ارزیابی پایداری تامین کنندگان نساجی هند 'با استفاده از روش خاکستری

Textile supply chains consist of multinational garment retailers (customers), garment manufacturers (suppliers), and ancillary suppliers (suppliers to manufacturers). This paper evaluates suppliers' within the Indian textile and clothing industry (both garment manufacturers and ancillary suppliers) using sustainability criteria. Examining a sample of sixty-three suppliers and six sustainability criteria (i.e. discrimination, abuse of human right, child labor, long working hours, unfair competition, and pollution), we categorize suppliers into the three categories of ‘good performer’, moderate performer’, and ‘performance not up to expectation’. Since all the criteria are potentially subjective, we have employed the grey approach for analysis. The results indicate that the criterion of long working hours is a critical one for both categories of suppliers; in the case of garment manufacturers, we found that pollution and unfair competition were the most important criteria. In addition, employing child labor was found to be a critical criterion in the case of ancillary suppliers.

The profiles and accountability of today's major corporations are under increasing scrutiny by communities in the interests of developing sustainable industries. Sustainability is generally understood as a development approach that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987). Corporate sustainability is the capacity of an enterprise to maintain economic prosperity in the context of environmental responsibility and social stewardship (Sahay, 2004), and sustainability reporting is the practice of measuring, disclosing, and being accountable to internal and external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development. To date, several European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, have made sustainability reporting mandatory. Generally, sustainability is defined in terms of aspects such as economic, product responsibility, human rights, labor practices and decent work, society, and environment (GRI, 2010), which are, in turn, expressed through various criteria. A list of the aspects and their corresponding criteria are shown in Table 1. Table 1. Sustainability aspects and criteria. Aspects Criteria Economic Economic performance Market presence Indirect economic impacts Product responsibility Customer health and safety Product and service labeling Marketing Communications Customer privacy Compliance Human right Non-discrimination child labor freedom of forced and compulsory labor association and collective bargaining investment and procurement practices Labor Practices & Decent Work Discrimination in employment (age/gender) Labor/management relations Occupational health and safety Training and education Diversity and equal opportunity Society/unfair competition Community Corruption Public policy Anti-competitive behavior Compliance Environment Pollution (emissions, effluents, and waste) Materials Energy Water Biodiversity Compliance Transport Products and services Source: GRI, 2010. Table options Many leading multinational firms in countries where sustainability reporting is mandatory outsource the bulk of their products from developing nations where there is no essential requirement to adhere to the various aspects of sustainable development. The importance of sustainability issues in business can be understood through the recent experiences of three multinational companies: Nike, Satyam Computer Services, and Coca-Cola. Since 2008, Nike shoes and sports apparel have received worldwide condemnation for its workforce-related malpractice in Indonesia (http://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/workers-rights/nike). In 2009, the founder and the members of senior management at Satyam Computer Services (India) were found guilty of corporate fraud, having manipulated the firm's accounts for more than seven years to attract businesses unfairly and avoid vulnerability. This led to the firm's involvement in an US$1.47 billion fraud case (Rajagopalan and Zhang, 2009). Similarly, in 2005, Coca-Cola, one of the world's largest multinational beverage companies, was on the brink of closing down its operations at several new plants in India for non-compliance on environmental issues (Burnett and Welford, 2007). These three examples demonstrate that though there are many aspects of industry sustainability, there are some that are critical; these include workforce practices, social issues such as corruption, and environmental ones such as pollution. The workforce aspect includes consideration of criteria such as discrimination, abuse of human rights, child labor, and long working hours (O'Rourke, 2003). In this study, we employ six sustainability criteria to evaluate suppliers in Indian textile industry: discrimination, abuse of human rights, child labor, long working hours, corruption, and pollution. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a brief overview of the Indian textile industry. Section 3 reviews the relevant literature for conventional and sustainable supplier evaluation criteria and methods. We describe the research methodology adopted in this in Section 4. Section 5 discusses the application of the grey approach for evaluating suppliers based on the selected sustainable criteria. We conclude the paper with a discussion on the findings in Section 6, and limitations and future research in Section 7.

This study expands existing supplier evaluation literature with the innovative consideration of sustainability issues. Its findings allow the textile industry to self-evaluate suppliers based on workforce, and societal and environmental issues. In India, environmental reporting is not mandatory, and it is a new consideration overall for the nation’s industries. The sector chosen for our study is highly export-oriented. All leading multinational garment retailers have started pressing their suppliers in developing countries to adhere to standardized workforce, and social and environmental protocols. To the best of our knowledge, no study has yet evaluated the Indian textile supply chain based on sustainability issues. Using a sample of sixty-three suppliers and six sustainability criteria such as discrimination, abuse of human rights, child labor, long working hours, unfair competition, and pollution, we have categorized the suppliers into three categories: ‘good performer’, moderate performer’, and ‘performance not up to expectation’. Since all the chosen criteria are subjective, we have employed the Grey approach for analysis. The results of this study indicate that the criterion of long working hours plays an important role in evaluating suppliers in both categories (garment manufacturers and ancillary suppliers). In the case of garment manufacturers, we found that pollution and unfair competition were also important criteria. Employing child labor is found to be a critical criterion in the case of ancillary suppliers. Policies derived from the findings of this study, and properly implemented, will foster smoother relationships between garment suppliers and multinational garment retailers. This has the potential to make the Indian textile and clothing industry more competitive globally. Finally, the study's methodology and data synthesis can be extended to other industry sectors in India.