Social Sustainability

Around the globe, the social sustainability landscape is shifting, as efforts to improve social conditions and practices gain support and momentum. Sustainability is a multidimensional issue and corporation interest in sustainability, gaining momentum for fostering sustainable development. The word global responsibility appeared in 1990 as the focus on responding to the global demands and needs which specifically focus on the firm's operations and its impact on the human rather than the ecological (Swindley, 1990).

In line with, (Gardiner et al., 2003) explained that “global responsibility implies a global understanding an of CSR”. According to (Pesqueux, 2003) described it as the focus on business ethics, sustainable development, and corporate citizenship. The roots of interest in sustainability can be traced back to early decades when 7700 companies in 130 countries signed UN Global Compact, which focuses on discussion of corporate social responsibility, business ethics, corporate environmental management, business and society, corporate sustainability (Weymes, 2004). The significance of sustainable development is broadly appreciated and has become a noteworthy discussion for the business world (Patzelt and Shepherd, 2011). Sustainable development involves a complex coupling between stakeholder dialogue and cultural change(Arnold, 2010).

Social aspects of sustainability have not given much preference because it is more likely to depend on firm preferences (Shi and Chew, 2012). Similarly, in a more practical context, corporate sustainability (CS) has been treated as a mere extension of the corporate social responsibilities(Hutchins and Sutherland, 2008). Although the literature on specific social responsibility and corporate sustainability have been used interchangeably to define sustainability performance (Halme et al., 2018). The need for sustainable practices at the operational level has been recognised to impact positively is in reducing energy consumption and waste management (Boiral, 2006). Social sustainability (SS) issues have not been given adequate attention in the developing country context (Anisul Huq et al., 2014; Brandenburg et al., 2014). The manufacturing industries in the emerging market, such as India, China, are considered a lack of social practices (Zorzini et al., 2015). Prior research studies provide insights into how sustainability strengthens the firm reputation and performance, but the social sustainability issues in the context of the supply chain have largely been given less emphasised. The social sustainability concept encompasses, the identification of the key social aspects to take into consideration in planning, design, procurement in production operations, a large part of the social impacts on depends on the internal infrastructure conditions.

2.6 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 41 In sustainability literature, sustainability has been encompassing environmental, economic and social dimensions (Elkington, 1994). The concept of Sustainable development is covering environmental, economic and social sustainability aspects.

Sustainable development requires focusing on all three dimensions and the development of broader goals associated with sustainable economies and societies (Husgafvel et al., 2015). This means that the manufacturing firms can address its social sustainability challenges within the operational environment by adopting the use of governance mechanism. The dimensions of social issues are varied significantly from one country to another country and vary from emerging economies to industrialised economies. The implication of sustainable development varies according to the industry type, sustainability challenges, regions and cultural needs of different geographical areas. In previous studies, compared with environmental and economic dimensions, social sustainability has most often not been studied in a supply chain relationship (Brandenburg et al., 2014). While the scholarly definition of Social sustainability is vary, the best well known and most appropriate for our study objective is, social sustainability (SS) has been defined as when firm support the creations of skills and capabilities and preservation of current and future generations, support and give equal treatment within and outside the firm borders and promote health (McKenzie, 2004). SS in the supply chain (SC) has emerged as important dimensions of the development of a mechanism that affects overall firm performance (Eccles and Serafeim, 2013).

To date, researchers have specifically considered the environmental performance point of view or what refers to “ triple bottom line” (Elkington, 1997). The framework of Sustainability reporting initiative (GRI) provided many indicators of social performance and categorized it into four categories namely, Human right performance indicators, Labor practices, Decent work performance, and Social performance indicators (Global Reporting Initiative and others, 2002). In this study, we only focused on social sustainability performance aspects, bridge sustainability, referring to “changes in behaviour to achieve biophysical goals” (Vallance et al., 2011). While the scholarly definition of SS is a multidimensional idea and could be studied from a different perspective, the best well known and most appropriate for our study objective is, SS has been defined as when a firm support the creations of skills and capabilities and preservation of current and future generations, give equal treatment within and outside the firm borders and promote health (McKenzie, 2004). Hutchins and Sutherland (2008) argue that the causal relationship between corporate activities and social activities is fundamental to address the call for sustainable development fully. According to (Pullman et al., 2009) concept of social sustainability encompasses internal (employee) and external (local communities).

Social sustainability defined as an

“ethical code of conduct for human survival and outgrowth that needs to be accomplished in a mutually inclusive and prudent way” (Lafferty and Langhelle, 1999; Sharma and Ruud, 2003).

2 Literature Review 42

Social sustainability dimensions in the supply chain include health and safety legislative, welfare, protection from harm and community development (Agrawal & Sharma, 2015;

Carter & Easton, 2012). The definition of “social issues” provided by (Klassen and Vereecke, 2012) is broadest in scope and includes all-important issue related to human health and safety. The definition of social issues in the supply chain proposed by (Klassen and Vereecke, 2012) is followed in this study. Social sustainability performance is required to implement social practices across the supply chain. Social issues relating to the supply chain are referred to in different ways in prior research, the same term used in different ways. The idea of social sustainability highlights equality and accessibility to equivalent legal and human rights to opportunities and resources (Bansal, 2003; Wagner and Krause, 2009). Specifically, there has been researcher engaged in studying the social sustainability in relations to the supply chain in the Asian context, Labor standards of Reebok’s foot wares supplier in China (Yu, 2008); human rights,equity and education issues in India (Mani et al., 2016); gender diversity in manufacturing firms of Malaysia (Chin and Tat, 2015); Social sustainability practices investigated in Bangladesh (Zorzini et al., 2015); Payment system and working hours per day in Pakistan (Lund-Thomsen, 2013); occupational safety and training in South Asia (Ratnasingam et al., 2012), Workplace and training and education opportunities for local community in Brazile textile firms (de Abreu et al., 2012). Most low-income countries still have gender inequality, health, safety problems. According to (Hutchins and Sutherland, 2008), social aspects have also become a focus area in the context of the supply chain to support sustainability. The social issues in the supply chain are defined as “product or process related aspects of operations that affect human safety, welfare and community development” (Klassen and Vereecke, 2012). Social sustainability performance is required to implement social practices across the supply chain. In emerging markets, it is more important for manufacturing firms to be able to achieve better social sustainability performance because western buyers emphasize buying from socially responsible firms.

Social sustainability debate in the supply chain has raised the challenge to how social issues (e.g., safety issue, child labour, health, living conditions, and equity problems) could better be addressed in the supply chain (Wilding et al., 2012).

Social sustainability has been defined in several ways and is defined in the present study as “a system of coordinated social interaction practices for the management of the social impact on people and society with the key internal and external stakeholders. This all happens for creating, developing and delivering the best social and ethical code of conduct”. The aim of social sustainability “is to have value for the survival of current business system (customers, partners, and society) and its growth for the future generation equitably and prudently” (Awan et al., 2018). Social sustainability in the supply chain management compels the firms to ensure sustained existing social issues, such as workers’ welfare, consideration of health and safety issues, flexibility in production scheduling, gender equity in job-creating, the distribution of equal resources and opportunities, employment human rights and community welfare. These considerations are essential for social sustainability in the supply chain and to meet the demands of stakeholders. Despite many years of sustainable development policies and huge advances

2.7 Cultural Intelligence 43