Ethical Sourcing and Decision Making in the Fashion Industry: A Longitudinal Qualitative Examination

Anushree Tandon (), Amandeep Dhir (), Puneet Kaur () and Chidiebere Ogbonnaya ()
Additional contact information
Anushree Tandon: University of Eastern Finland
Amandeep Dhir: University of Agder
Puneet Kaur: University of Bergen
Chidiebere Ogbonnaya: King’s College

Journal of Business Ethics, 2025, vol. 196, issue 4, No 2, 723-751

Abstract: Abstract Ethical sourcing is a crucial issue for the fashion industry, which is under intense pressure to build ethical and responsible supply chains. Despite its importance, we know little about how individual employees working in the fashion supply chain view ethical sourcing and the ethical considerations they encounter during their work. We adopted the moral agency theory to address these lacunas and conducted a longitudinal qualitative research study. We collected data from a highly heterogenous sample of employees based in the United Kingdom through open-ended essays in three waves (N1 = 50, N2 = 43, N3 = 30) over 9 months that were analyzed using the grounded theory method. The analysis revealed the following themes: a contemporary outlook on boundaries, external considerations, and three levels of action for ethical considerations: Supplier, organization, and employee (i.e., individual). We offer a revitalized view of ethical sourcing as a concept from a practice perspective and discuss critical ethical issues that affect employees’ moral agency to enact ethical sourcing decisions. Our findings offer insights into avenues to advance theoretical knowledge through a comprehensive framework derived from our results. We also propose significant practical implications to promote the widespread integration of ethical sourcing.

Keywords: Ethical sourcing; Supply chain; Fashion; Employee; Moral agency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-024-05876-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:196:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-024-05876-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-024-05876-9

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().