about products, processes, and flows of capital without loss, noise, delay and distortion” (Bastian and Zentes, 2013) .Although transparency was described as “disclosing information” it was not clear which pieces of information should be disclosed, to which stakeholders, to what degree, and under which conditions and hence remains ambiguous (Bozic, 2017).

In reference to the textile supply chain, it has been defined as a set of activities such as disclosing supplier names (traceability), working conditions at suppliers and brands purchasing practices (Egels-Zandén et al., 2015). Transparency is explained as a two-part process which includes visibility and disclosure. It requires brands to find out the prevailing condition of their upstream supply chain and then share that information within and outside of the organization (Bateman and Bonanni, 2019)

Transparency is a by-product of increasing consumer interest and appreciation for information such as treatment of workers in production facilities and a brand’s measures to improve working conditions. Bozi (2017) states that consumers are ready to pay 2 to 10% more for products and companies that have supply chain transparency. Hence, brands also see transparency as one of the corporate tools for gaining competitive advantage. However, it has been established that transparency is not an end in itself, rather it is a starting point for improvement. It empowers consumers to make informed purchase decisions, helps brands to identify environmental and social risks and violations in their supply chain and holds all stakeholders accountable (Egels-Zandén and Hansson, 2015).

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2.1.3 Transparency dimensions

As discussed in the above section, the definition of transparency remains ambiguous which has led to the development of multiple dimensions within transparency. Based on existing literature available on transparency, Egels-Zandén et al. (2015) identified three dimensions of transparency, i.e., traceability, sustainability conditions and purchasing practices.

Traceability - Transparency is often connected to traceability, which entails mapping the suppliers involved in producing the products of a brand. Scholars such as Doorey (2011) and Laudal (2010) have discussed transparency with regards to brands disclosing the names of their suppliers. Traceability has a broad spectrum and has multiple levels of details that can be identified within the supply chain. Few brands like H&M have traced their 1st tier suppliers and shared supplier names without any information or details on the working conditions of these facilities and hence can be claimed as only partially traceable. Brands that are fully traceable adopt radical transparency where everyone knows everything. This means all stakeholders have knowledge of all the actors in a supply chain including raw material suppliers and its conditions. Asket, a Stockholm based menswear brand, have printed the origin of all the materials used in making a product, on the wash care label of the product.

Sustainability conditions - This includes information regarding the working conditions of the labour and environmental impact of the production process. This dimension includes audits and certifications revealing the social and environmental status of a brand’s supplier. For instance organizations such as the Fair Labor Association evaluates supplier ‘s social and environmental performance and publishes reports for its stakeholders. Another example is Patagonia who published supplier names along with the sustainability conditions of those suppliers, however they do not provide this information for all its products.

Purchasing practices - A brand’s purchasing practices are transparent if they are ready to share the cost of its product and complete breakdown of those costs to justify fair payment to the suppliers. Brands like Everlane and Asket provide open costing of each of its products online including price of raw materials and retail mark-ups.

This above dimension provides a common framework to evaluate brands that are working towards being transparent. The study states that a transparent brand needs to combine all the three dimensions of supply chain transparency in order to be fully transparent.

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Fashion Transparency Index (2020), a yearly report published by the Fashion Revolution has its own dimensions of transparency which is used to evaluate and rate the transparency performance of around 200 fashion companies. They focus on five areas, i.e, policy and commitment, tracking and traceability, audits and remediation, engagement and collaboration, and governance.

2.1.4 Levels of transparency

Transparency claims by brands are inconsistent and confusing due to the lack of any standards or common reference to supply chain transparency in the textile sector. Companies often focus on only one of the dimensions of transparency (explained in section 2.2), which results in dualistic framing of transparency where brands are either called transparent or non-transparent (Egels-Zandén et al., 2015). This framing fails to consider that many brands are on different levels between the two extremes and are working on different dimensions of transparency and hence can have various “transparency outcomes”.

Bateman and Bonanni (2019) developed a framework (see fig 2) to map the advancement of transparency of a brand. They used parts of innovation diffusion theory that explains how an innovation spreads and is adopted in an organization. The framework shows that most of the fashion companies are either at Majority stage or Early majority where they have sight of their own facilities or undertake audits and compliance for their direct suppliers. Whereas, there are very few brands that have reached to their indirect suppliers (tier 2 or 3) and are Early adopters.

Finally, innovators are brands that are ready to reveal information about the origin of their raw materials and the conditions until the last actors of their supply chain. The mapping is done on two dimensions, i.e, milestones in the path of true transparency (Transparency milestones) and the depth of interaction in a supply chain (Supply chain scope).

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Figure 3: Levels of Transparency

Innovators can be brands like Patagonia that engage with raw material suppliers and reveal detailed information about their operations and staff. Whereas, Nike can be classified as Early adopters as they map their manufacturing facilities and factories in a user-friendly format and update it quarterly.

Another study by Jens (2018) classified transparency levels into five variants to bring elasticity to the typical generalized terminology of supply chain transparency. He categorised transparency into below 5 levels -

Level 1: Branding transparency - When a company brands its supply chain to use it for gaining customer loyalty and long-term economic benefits. It does not include any measures to actualize transparency and in actions and strategies.

Level 2: Strategic transparency - When a company incorporates transparency strategies into their corporate goals to include all stakeholders, suppliers and management. It incorporates measures such as gathering information and developing a knowledge base to act upon and strategize to being about true structural impact in the supply chain.

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Level 3: Physical-digital transparency - When companies adopt intelligent physical product tracking methods along with digital technologies such as RFID and blockchain for supply chain transparency

Level 4: On-site transparency - When companies carry out on-site training and audits. Factory governance is carried out through the physical presence of the brand at suppliers' facilities to ensure trust. This is the highest level of transparency that can be achieved.

Level 5: Consumer-stamped transparency - This level of transparency is in the hands of consumers to approve a brand’s transparency efforts. As explained by the author, “Without our stamp, supply chain transparency is merely a half-baked marketing tactic”

The above two frameworks of classifying transparency levels provide some depth to the definition of transparency and make it easier to differentiate between the performance of different brands in regards to transparency. However, there was no standard measure found in the existing literature that is widely adopted in the industry to make evaluations of brands' progression towards transparency.

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2.2 Barriers to Transparency

This section will discuss the existing findings related to barriers faced by both brands and the suppliers when pursuing transparency in the supply chain. Serving to the research purpose, behavioural barriers will also be discussed in depth with reference to the existing literature.

Fashion companies are highly dependent on outsourcing materials and production of apparels which means that transparency is not an internal affair of an organization but rather extends outside the boundaries of a company. Outsourcing leads to interdependence between firms in a supply network and often the focal firm has to rely on the resources of their supply chain actors. Hence, it is important to understand and consider the issues and barriers that are created due to inter-organizational dependency of transparency (Egels-Zandén et al.,2015).

2.2.1 Barriers for brands

Many researchers have highlighted the growing trend of sustainability in the textile industry;

however, supply chain transparency hasn’t received similar attention. The fashion companies claim that factory details are of high economic and competitive value (Egels-Zandén and Hansson, 2015) and hence cannot be shared publicly.

Many researchers and non-academic reports have focused on discovering the barriers to transparency by interviewing and questioning the brands and understanding their perspective.

The findings are structured in this study as internal and external barrier -

Internal Barriers: Companies are scared that being transparent about their supply base can be a threat to their competitive advantage. They are also scared of receiving criticism from NGO’s and consumers if they expose the conditions of their supply chains (Bateman and Bonanni, 2019). Another study done by Human Rights Wages (2019) states that competitive disadvantage from revealing supplier details and anti-competition laws are alleged barriers that prevent greater transparency. Smaller companies fear that by disclosing their supplier information “they might lose reliable and long-term business partners to larger competitors”

(Human Right Wages, 2019). Further, brands had to invest a huge amount of time and resources in tracking and auditing all the supply chain actors (Egels-Zandén et al.,2015) and the return on investment on transparency is also very low and does not satisfy short term economic goals

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(Bateman and Bonanni, 2019). In the case study done by (Egels-Zandén et al.,2015), Nudie Jean co. did not publish all the audit report in spite of auditing all the major supply chain actors and omitted information on non-compliances regarding legal working hours, juvenile and illegal migrant workers in order to prevent a public suicide and reputation of the brand.

External barriers: Many brands also complain about the lack of existing relevant data in their supply chain such as details of supplier practices and if they do exist it is often incorrect and misleading (Bateman and Bonanni, 2019). It was also difficult for the brand to carry out auditing using a standard format as different suppliers had their own local regulations and hence did not have similar production practices, which made it difficult to evaluate their performance (Egels-Zandén et al.,2015). Buying agencies and business partners of larger brands that are involved in indirect sourcing often acts as barriers since they have contracts with the supplier stopping them from disclosing information to the brands as it can trigger brands to eventually start communicating and doing business with the suppliers directly to save cost. Usually the external transparency of a brand increases with the size of the brand due to the legal implications (Bozic, 2017) as well the extensive resources at hand which is why big brands such as H&M have been the frontrunners in the area of transparency. However, Small and medium sized brands have low influence on their suppliers because the order size is relatively low as compared to the other bigger clients of the supplier. This makes SME’s less capable of extracting required information from their suppliers and also feel that they are at risk of losing the supplier to a bigger brand that can offer the supplier with better cost and order quantity (Human Rights Wages, 2019).

It also involves a lot of work to get permission from the suppliers or make them sign the transparency contract which allowed the brand to publish the names of the suppliers on their website. Although many of the suppliers took it as an advantage where more brands would know about their facility, others were not so welcoming and cooperative. The brand had to sometimes pressurise the suppliers to agree to disclosing their information and particularly the sub-suppliers. Brands had a hard time getting any information regarding the sub-suppliers from their primary suppliers or manufacturers. This conflict between the brands and suppliers regarding transparency often leads to a trade off with trust between them (Egels-Zandén et al.,2015). The relationship between the brands and suppliers are often led by the power dynamics between them, where “transparency in value chains” is “a central object of power

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struggles, with uncertain outcomes.” (Egels-Zandén et al.,2015). Hence, the success of any transparency initiative is dependent on the interest of all the involved supply chain actors.

2.2.2 Barriers for suppliers

Seuring and Gold’s (2013) found that it is important to collect extensive data along supply chains in order to develop in-depth knowledge about SSCM and formulate measures to drastically improve understanding of inter-organizational issues. However, as mentioned in the introduction chapter there is a scarcity of research in understanding the supplier's perspective on barriers to SSCM and transparency. Although cross border learning is growing due to globalization, there is still a very wide transparency divide between developed and developing countries that have vast difference in transparency infrastructures (Mol, 2015)

Internal Barriers: The suppliers are scared of disclosing information as they fear “name and shame” campaigns as well as they are not equipped to handle information overload requested by the brands (Mol, 2015). It is highly unlikely that suppliers who disclose transparency information are responsive and open to accusations regarding sustainability performance and violations. Suppliers also feel at risk of being bypassed if they disclose their sub-suppliers, and brands decide to work directly with them (Mol, 2015). The study done by Majumdar and Sinha (2018) identified barriers to SSCM and did not focus specifically to transparency barriers, however given the close relationship between them it is relevant to include the identified barriers such as lack of top management commitment, lack of economic benefits, lack of training, lack of incentives and high investment costs.

External barriers: Suppliers involved in indirect sourcing through buying agencies and third- party intermediaries have to abide by their contract which can stop them from disclosing information on sub-supplier details (Egels-Zandén et al.,2015). Other external barriers are lack of support from brands and regulatory bodies and the lack of trust and partnerships Majumdar and Sinha (2018).

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2.2.3 Behavioural barriers

Behavioural factors can be defined as aspects that can affect the behaviour of an individual to perform a certain task or work towards an objective (Grover et al., 2006). The willingness of an individual to carry out any task is dependent on behavioural dynamics. Hence, in spite of having ample knowledge, experience and qualifications, a lack of willingness, passion or personal interest towards an objective can become a hurdle for a successful implementation (Muduli et al., 2013).

Many scholars have found that the behaviour of top management is the key factor that can affect the implementation of any green supply chain programs (Majumdar and Sinha, 2018;

Balasubramanian, 2012; Özçelik and Avci Özturk, 2014) and their commitment to any management tool is key in determining the success and impact of any environmental or social initiatives (Olugu et. al, 2011). These dynamic behavioural factors are subject to change, and hence it is critical to understand them when strategizing for any new management control system (Grover et al., 2006).

The top management employees are often responsible for making strategies and implementing any new system in the organization, hence their motivation and attitude towards the task becomes incremental in its success (Olugu et al., 2011; Grover et al., 2006) Motivation is a psychological factor that can positively affect the behaviour towards a task (Olugu et al., 2011).

Whereas, attitude is the function of an employee’s cultural background, education and age group (Grover et al., 2006). Hence, a lack of motivation and positive attitude are the behavioural barriers that can lead to a failure in adopting transparent and sustainable practices.

The resistance of humans towards any new initiatives or changes in the work environment is a typical behaviour, hence a radical change in practices as well as the employees mindset is compulsory for an effective implementation of new practices (Muduli et al., 2013). Again, a positive attitude plays an important rule to reduce this resistance, which can be developed through awareness and training (Grover et al., 2006).

The top management executives grant resources, set vision and provide leadership encouraging risk-taking and innovation. The overall effort and support of the top management provided through training, education and awareness is key in successful implementation of any environmental management practices (Muduli et al., 2013). Below (fig 3) represents the

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theoretical model developed by Muduli et. al. (2013) who studied behavioural barriers to sustainable practices in Indian Mining industry.

Figure 4: Model for barriers to GSCM in Indian Mining Industries

The above model was found to be in congruence with studies conducted by Majumdar and Sinha (2019), where top management support was also found to be the linking barrier to sustainability.

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3. Theoretical Framework

This thesis focuses on understanding the barriers to transparency that arises due to human factors and behaviours which are influenced by cultural orientation. In this section, an established culture theory by Schwartz will be discussed that implies the connection between the culture of a region, the associated human values/attitudes and their ability to work towards an objective, which in this case is adopting supply chain transparency.

3.1 Cultural Value orientation

Human values are defined as core principles that guide human behaviour and attitude (Esmer and Pettersson, 2007). Since values are central to any culture, they are very crucial in mapping and understanding cultures. Values are useful to make analysis of opinions, attitudes and actions due to its predictive and explanatory feature. The last century has seen several proposals of human value models and cultural value models, prominent ones are Schwartz, Inglehart’s and Hofstede’s (Hanel et. al., 2018). Human values have been studied for a very long time now, however the focus on large scale research and comparative studies that included a variety of culture has only been for a few decades (Esmer and Pettersson, 2007). Many value surveys (World Value Survey, European Social Survey) based on various human value models have been used to draw cultural maps of the world defining distinctive values within a culture (Esmer and Pettersson, 2007).

The cultural theory developed by Shalom Schwartz (2006) was chosen to be used in this study over other value and culture models such as Inglehart and Hofstede models. The study done by Hanel et.al. (2018) on comparing different human value models provided empirical support for the growing popularity and contemporary influence of Schwartz’s theory and scales. Firstly, Schwartz value model provides an examination of motivational differences between the different value types (Schwartz, 2006). Secondly, the Inglehart model only proposes a single dimension of materialism-post materialism which fails to include other important values that are found in Schwartz theories (will be explained in the subsequent sections) (Esmer and Pettersson, 2007). Further, in spite of the fact that Hofstede’s model was found to be very useful in cross-cultural studies that included more value types, it did not relate well to international trade. Hence, Schwartz value and culture models have been adopted as a more useful alternative view in many studies (Hanel et.al., 2018). The Schwartz theory has been validated in the past using several methods and measures by different scholars such as Roccas et. al (2017) and

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Schwartz himself in many of his subsequent studies (Schwartz, 2001; 2012). Schwartz theories have also been used to formulate the semi-annual European Social Survey, which is a widely used survey by many researchers to gauge attitudes and behaviours of European population (Davidov, Schmidt and Schwartz, 2008).

Apart from the differences between the various models mentioned above, the mapping of national cultures using the three models of Schwartz, Inglehart and Hofstede identified similar cultures around the world. Hence, giving regards to the benefits of Schwartz models discussed above it was chosen to be used in this study. The following section will briefly elaborate on Schwartz theory of basic human values and cultural orientation with a special focus on highlighting the cultural orientation of South Asian Countries that are being studied in this research.

3.1.1 Schwartz theory of basic values

Since cultural classifications are dependent on values it is necessary to understand the basic value dimensions before mapping cultural orientation of any country. Values are used to define the characteristics of cultural groups, societies and individuals to demonstrate the motivation behind their attitudes and behaviour (Schwartz, 2012). In order to understand human behaviour or explain why people act the way they do or behave in a certain way it is important to understand their values, attitudes, beliefs, traits and norms (Schwartz,2012). Attitudes are the result of evaluation of any objects, people or scenario. Values form the underlying factor that forms the basis of these evaluations. Beliefs are explained to be how certain we are about any idea to stand true. When it comes to norms which are the general rules and behaviours accepted in a society, values help to decide whether to accept or reject a norm. Whereas, traits are consistent patterns of actions, thoughts and feelings (Schwartz,2012). Values motivates behaviour but the relationship between values and behaviours can be part affected by norms (Bardi and Schwartz, 2003).

Schwartz (2012) suggests that “there is a universal organization of human motivations'', and these values are the guiding principles in life that inspire attitudes and behaviours. As per Parsons (1951) “the basic social function of values is to motivate and control the behaviour of group members''. Schwartz (2012) also establishes that individuals and societies have different priorities for each of these values and the trade-offs between the values based on their priority goes on to define how an individual or group acts or behaves. Priority, which is the relative

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importance of different values, explains the behaviour and attitude. The Schwartz theory of basic value states that there are 10 distinct values shown in the below (table 1) (Bardi and Schwartz, 2003)

Table 1: Definition of basic Values

The 10 values are structured identically across different cultures and diverse groups and is represented through a circular model shown in (fig 4). These values are divided into four categories that form sets of two dimensions - Self transcendence vs. Self -enhancement and Openness to change vs. Conservation. The circular structure of the values places conflicting values sets opposite to each other and closely related values next to each other.

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Figure 5: Theoretical model of relations among ten motivation types of value

Self-Transcendence values: It includes values universalism and benevolence values which are related to values that show concern for nature and welfare and interest of others.

Self-enhancement values: It includes achievement, power and hedonism values which underlines pursuit for one’s own interest, dominance over others and relative success.

Openness to change: It includes self-direction, stimulation and hedonism values that emphasizes readiness for change and independence of thought, feelings and action.

Conservation: It includes security, conformity and tradition values that focus on order, resistance to change, preservation of the past and self-restriction.

3.1.2 Theory of cultural Orientation

Based on the theory of basic human values, Schwartz developed a Cultural value orientation theory (Schwartz,2006). The value theories described above emphasize on values at an individual level, however, values can also be applied at a cultural level (Hanel et. al., 2018).

The cultural level values influence prevailing norms, institutional structures, policies and practices in different societies and express the cultural ideals,i.e, what is desirable in the culture.

Schwatz (2006) used the 10 basic values and restructured them into seven cultural orientations to reflect cultural idiosyncrasies. The seven distinct cultural value orientations are represented through the below (fig 5)

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Figure 6:Theoretical model of cultural dimensions

The seven cultural value orientations formed three distinctive cultural dimensions that consisted of conflicting cultural values, viz, Autonomy vs Embeddedness, Hierarchy vs Egalitarianism and Harmony vs. Mastery (Schwartz, 2006). Each of the cultural orientations are explained in the below table 2

Table 2: Definition of cultural orientations

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Schwartz validated the theory using the data collected from 76 countries. He categorised countries or nations into these cultural value orientations based on their similarities and differences and created a world map of national cultures that highlighted distinctive cultural regions (fig 6 ). Most of the cross-cultural studies treat nations as cultural units and also reinforce that countries are meaningful cultural units and there are culturally distinct world regions (Schwartz, 2006).

Figure 7: Map of 76 nations on several cultural orientations

Western and South Asian culture:

As mentioned in the introduction the research focuses on the distinctive cultural values of textile brand location (mostly west) and the suppliers location (mostly South Asia), hence the cultural orientation of these regions found in Schwartz theory will be included in the theoretical framework.

Western culture: There is a widespread view of “western culture” that includes the western European countries and the United States of America. In Schwartz study of national regions, Western Europe culture was found to be high on both harmony and secular-rational orientations. This culture and society tends to fit into the natural and social world as its ,

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appreciating the natural existence rather than exploiting and hence tend to have relations of harmony between themselves and the environment. West Europe also emphasizes intellectual autonomy along with harmony and egalitarianism. Although their high economic level influences their culture, their profile also states very high concern for the environment and the society. Whereas, the United states culture emphasized on affective autonomy and mastery and was found to be low on harmony and egalitarianism. This characterizes the American region with pragmatic, entrepreneurial, assertive orientation that focuses on personal growth over natural and social environment (Schwartz, 2006)

South Asian culture: The culture in south Asia emphasizes embeddedness and hierarchy and is very low on autonomy and egalitarianism. These orientations are in sharp contrast to the western European culture. People in South Asian regions with these cultural orientations adopt hard work and obedience but are not innovative, disruptive or imaginative. They focus on

“fulfilling one’s obligations in a hierarchical system – obeying expectations from those in roles of greater status or authority and expecting humility and obedience from those in inferior roles”

(Schwartz, 2013). The south Asian region was found to be homogenous in their cultural orientation with an exception of India, which also has a high rating on Mastery. This implies that Indian culture encourages personal goals over environmental and social goals (Schwartz, 2006)

To summarize, the Schwartz theory of cultural orientation demonstrated a strong link between a country's cultural orientation and the associated social phenomenon in those countries such as women’s equality, social attitudes, political and demographic characteristics (Schwartz, 2009). Hence, this theory was chosen to examine the relationship between South Asian distinctive cultural values and their attitude towards environmental and social management systems such as supply chain transparency in the textile industry.

3.1.3 Implication of cultural orientation on work

The cultural value orientation discussed in the last section is relevant in a society to demonstrate what is accepted as good and desirable in a society. The cultural-level values were found to be more appropriate as compared to individual values, when studying the meaning of work within different societies. Schwartz (1999) stated that any kind of work is either encouraged or discouraged based on the cultural values of that society. He also supported the view that

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organizational goals that are in sync with the society's cultural values are more effective and hence one goal might not be treated equally in all societies and can have different results.

Schwartz theories also established that since cultural value priorities are shared within a society, the individual within leadership roles can use the cultural values to choose appropriate behaviours and also explain their behaviour through them (Schwartz, 1999). Schwartz implied that this approach of managers and leaders can be adopted to analyse many work-related topics such as innovation in work, decision-making styles, risk-taking, hierarchy in the workplace etc (Schwartz, 1999). In international companies, cultural distances can act as a barrier in coordination between members - “Lacking information about distant cultures, managers will find it more difficult to make sense of the social environment” and hence they find it difficult to understand prevailing beliefs and can have problems working through them (Schwartz, 2013).

Studies done by many researchers (De Groot and Steg, 2007; Gatersleben et. al.,2012; Bouman et. al., 2018) have also found a relationship between certain values and pro-environmental behaviours. It was found that self-transcendent values such as universalism and benevolence were positively related to pro-environmental behaviours whereas self-transcendent values such as hedonic, power and achievement were negatively related to pro-environmental behaviours and beliefs (Bouman et. al., 2018). When connected to the cultural values, harmony and egalitarianism were found to encourage environmental and social strategies as opposed to mastery, hierarchy and embeddedness that focused more on self-excellence.

In conclusion, these research findings can be related to the cultural distance between the brand locations and the supplier location in the textile industry which can create varied priorities towards values associated with pro-environmental behaviours, hence acting as a barrier in adopting shared transparency goals.

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3.2 Proposed framework for study

This section combines and represents the theories and concepts that will be used as the foundation of the study and will drive the empirical design of this study. Schwartz theory of cultural value orientation (explained in theoretical framework 3.1.2) and Engels-Zandén et al.

(2015) dimensions of transparency (explained in conceptual framework 2.1.3) will be used to develop the proposed framework.

The study aims at finding the barriers to transparency faced by the upstream textile suppliers by exploring the behaviour and attitude of top management executives towards the three transparency dimensions, viz, Traceability, Sustainability conditions and Purchasing practices.

The behavioural factors influencing transparency dimensions will be studied in light of the refined theory of Schwartz Cultural value orientation which establishes that the behaviour of an individual in a society is influenced by their culture and that the national cultures can be defined with distinctive values that affects behaviours and attitudes. The proposed framework is represented in the below (fig 7).

Figure 8: Proposed framework of study

Previously, Schwartz theory of values has been used in the textile industry to identify the conflicts between personal and corporate moral values. This study done by LoMonaco- Benzing and Ha-Brookshire (2016) on textile professionals was found to be useful in getting a better insight into the minds of the respondent.

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4.Methodology

This section will discuss the methodological framework that guides this study. The chosen research design and empirical tool to study the identified research problem will be presented.

The profile of the selected samples and adopted analysis methods will also be discussed.

4.1 Research Strategy

An Epistemological research philosophy was adopted to study this research topic as it required a subjective approach. The study of culture and values are dynamic and hence an objective approach was not found to be appropriate for this study. Epistemology is defined as a “way of looking at the world and making sense of it” (Al-Saadi, 2014) and hence it leaves a space to explore different aspects that the data presents and reveals the knowledge of social behaviours.

Further, an exploratory research approach was chosen to fulfil the purpose of the research.

Exploratory research has been found to be useful in research fields where there have not been many prior studies (DeCarlo, 2018). As mentioned in the previous chapter, there are not many studies that have focused on supplier perspective to understand challenges to transparency.

Furthermore, there are very few studies done to analyse the cultural orientation and underlying values of employees to understand their pro-environmental behaviours. Hence, the chosen research problem was unique and required an exploratory approach.

Further, a deductive study was adopted for this study, where the established theory in the field of transparency and cultural values were used to formulate the empirical design .In deductive studies established concepts and theories are adopted to lead the study and then collected data is examined through the lens of these theories (DeCarlo, 2018). The research required personal views and narratives of the top management executive in the supply chain and hence a qualitative methodology was chosen for the data collection. A qualitative approach facilitates an in-depth understanding of a phenomenon and also produces a rich data in the form of participant commentaries. This methodology is based on the belief that there are multiple realities and focuses on the participant's viewpoint to understand reality (Vaismoradi, Turunen and Bondas, 2013).

4.2 Sample selection and Data Collection

The research question was addressed by conducting interviews with top management executives at supplier firms in South Asia. Many of the previous research in sustainable supply