Case Study: Exploratory Assessment of Sustainability Capability of Textile and Apparel Corporations in China

Moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability

The findings of Wright and Nyberg suggest the following questions: What factors determine the degree to which a corporation takes social and environmental responsibilities? And what factors would account for lack of consistent, long-term commitment to sustainability by a company? The literature suggests that corporations' engagement in sustainability is often motivated by strategic or ethical factors. Some businesses view sustainability as a means to enhance public relations, reduce cost, meet government or societal expectations or requirements, and thus increase long-term profit. Other businesses adopt sustainability due to their moral beliefs and principles. In this light, Ha-Brookshire proposed Moral Responsibility Theory of Corporate Sustainability (MRCS), which suggests that a business must have a sense of moral responsibility to be truly sustainable and that the degree of its sustainability commitment is determined by how it perceives sustainability within the moral spectrum - whether it views sustainability as a perfect duty (an universal and absolute obligation) or an imperfect duty (a meritorious but optional obligation). This theory offers a perspective of moral responsibility for examining corporate sustainability actions and a potential explanation for the varying degree of its commitment to sustainability.

According to MRCS, corporations that view sustainability as a perfect duty would work to perform sustainably in all situations and at all times, implying that they would place equal importance on their financial, social, and environmental responsibilities. However, corporations that view sustainability as an imperfect duty would arbitrarily select the situations and areas in which they work to perform sustainably. In addition, because employees carry out their corporate policies, the absence of clear corporate sustainability goals may leave employees behaving variously based on their own understandings of sustainability, thus resulting in occasional and uncoordinated corporate behaviors. Furthermore, considering the possible gaps between corporate sustainability goals and outcomes, MRCS also indicates the need for a well-defined corporate structure to avoid inconsistent employee actions and best guarantee the achievement of corporate sustainability goals. MRCS thereby offers a framework for examining corporate sustainability capability and suggests a spectrum of sustainability capability in the marketplace (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability

The spectrum of corporate sustainability capability in Fig. 1 shows six varying degrees of sustainability capability. According to Ha-Brookshire, when a corporation perceives sustainability as a perfect duty and has both clear sustainability goals and well-defined corporate structures to guarantee the implementation of its sustainability goals, it would become a truly sustainable corporation. If a corporation views sustainability as a perfect duty and has clear sustainability goals, but lacks well-defined corporate structures to implement these goals, it may be mostly sustainable, that is, it would be an occasionally unsustainable corporation due to the inconsistency of its employees' behavior. When a corporation views sustainability as a perfect duty, but has no clear sustainability goals, it can hardly guarantee cohesive sustainability actions, leading to sustainability being achieved only by chance and an occasionally sustainable corporation.

Further, MRCS describes that if a corporation perceives sustainability as an imperfect duty, but has clear goals toward some sustainability activities and well-defined corporate structures to meet these goals, it would perform sustainably in these activities in a continuous way, which makes it a consistently sustainable corporation in selective areas. If a corporation perceives sustainability as an imperfect duty, has clear goals toward some sustainability activities, but lacks corporate structures to implement these goals, it would be an occasionally unsustainable corporation in selective areas. Lastly, if a corporation views sustainability as an imperfect duty, and has no clear goals in any sustainability activities, some sustainability activities may still happen, but in an occasional way, resulting in an occasionally sustainable corporation in selective areas.

MRCS offers a framework for examining corporate sustainability capability from a moral responsibility perspective and suggests the spectrum of corporate sustainability capability theoretically. Based on this theory, LoMonaco-Benzing and Ha-Brookshire provided evidence of distinct corporate and personal views with respect to taking sustainability as moral responsibility. Another study also found that US consumers have different and varying perceptions toward corporations' ethical duties for sustainability.

Yet, the knowledge on how corporations themselves view sustainability within the moral responsibility spectrum is missing, and no previous studies have explored corporate sustainability capability from the MRCS framework. Particularly, given the little research attention to the reasons for the poor social and environmental responsibility performance of Chinese T&A corporations, the MRCS framework could offer plausible explanations for such reasons. Thus, this study examined whether Chinese T&A companies (a) perceive sustainability as a perfect duty or not, (b) have clear goals toward sustainability or not, and (c) have well-defined organizational structures toward sustainability goals or not. The findings were expected to shed lights into varying degrees of their sustainability capability.