2021 Volume 18 Pages 105-123
The poor working conditions for foreign workers in Japanese supply chain factories are under the spotlight, with a rise in “escapee interns”. Japanese tier 1 or tier 2 suppliers hire foreign workers through the Technical Intern Training Program in order to improve their competitiveness. Japanese companies need to address this issue by developing sustainable supply chains and well-organized social audit systems. A survey of research papers on traditional social audit systems around the world finds that these systems can be classified into three types: “enforcement type”, “capacity-building type”, and “worker-driven type” (non-traditional）. Then, we looked at the initiative of Japanese apparel company X, which also operates in the United Kingdom. In 2015, the UK adopted the Modern Slavery Act for large companies, forcing company X to comply with the Act.
This qualitative study demonstrates the following: first, companies must utilize the three approaches strategically to building sustainable supply chains, continuously reviewing and making improvements, depending on their structure and circumstances. Second, amid rising numbers of absconding interns in the Japanese apparel industry, the technical intern training program requires an institutional overhaul, and these companies should apply the worker-driven approach. Third, there are specific problems providing correct CSR information to suppliers, which seems to be “lost in translation” across Japanese supply chains with intermediary trading companies—despite dialogue with suppliers being the focus of the capacity-building approach.
