Reference no: EM133864577 , Length: word count:2000

Work and Sustainability in Global Supply Chains

A Business Case for Enhancing Sustainability in Global Supply Chains

Aim
The coursework report for Work and Sustainability in Global Supply Chains is designed to allow you:

The report assignment starts from two premises:

that "many organizations find it difficult to define a clear business case for sustainability" (Meade and Presley 2019: 119), and
that because "corporate sustainability involves multiple interconnected and interdependent demands and objectives at both the organizational and societal levels, managers face a complex and often contradictory environment" (Meade and Presley 2019: 119).

Learning objective 1: "Demonstrate a systematic and advanced understanding of key concepts and issues relating to work, employment and sustainability in global supply chains"
Learning objective 2: "Demonstrate critical awareness of the challenges to the effective governance of decent work and sustainable development in global supply chains"
Learning objective 3: "Develop conceptual critiques about decent work and sustainability to understand concrete examples of the challenges facing global supply chains".

Approach
Using a case study company of your choice which operates global supply chains you should produce a 2,000-word report written for the management board of that company covering the following:

(a) A brief mapping out of the key challenges and risks concerning decent work and environmental sustainability in the company's global supply chain, including a ranked order of the most serious challenges and risks with a justification

(b) Setting out your recommendations for how the company can most effectively address these challenges and risks

(c) Producing a business case for sustainability in the company's global supply chain using the model set out in Figure 8.3 of Meade and Presley (201G) which demonstrates how your assessment of the relative risks faced by the company can be most effectively reduced or eradicated in "supply chain practices" (see below).

The report and business case should be written for the management board of the company. You should therefore consider carefully the kind of business audience to whom you are writing and presenting arguments. You should integrate key literature from the module, reflecting the complexity of global supply chains and the management of sustainability, to make your arguments and draw upon publicly available material on your company of choice. These should all be fully referenced at the end of the report (not part of the word count). The report should provide a critical evaluation of sustainability risks and a justified rationale for the recommendations you make as they relate to the company in question.

Preparation
There are two main steps to follow for this assignment:

First, using the company that you have chosen you should examine and evaluate the sustainability and decent work challenges and risks that the company experiences in its global supply chains. For this, use publicly available material, company reports and other information from published research. Global supply chains are often complex, ‘long' and multi-tiered, involving a range of supplier partners. Your discussion should reflect this complexity, and demonstrate the importance of lead (or focal) firms in the governance of solutions to these challenges.

Second, using the business case methodology approach in Meade, L. and Presley, A. (2019) "Building the business case for sustainable supply chains", in Sarkis, J. (ed) Handbook on the Sustainable Supply Chain (available on the reading list) you should devise a sustainability business case for the company's Board of Directors which demonstrates how your assessment of the relative risks faced by the company can be most effectively reduced or eradicated in "supply chain practices". As Seuring and Müller (2008) have argued, sustainable supply chain management involves "the management of material, information and capital flows as well as cooperation among companies along the supply chain while integrating goals from all three dimensions of sustainable development, i.e. economic, environmental and social".

The business case for sustainability should cover the following elements (taken from the Meade and Presley framework (section 8.4 of Meade and Presley (2019)) which will be introduced in more detail at the workshop):

how the strategy will enhance the ‘triple bottom line' of social, economic and environmental impacts of the business, based on your evaluation of the sustainability challenges and risks faced identify a ranked list by importance of the primary stakeholders with an interest in the company's sustainability of its global supply chains and provide your justification for this ranking, using information and readings from the module, set out how you would recommend to the board of directors that the company should effectively address its sustainability challenges. This should relate to a consideration of the supply chain practice dimensions of sustainability (i.e., process-based approach in the model): Source (procurement), Make (production), Deliver (logistics), Return (end-of-life goods)), and to your assessment of the relative importance of different sustainability risks and challenges. For example, this might include a critical assessment of the relevant sustainability programmes discussed in the module and how they might apply to the company you are focusing on. You should clearly justify why you are making these recommendations based on their relevance for the relative importance of different sustainability challenges and risks faced by the company and your assessment of the effectiveness of the types of programmes being proposed, a brief identification of the key metrics that should be used to evaluate the impact of the proposed strategy.