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Transparency in supply chains to ensure sustainability : Case Study from Food Industry

Suomela, Aada-Malviina (2017) Transparency in supply chains to ensure sustainability : Case Study from Food Industry.

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Abstract:This thesis aims at examining the sustainability and transparency of a supply chain in food industry. Especially the role of transparency in promoting sustainability is under examina-tion. Moreover, practices are provided to illustrate the implementation of sustainability into the companies. The growing importance of sustainable supply chain management and the criticality of food safety has led to the importance of transparency, and previous research has not widely addressed this context. The study applies qualitative multiple case study method, where altogether six actors from Finnish food industry are interviewed. The inter-viewees present five Finnish food industry companies from different tier-levels of a supply chain. The interviewees are from the procurement departments. The findings reveal vari-ous practices, such as supplier selection, supplier collaboration, supplier monitoring and the use of certificates and labels, that ensure sustainability and promote transparency. Ulti-mately, transparency tools, such as certifications and labels, are required to ensure the sustainability of the supply chains. The results between different companies in this study do not differ remarkably, and food safety is the most important motivator for sustainability within the case companies. Also, the barriers for sustainability and transparency are rather similar among the case companies, dishonesty by suppliers representing the main con-cern. More research should be put on the holistic sustainability integration to the supply chain as well as for the benefits of the IT systems use on ensuring sustainability and trans-parency.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/73368
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