Achieving ethical HR and procurement practices and transparency through the supply chain in advanced and emerging economies
Pauline Dibben, alongside others, is part of the SCA-Emp team who have developed a toolkit to self-assess HR, accounting and procurement practices.
The ESRC funded SCA-Emp project research team includes Pauline Dibben, John Cullen, Phil Johnson, Juliana Meira and Gareth Crockett from the University of Sheffield, as well as international research partners.
The team gathered research evidence from emerging economies which showed that firms often knew little about the labour standards or HR practices of their suppliers or how to improve them.
To address this problem, the SCA-Emp team developed a diagnostic toolkit, co-produced with practitioners and implemented by employer bodies and organisations in the UK, Brazil, South Africa and Ethiopia, to self-assess HR, accounting and procurement practices. Over 450 companies from over 80 countries with a combined workforce of almost 500,000 employees and turnover of £74 billion have access the toolkit.
The use of the toolkit has led to increased transparency and knowledge transfer across supply chains and resulted in improvements in competitiveness, productivity and profits, and most importantly, better labour standards for companies and their suppliers.
Academics involved: Professor Pauline Dibben, Dr Juliana Matos de Meira
Find out more about the Centre for Decent Work Research Centre that Pauline Dibben is a member of.