The relationship between NGOs and the improvement on social sustainability in the global apparel supply chain: a model based on artificial intelligence

Several non-governmental institutions (NGOs) are involved with global supply chains in the environmental and social areas and their role has been widely discussed in the literature. These NGOs are mostly collaborative or supported by brands to improve sustainability, especially when audits fail. Some NGOs act only exposing irregularities, such as regarding the international scandals on slavery and child labour. Although often mentioned, there is still no classification of the types of institutions and their contributions to improve sustainability in global value chains. To address this gap, we employ artificial intelligence (machine learning) to characterize the NGOs, identifying the type of relationship among suppliers and brands from a multi-tier perspective.