Social Audit in the Supply Chains Sector

The issue of social auditing has suddenly become an even more important one than ever before for corporate social responsibility (CSR), Ethical Business and the supply chains industry following a series of scandals including the sad fatal incident of May 2013 in the garment factories of some suppliers to many Western household names, brands and retailers who source supplies of their merchandise from Bangladesh. There had been several unacceptable CSR incidents in this sector before the 2013 Bangladesh disaster relating to sweatshops, child labour, irresponsible working practices and conditions, poor and barbaric wage payments for long hours of work by under age children and adults in many factories in Asia and some other parts of the world see for example Nike’s 2001 child labour scandal, Hanes, Wal-Mart, Puma 2006 scandals and many others. All these incidents have many things in common. First, that some suppliers in the third world cannot be trusted or left to their own devices to behave responsibly in this regard, that Western retailers too are still not embedding core CSR issues and robust social audit practices into their corporate strategies; (despite their making us believe that all is well in this area) and that there are still unidentified social audit indicators in corporate social responsibility which should point out areas where things are not conforming to plan. Similarly, that well-structured social auditing is either non-existent or ineffective in the supply chains sector despite this sector making us believe that social auditing is now being mainstreamed by them into their operational practices. This Chapter seeks to explore where we are in the field of CSR as far as social auditing in the supply chains and in general is concerned, what social auditing entails, how the current practices in the field of social audit could be made more effective and robust to identify quickly where CSR activities are failing to meet the needs of stakeholders. It also explores how we could take matters forward in order to prevent recurrences of these social ills that pervade our corporate scene and the supply chains sector in particular of the global economy and consequently prevent havocs being done to stakeholders and the environment by irresponsible operators in this sector and other sectors.