Social sustainability transparency: an exploration of U.S. and U.K. dairy production

Social sustainability has become an increasingly important aspect of sustainable supply chain literature. The social pillar of Elkington’s (1997) Triple Bottom Line has also gained attention in the agri-food supply chain specifically. Transparency is a solution offered to recognize general sustainability goals and includes information being exchanged between firms, regulatory agencies, consumers, and the public. Institutional theory explains the interactions between these different stakeholder groups, both within the industry and externally. This Master’s thesis explores social sustainability in the United States (U.S.) and United Kingdom (U.K.) dairy production with the general research question: Is the dairy industry transparent about how they address social sustainability? To answer this, three supporting questions arose. 1) What social issues occur in the U.S. and U.K. dairy production 2) How are they communicated 3) What types of transparency occur? Data was collected from prominent trade associations, National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF), between January 2018 to March 2021. I reviewed a total of 68 member newsletters that concerned various social sustainability topics. Member newsletters also reflected how social sustainability information was exchanged through trade associations. By collecting and analyzing trade association print communications to members, I was able to view what social sustainability issues were addressed in respective dairy industries, how issues were framed, and the level of issue transparency achieved by. Certain issues were communicated differently, reflecting the type of information exchange. Lastly, the level of transparency reflected from these member newsletters was ascertained. Human resource management, immigration and animal welfare were the three main social sustainability topics discussed by both NMPF and RABDF. Newsletters were the primary form of communication from the trade associations to their members, but webinars, online forums and conferences were reported on as supplementary forms of communication. Social sustainability was framed by political and legislative changes, consumer pressures and member engagement with matters concerning farm management. Trade associations offer additional insights to assess the effectiveness of formal versus self- regulation of social sustainability transparency. Both U.S. and U.K. trade associations were influenced by their political environments while being institutions themselves that influenced legislation. Voluntary industry standards also framed the social sustainability discussion in the U.S. in favor of self-regulation. An institutional view provides a deeper understanding of how social sustainability is defined, discussed, and made transparent. This thesis studies how trade associations are mechanisms for information exchange, which is underrepresented in organizational management research. Applying the lens of institutional theory to supply chain sustainability is also a growing area of research. Through this study, I am exploring a unique intersection of where social sustainability, transparency, and supply chain management meet. Social sustainability is a multifaceted goal that benefits from an interdisciplinary approach. This provides managers with a framework to consider their own transparency targets concerning social sustainability concerns