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

Conclusions

To understand how Chinese T&A corporations perceive sustainability within the morality spectrum and its sustainability capability implications, this study conducted a content analysis of 86 CSR or ESG reports from 86 top performing T&A companies in China to explore their sustainability perceptions and goals, along with whether each had the organizational structures to achieve those goals. These results were then used to classify the sustainability capability of each within the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability (MRCS) proposed by Ha-Brookshire.

The results show that most (76.7%) Chinese T&A corporations in the sample viewed sustainability as a perfect duty, and 12.8% as an imperfect duty. Of the "perfect duty" companies, only 34.8% and 30.3% had clear sustainability goals and structures respectively, and most (65.2% and 69.7% respectively) did not. The classification of the corporations in the sample in the MRCS framework in terms of their sustainability capability shows that only 22.1% of the 86 Chinese T&A corporations could be categorized as truly sustainable according to MRCS. Approximately, half of the 86 were deemed occasionally sustainable corporations due to their absence of sustainability goals in spite of their perceiving sustainability as perfect duty. Lastly, 12.8% of the entire sample were deemed consistently sustainable in selective areas due to their efforts in some selected activities, not all sustainability-related activities.

This study has a few theoretical contributions. First, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore corporations' perceptions toward sustainability from the moral responsibility perspective, providing evidence of corporations' distinct perceptions on sustainability, supporting MRCS. Second, this study explored what corporate sustainability goals might be and how corporate sustainability structures would look like in China's T&A industry, providing another means of measuring sustainability goals and structures. Third, this study empirically showed the spectrum of sustainability capability differentiated by the companies' perceptions toward sustainability and the presence of clear goals and structures, supporting MRCS. Therefore, this study provides a good base for further study of corporate sustainability from the moral responsibility perspective.

The findings also have important implications for T&A companies in China. The findings highlight the need for Chinese T&A companies to set clear sustainability goals and corresponding structures to improve sustainability performance. The content analysis of 86 sustainability reports of top performing T&A companies showed that, more than three-quarters of corporations expressed sustainability as a perfect duty, implying they had a rather strong sense of moral responsibility for sustainability. However, the wide sense of moral responsibility for sustainability implied by our results may not have led to achieving sustainability, due to the lack of clear goals and structures toward sustainability. In fact, only less than 30% of the companies viewed sustainability as their "perfect duty", and had clear goals and structures. Therefore, the findings suggest that more T&A companies in China must set clear goals and structures toward sustainability to be truly sustainable.

The findings also help the Chinese government and T&A trade associations understand the varying, often poor, sustainability capability of Chinese T&A companies. The results imply that there is still a lot of work to be done by the Chinese government and trade associations for increasing Chinese T&A companies' sustainability capability. Perhaps, enhancing corporations' moral responsibility consciousness toward sustainability, offering guidance to corporations to set clear sustainability goals, and helping them devise well-defined structures for sustainability would be extremely useful. The results also imply that the integration of sustainability into T&A education in terms of both sustainability awareness and knowledge might be needed in China, so that Chinese T&A corporate executives can have high goals on sustainability and employees in China's T&A industry can be well prepared to implement sustainability.

Despite the important findings, the study also offers limitations, and therefore, future research opportunities. Since this study only reviewed reports of 86 companies, further research is recommended to examine identical or similar research questions with a wider range of companies to get a more comprehensive picture about China's T&A corporations' sustainability activities and capability. Particularly, given these 86 companies are top performing companies in the nation in terms of their financial performance, the generalization of this study's findings must be done with caution. Companies that are not performing at the top level may have different views toward sustainability. Therefore, further research is recommended to explore the study questions in other companies that may have different levels of financial successes. Likewise, comparing firms with different characteristics on the research questions can possibly draw more implications.