Fashion supply chain transparency: do as I say not as I do

Abstract

PurposeFashion brands are under heavy criticism for often exhibiting poor working conditions and producing environmental damage. Pressure comes from initiatives such as Fashion Transparency Index (FTI) by Fashion Revolution to assess fashion brands' transparency based on information publicly disclosed. But an understanding of how such movements reflect in a Global South country characterised by institutional voids is still absent.Design/methodology/approachWhile the FTI ranks individual brands, in this study the authors have analysed 305 documents extracted from the websites of 20 Brazilian fashion brands to unpack practices and re-bundle them according to three archetypes – opaque, translucent and transparent – that display a maturity curve.FindingsThe authors show that advancement is heterogeneous, and we complement previous research exposing the limits of an NGO in driving transparency by investigating a context embedded in institutional voids. The authors show that most fashion brands restrict transparency to tier-1 suppliers. Moreover, although fashion brands increasingly demand disclosure from their suppliers, they do not clarify their own purchasing practices such as cancellation and payment policies. On the positive note, the authors show that maturity for transparent brands can include the actionability concept by engaging with consumer via surveys and educative content.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to theory by offering a maturity curve of fashion supply chain transparency. The authors contribute to practice by offering the three archetypes – opaque, translucent and transparent. This study unveils heterogeneity and asymmetry between the levels of transparency that buying firms demand from their suppliers against what they provide about their own practices.

Research progress on working conditions in supply chains: a comprehensive literature review and future research propositions

“…The most widely used methodologies as per the consulted literature include primary data analysis (Popovic et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2019;Zhou et al, 2020;Nunes et al, 2021;Stringer et al, 2021), secondary data analysis (Kabir et al, 2017;Cousins et al, 2020;Meehan and Pinnington, 2021;Muratore and Marques, 2021;Soundararajan et al, 2021), conceptual (Thomas and Turnbull, 2018;Trautrims et al, 2020;Green, 2021;Reinecke and Donaghey, 2021;Rosile et al, 2021;Tejani and Fukuda-Parr, 2021), mathematical modelling (Mahdiraji et al, 2020), content analysis (Flynn and Walker, 2020;Schaper and Pollach, 2021), case study (Ayompe et al, 2021). However, the other popular statistical methods like structural equation modelling, or mixed method approach remained unexplored in the consulted literature.…”

“…, 2017; Cousins et al. , 2020; Meehan and Pinnington, 2021; Muratore and Marques, 2021; Soundararajan et al. , 2021), conceptual (Thomas and Turnbull, 2018; Trautrims et al.…”

Operationalizing transparency in supply chains using a systematic literature review and graph theoretic approach

“…The significance of transparency in supply chains can be gauged from the fact that an exponential increase in the number of studies are appearing on the subject. For example, textile supply chain (Hader et al, 2022), healthcare supply chain (Gebreab et al, 2022), food supply chain (Al-Rakhami and Al-Mashari, 2021;Tsoukas et al, 2022;Jaison and Ramaiah, 2022), agrifood supply chain (Marchese and Tomarchio, 2022;Srivastava and Dashora, 2022b), fashion supply chain (Muratore and Marques, 2022) among others. Dairy and pharmaceutical supply chain are more prominent due to their immediate impact on end customers' health.…”

“…, 2022), healthcare supply chain (Gebreab et al. , 2022), food supply chain (Al-Rakhami and Al-Mashari, 2021; Tsoukas et al ., 2022; Jaison and Ramaiah, 2022), agri-food supply chain (Marchese and Tomarchio, 2022; Srivastava and Dashora, 2022b), fashion supply chain (Muratore and Marques, 2022) among others. Dairy and pharmaceutical supply chain are more prominent due to their immediate impact on end customers' health.…”