Summary

The work which has been reviewed in the journal is “Trade-offs in supply chain transparency – the case of Nudie Jeans Co.” The authors of the journal that has been selected to carry out the report are NiklasEgels-Zande?n, KajsaHulthe?n, Gabriella Wulff.  The journal has been received on 13 December 2013 and it has been available online from 9 May 2014. The report is based on transparency in supply chain. The purpose of this work is to find out the potential that the supply chain transparency has. It also helps to find out how there is an increase in the societal emphasis and how transparency is related to sustainability (Egels-Zandén, Hulthén and Wulff, 2015). Thus, it can be concluded the author of this journal focusses on both transparency and sustainability and it also shows a path for other author to continue an empirical study on Supply chain transparency.

In this report the authors mainly focus on the three dimensions of supply chain transparency and also on the supply network and transparency. The main definition of transparency is the ability to transfer power from a particular firm to the stakeholders or the investors of the firm (Egels-Zandén, Hulthén and Wulff, 2015). It has been assumed by various scholars that the entire concept of supply chain has become an important to maintain the legitimacy of a particular firm. After the scholars identify the various dimensions of the Supply chain transparency it has summarized that the transparency generally comprises of 3 types of disclosure they are the names of various suppliers who are attached with the production of the firm, all related information about the condition of sustainability and lastly the purchase behavior of the firms. The next important point which has been mentioned in this report is the Supply chain transparency network. It has been summarized by the author that the if a particular firm can maintain the transparency of the supply chain of the firm it can help the firm to expand its business by increasing the firm’s network. The authors believe that the framework which deals with the atmosphere of relationship of conflict, power and control helps to identify the outcomes of the transparency of various attempts of the corporate transparency.

To carry out this report the authors of this journal has adapted various methodologies. A qualitative study has been done based on a case. The case depicts an attempt of a medium-sized garment company of Sweden named Nudie Jeans Company to become one of the most transparent company in the world. This case study has been taken because it has been seen that the company mentioned above has been very active to become the leader of sustainability and transparency (Egels-Zandén, Hulthén and Wulff, 2015). The case which hasbeen taken in to consideration was being created through primary research method. Approximately 80 interviews were being conductedwhere questions were asked to approximately 30 representatives of Nudie. The research has been done by including the customers, stakeholders as well as the top level management of the company. The interviews were conducted in India and Portugal.

Critical Evaluation

The entire process of the interview lasted for an hour and the feedbacks of the company was being audio-recorded and was being semi structured. Along with the structured interview the themes which were analytical which was related to the proper definitions of network and supply chain transparency was being developed.

It has been seen that the concept of Supply chain transparency was unclear among various authors and the definition to the Supply chain transparency was inconsistent (Bostro?m, et al., 2012). It can be seen that as the case of Nudie has been taken in to consideration it has illustrated that each and every firm can use the inconsistency of the supply chain as their own advantage. From the case of Nudie, it can be seen that Nudie Jeans Company defined transparency by keeping various sensitive information regarding the markups and the purchase price as confidential (Doorey, 2011; Toppinen and Korhonen-Kurki, 2013). The Supply chain transparency is not about keeping truths undisclosed but it is about declaring various information that serves the purpose of various people especially the stakeholder of the company (Madsen, 2009). In the case it has been marked by the author that the increase in the transparency of the company has helped the firm to transfer the power to the stakeholders of the organization. In the case of Nudie the approach of transparency was being analysed with the help of sustainability and traceability.

A conflict was raised when few suppliers were not signing the agreement of transparency, Nudie managers forced those suppliers by the displaying of power to sign the agreement instead of pressurizing them. This incident concluded that the Supply chain transparency does not mean empowering the investor of the firm to exert influence on that particular firm. A problem raised among the various garment producing company was that the firm was finding it difficult to name the various suppliers who were actively involved in their production but in case of Nudie it was seen that Nudie has a high margin of traceability (Boström et al., 2012; Doorey, 2011). The top level managers of the company were being able to name all its suppliers and it eventually created a supply network among all the suppliers. A Corporate Social Responsibility manager of Nudie has said in one of its interviews that initially all the suppliers were reluctant in giving their personal details to the firm but when the managers explained the suppliers that why the personal information is important then it was easier for the firm to collect the information. Thus, it can be evaluated that the top managers of Nudie Jeans Company have created an openness in the atmosphere among the suppliers and the firm itself by adopting a Normative approach instead of going through authoritative approach (Weitz and Jaap, 1995). Thus, from the case of Nudie it has been very clear that through a Normative approach a firm can easily take out all the information from its suppliers.

Another problem which arised was how to prioritize the suppliers of a firm for auditing purpose. The case of Nudie also solved this problem. Nudie Jeans company initially started auditing the Italian supplies and also their sub-suppliers which had a high volume., then it started auditing the suppliers of countries which possessed high risk and finally Nudie audits the Portuguese firms. This is how Nudie increased the auditing of more and more of its suppliers by dividing them according to their geographical locations. Though this attempt of auditing more and more suppliers was a success but Nudie also faced a problem when Portuguese suppliers were not allowing the auditors of the Nudie to audit their firms because they were not happy with the transparency agreement that was being proposed (Egels-Zandén, Hulthén and Wulff, 2015). This led to a conclusion that the transparency agreement cannot be solely controlled by the firm itself they should also depend on its suppliers and sub-suppliers.

In an incident it can be seen that the top level managers of Nudie only opted the standardization method in the trade-off and thus forced the suppliers in the authoritative control. Nudie and many other firms try to control everything by its own which decreased the sense of collaboration among the suppliers and the firm itself and thus this creates a negative issue. In the report the positive influence of the supply chain transparency has been discussed but it also contains some negative consequences. A question is raised which says for whom the transparency is being done (Egels-Zandén, Hulthén and Wulff, 2015). In the case of Nudie, the impact of this transparency has not being discussed and thus future studies should focus more on this question. It can be seen a warning flag has been raised by the incident of Nudie where it has been said the transparency in supply chain has come to an end and there can be various detrimental impacts on this practice of Supply chain transparency.

Conclusion

In this paper the main topic of discussion is the transparency in the Supply chain. The paper has been completed by considering various dimensions i.e. sustainability conditions, traceability and the buying behaviour. A case study has been considered where the activities of a Sweden based company named Nudie Jeans Company has been tracked. This study provides very relevant information to the researcher regarding the supply chain transparency. Putting the entire discussion, it has been found that the top level managers of the company faced three trade-offs,they are standardization, ends and threats. These trade-offs left the managers with two options that is compliance or cooperation. In the first mentioned approach the suppliers of any particular firm is supposed to follow the policy and they should stop themselves from working with non-compliant suppliers and the second approach there exists a cooperation between the manager of the organization and the suppliers. It has been seen that the approach which is cooperation in nature leads to very less close to negligible dysfunctional conflicts.

References

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