Campus Units

Apparel, Events and Hospitality Management, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

9-15-2017

Journal or Book Title

Sustainability

Volume

9

Issue

9

First Page

1641

DOI

10.3390/su9091641

Abstract

This study presents the need for moral development education of current and future professionals so they can help build sustainable companies and global supply chains. Grounded in Ha-Brookshire’s moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability, the authors explored a set of real-life business situations where business professionals experienced morally challenging dilemmas. The study was conducted within the context of the textile and apparel (TA) industry because of the global and fragmented supply chain nature of the industry. The real-life business situations were interpreted using Kohlberg’s moral development stage theory. The results of in-depth individual interviews followed by three focus groups of industry professionals in spring 2017 showed that participants have experienced a variety of morally challenging business situations throughout their careers. This includes simple problems at the individual and firm levels, as well as wicked and complex problems at the industry and global levels. The study concludes that for TA businesses to be truly sustainable, professionals’ moral ability is critical and, therefore, appropriate moral development education is necessary.

Comments

This article is published as Ha-Brookshire, J., McAndrews, L., Kim, J., Freeman, C., Jin, B., Norum, P., LeHew, M., Hassal, L., Karpova, E., & Marcketti, S. Moral Education for Sustainable Development:Exploration of morally challenging business situations within the context of corporate sustainability in the global textile and apparel industry. Sustainability, 9, 1-17. Sustainability 2017, 9, 1641; doi:10.3390/su9091641

Copyright Owner

MDPI

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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