The SCoC is a universal document for the suppliers collaborating with the Company X, and thus, the research conducted for evaluating the implementation of the code rests on a big variety of the participants.
The supplier’s background
As the analysis has revealed, the suppliers participating in the interviews were diverse.
To begin with, the diversity occurred due to the different areas of operation. Since the code is applied to all suppliers, including the suppliers of raw materials, service provid-ers and contractors, the selection process didn´t rest on this criterion. Another factor
that contributed to the diversity is the location of the suppliers. The areas of the inter-viewees were St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Vologda and Cherepovets (Vologda Oblast), Petrozavodsk, Pitkyaranta, Sortavala and Kondopoga (Republic of Karelia).
The suppliers also differed in size from micro to large companies. Lastly, some of the suppliers had previous experience of such requirements e.g. through FSC or ISO certif-icates, or other companies besides Company X have demanded the supplier to sign the SCoC. Table 3 contains factors contributing to the diversity among the suppliers.
TABLE 3: Background of interviewed suppliers
Company’s Int. 6 small/flat FSC top manager Republic of Karelia Int. 7
medium-sized/ tall
FSC middle
man-ager
Vologda
Int. 8 micro/ flat no accountant Cherepovets (Vologda Oblast)
2 The size of the companies were identified using the criteria devised by Eurostat (n.d.). The number of employees was the determinant of the company´s size.
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The questions for the suppliers of the company can be allocated to the following themes presented in table 4. A table with more detailed information with quotes of the respond-ents is provided in Appendix 4.
TABLE 4: Interview themes of the interviews with suppliers
The interview themes The suppliers’ responses Suppliers’ evaluation of the
training session:
training session
training material
Most of the respondents were satisfied with the train-ing session and material on the SCoC provided to them. Very few of the respondents would prefer to have more structured and concrete (specific) material.
Suppliers’ knowledge about the content of the SCoC:
claims of
Half of the respondents (7) claimed that they knew all of the requirements and their obligations, while the rest (6) of the respondents admitted to have only basic knowledge of the SCoC. At the same time, only three of those respondents could clearly show more deep knowledge of the requirements. Such results could be partly explained that some of the obligations were del-egated to other personnel (e.g. the environmental
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engineer deals with the section of the Environmental impact). However, during this stage (post-training) the respondents didn’t seem to be concerned with the requirements but were waiting for the audits in order to receive more practical guidelines.
Suppliers’ perception
Most of the respondents understood the purpose of the SCoC and perceived it as a legitimate document. Only one of the respondents was skeptical about the docu-ment since the SCoC duplicated the already existed regulations according to the respondent`s opinion.
Regarding the requirements, most of the respondents were familiarized with the requirements through the Russian legislation, FSC or other certificates. The suppliers were also familiarized with the requirements prior to the SCoC, as the compliance with most of those requirements had been already demanded from them by Company X.
The most often cited requirements causing difficulties and misunderstanding were the Management Systems and Unions for employees.
The main concern among the suppliers was that the compliance with the requirements was costly and had financial damage to companies, as well as the compli-ance was time consuming. On the contrary, the re-spondents who perceived the SCoC only as a positive practice, claimed that the examples of other compa-nies being successful due to compliance with the reg-ulations and their own experience showed that it had a positive financial effect on the company. Moreover,
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the suppliers were not aware of some regulations in the Russian legislation and some benefits prior to the SCoC (like compensation for safety equipment from the government), and thus, were very grateful to Com-pany X for such improvements.
Most of the companies drew the line between the Rus-sian companies and Western companies. The main perception of such practice was that it (responsible business, the SCoC and similar practices) had been brought and facilitated by foreign companies, and is not common to the Russian enterprises. Meanwhile, the attitude towards integration of such practice in Russia varied between skeptical, neutral (passive) and positive. Three of the respondents were clearly opti-mistic about such practice like the SCoC and similar requirements, and believe that it was already in place in big companies. There were 5 clearly skeptical atti-tudes about the practice, as the main concern was the government and its policies. The respondents believed that the non-compliance with regulations was acceler-ated by inconvenient and unequipped facilities and in-frastructures in the country (e.g. recycling, organiza-tion of medical facilities). The lack of organizaorganiza-tion led to time-consuming and complicated procedures. The rest of the respondents (5) believed that such practice could exist but it required time and resources. These neutral responses could be also categorized as a pas-sive attitude since they didn`t not provide more con-crete propositions and actions in order to facilitate the process.
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One of the observed trends among the suppliers should be mentioned. Most of the suppliers were proud to work with the Company X. They would like to continue collaboration with the company. It was also supported by the fact that some of the respond-ents were afraid to lose the partnership with the com-pany and concerned with the section devoted to the termination of the contract due to serious violations of the SCoC requirements. Some of the respondents were grateful for the assistance provided by the Com-pany X, which positively affected the acceptance of the requirements.
Despite the trend, a few responses were not so opti-mistic. These suppliers did not perceive the require-ments to be legitimate. Moreover, they believed that Company X was dominating over them, and dictate their conditions without proper partnership. These suppliers are also not satisfied with the conditions, and thus, negatively perceived the requirements of the SCoC.
It should be also noted many of the respondents were waiting for the audits which could reveal some devia-tions. After the audits the respondents were planning to undertake the corrective actions.
Suppliers’ capabilities and preparedness to comply with the requirements
As it has been already mentioned, the suppliers were concerned with the financial resources needed for complying with the requirements. At the same time, these additional resources associated mostly with hu-man and time resources, which were mainly con-nected with the suppliers own sub-suppliers. For ex-ample, from table 3 it can be seen that some of the
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respondents are responsible for the integrating the SCoC into their business practice (like accountant or in some cases CEOs who cannot delegate such re-quirements like Environmental impact or Human and Labour rights to the experts). That`s why some of the respondents claimed that they were not able to moni-tor their own suppliers. Moreover, the respondents be-lieved they did not have such tools (like legal docu-ments) to oblige their suppliers to adhere with the reg-ulations. That was mainly a concern of small compa-nies whose human resources were very limited as well as these companies did not have power to demand something from their suppliers.