Sustainability as Social Contract: Textile and Apparel Professionals’ Value Conflicts within the Corporate Moral Responsibility Spectrum

Current discussions of sustainability in the textile and apparel (T&A) supply chain tend to focus on consumer behavior or methods of production. Few studies investigate how T&A supply chain members experience corporate sustainability initiatives within their own moral value spectrum. This study was designed to describe the gaps that might exist between personal and corporate moral values of T&A supply chain members, and how individuals manage such gaps to align personal and corporate identities. The researchers investigated the views of ten T&A supply chain members residing in the United States, both as employees and consumers of T&A companies, through semi-structured interviews. Dunfee’s extant social contracts and Schwartz’s theory of basic values were used as theoretical frameworks to better understand the participants’ lived experiences in negotiating personal and corporate expectations. The findings revealed three themes: (a) nature of the value gap; (b) frustration due to the value gap; and (c) strategies to manage the value gap. The strategies used to realign values split into either those that held sustainability as their responsibility and worked to move corporate values toward their personal values; or those that shifted the blame to others so that their values could remain untouched.