The influence of social sustainability criteria on the process of selecting international suppliers - A multiple case study on the Swedish fashion industry

Abstract

Prior research has emphasised the selection of international suppliers as one of the most crucial tasks in global supply chain management since companies are said to only be as performant as their suppliers. Therefore, putting high pressure on companies regarding the importance of selecting their suppliers. More recently, sustainability issues have gained significantly more attention as a result of, for example, the SDGs, showing a normative step towards setting international priorities for promoting sustainable development. Accordingly, more research on sustainable supplier selection has emerged, however, with a greater emphasis on environmental issues, compared to social. To address this literature gap, a multiple case study was conducted on nine Swedish companies from the fashion industry to shed light on the influence of social sustainability criteria on a company’s process of selecting international suppliers. This study’s findings show that social sustainability criteria are mostly applied as qualification criteria, more specifically, as internal social sustainability criteria. In the case of also applying social sustainability criteria as evaluation criteria, both internal and external are used. Location was identified as an additional important qualification criterion since it will influence how the company works with social sustainability with their suppliers. Furthermore, establishment of the relationship with the suppliers should come at an earlier step in the supplier selection process because the complex nature of social sustainability makes companies more reliant on their relationship with the suppliers. Lastly, check with network for recommendation is added as a step in the process as a means to find potential suppliers that will meet their sustainability criteria. This study contributes to the literature on Sustainable Supply Chain Management and International Business by combining social sustainability criteria to the selection of international suppliers from a company’s perspective.