Examining the effects of stakeholder forces on sustainable practices in the Bangladeshi garment industry

This paper aims to explore the current stakeholder forces for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in the Bangladeshi garment industry. The focal point is identifying which stakeholder forces could enhance sustainable practices in the factory premises, and whether there are conflicting forces which might obstruct the sustainable practices. A qualitative research design is adopted, drawing on data from 37 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders related to garment manufacturing. Thematic analysis conceptually guides the analytical process. The findings demonstrate the supporting and hindering forces currently influencing the garment industry in Bangladesh. This paper also identifies three conflicting forces relating to economic gain, employee empowerment and global image, where trade-offs towards SSCM implementation exist. This study extends existing research relating to SSCM within the garment industry of Bangladesh, identifying differences between different stake-holder groups and recognising the conflicting forces that exist.


Introduction
Recent years have seen significant research interest in the implications of SSCM in the garment industry, especially in emerging countries with challenging institutional contexts (Nath and Eweje, 2021;Huq and Stevenson, 2020).Gradually, SSCM has become an essential theme for the garment industry due to the industry's heightened sensitivity toward environmental protection and social responsibility (Lu et al., 2020;Kannan, 2018).Targeting sustainability supports firms in achieving economic viability and retaining a competitive advantage.Although accomplishing a successful SSCM strategy requires a firm to consider the views of multiple stakeholders (Rebs et al., 2019;Govindan et al., 2013), much of the existing literature on the garment industry in emerging countries focuses on one specific stakeholder group.
This study draws focus on Bangladesh, where the garment industry's annual revenue has gone from $19 billion to $34 billion between 2015 and 2022 -a 70 % rise (IFC Insights, 2023;Insights, 2023) with a growth rate of 12.55 % in 2020/21 fiscal year (BGMEA, 2023), despite having a pandemic and many questionable practices (Hoque et al., 2020;Nath and Eweje, 2021).This argument raises questions, like what is the most integral factor behind that?Or what makes Bangladesh so lucrative?Scholars focused on diverse issues regarding SSCM implementation while assessing the Bangladeshi garment industry.For instance, Reinecke and Donaghey (2021) highlighted the necessity of suppliers' auditing to ensure SSCM and how garment workers could be part of the corporate governance.Similarly, Chowdhury et al. (2020) explained that sustainability requirements mainly evolved around the upstream tiers of stakeholders including customer and retailer requirements, particularly from supplier assessment criteria.With this in mind, Nath et al. (2020) and Huq and Stevenson (2020) conceded how multistakeholder partnerships involving decision-makers and suppliers could support sustainable development goals through strategic implementation.In addition, Sarkar et al (2020) demonstrated how policymakers and owners could uphold environmental sustainability through green business strategy.Habib et al (2020) examined the impact of green entrepreneurial orientation on firm performance and, Yadlapalli et al (2019) reported how retailers enforced manufacturers to adopt social responsibility, while manufacturers believe collaboration supports sustainability.However, these researchers underlined how different supply chain actors linked to each other while implementing sustainable practices.Noticeably, several researchers focused on one group of stakeholders at a time − suppliers, decision-makers, policymakers, and retailers and have not talked about the downstream tiers of stakeholders' engagement.Hence, taking a stakeholder perspective appears fundamental to the question of whether or not SSCM of the garment industry flourishes.Or importantly, we note a research gap − what are the current sustainability phenomenon that drives Bangladeshi stakeholders to adopt SSCM practices?
Hence, drawing on stakeholder theory, this qualitative study tries to identify how available stakeholders' forces influence the implementation of SSCM in an emerging country like Bangladesh.Specifically, this paper responds to the call for an investigation of current SSCM practices from downstream tiers of stakeholders, predominantly from manufacturer perspectives (Nath and Eweje, 2021;Hoque et al., 2020).Furthermore, the stakeholder perspective is also beneficial for two key reasons: firstly, stakeholder logic offers attention to the participation of sustainability exercises, particularly in the form of pressures and incentives which triggered the SSCM implementation at the root level (Xiao et al., 2019).Secondly, stakeholders' intentions and unintentional consequences of SSCM could mutually be exclusive to paradoxical tensions and opportunistic tendencies in the firm's intrinsic sustainability performance (Roy et al., 2020;Rafi-Ul-Shan et al., 2018).Despite this, the SSCM literature acknowledges the divergence of stakeholder groups' logic, the capability of internal stakeholders, and the significance of contextual factors while prompting to embrace sustainability practices within the firm's boundary (Roy et al., 2020, Rebs et al., 2019, Jakhar, 2017).Surprisingly, knowledge of the upstream tiers of stakeholder sustainability drivers in an emerging country context still dominates research on SSCM, while extinction mainly stems from the downstream tiers of stakeholders (Yadlapalli et al., 2019, Huq et al., 2016).Accordingly, the purpose is to identify the available moderating forces for the garment industry.However, it is also possible that there is divergence in the forces and identifying these could help further improve sustainable practices.Hence, the research questions are: RQ1: What are the existing stakeholder forces that dominate the implementation of SSCM in the Bangladeshi garment industry?
RQ2: What conflicting forces cause Bangladeshi garment stakeholders to disassociate with SSCM practices?
This study makes four important contributions to the contextual SSCM field.First, we particularly looked at the current sustainability forces in a manufacturing country context, which is significant for its low-cost sourcing feature for garment production.While there is considerable research emphasis on stakeholders' pressures and challenges for SSCM implementation, fewer studies highlighted the conflicting issues of the manufacturing stakeholders (Huq et al., 2021, Nath et al., 2020) in comparison to other supply chain actors.For instance, Huq et al (2021) examined the stakeholders' sustainability requirements and proposed a decision-support approach for suppliers' sustainability practices and Nath et al (2020), highlighted the sub-suppliers' decoupling behaviour for SSCM implementation.However, most empirical studies including Nath et al (2020) have not captured the conflicting forces beyond sub-suppliers.Accordingly, to bridge the gap we specifically examined the role of Bangladeshi garment stakeholders in SSCM implementation.Second, we highlighted the conflicting forces that could disassociate the SSCM practices, by suggesting several conflicting stages such as perception of economic gain, employee empowerment and global image.Third, drawing on stakeholder theory, we identified several groups of internal stakeholders (Maestrini et al., 2021;Silva et al., 2020) and theorised the connection between practices and conflict based on an empirical investigation.Fourth, although assessing the sustainability practices of outsourcing suppliers is challenging (Tseng et al., 2019), we argue that our findings would enable the global garment sourcing firms and upstream stakeholders to understand how to predict manufacturers' conflicts and consider how they can be tackled downstream.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows.The next sections describe the theoretical underpinnings and review relevant research on sustainable practices and stakeholder forces in Bangladesh's manufacturing-based garment industry.The research methodology is presented in Section 4, followed by the findings on inbound stakeholder responses and associated performance in Section 5.Then, the discussions on the available stakeholder forces and the conflicts between them related to garment supply chains and the associated contributions are presented in section 6.The final section concludes the study with limitations and future research directions.

Theoretical underpinnings
There are two potential theoretical lenses which could be adopted to address the research questionsstakeholder theory or institutional theory.Stakeholder theory examines the connections between an organization and those with a stake in that organization.Value should be created for all of these stakeholders.According to Freeman (1984), stakeholders are 'any group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, the achievement of an organisation's objectives ' (p. 46).Clarkson (1995) suggested internal stakeholder groups including workers, employees, management, owners, shareholders, investors, suppliers, and customers.By contrast, external stakeholders exert influence without engaging in survival-critical transactions (Clarkson, 1995).These include local communities, governments, legal authorities, the media, NGOs and other societal interest groups.Maignan et al., (2002) extend this to include communities and the environment.Although not directly involved in transactions, external stakeholders have a significant impact on public opinion about an organisation's sustainability practices (Silvestre, 2015).
An alternative lens is institutional theory.Selznick (1957) used an institutional framework to explain how both internal and external stakeholder groups could impact organizational performance.This highlights how institutional norms and practices affect practices within organizations.DiMaggio and Powell (1983) identify three dominant constructscoercive, mimetic and normative logics.Coercive pressures can come from either social or cultural expectations of stakeholder groups, or from the need for compliance (Meyer and Rowan, 1977) while mimetic pressures exist where organizations follow the practices of competitors (Chowdhury et al., 2020).Normative pressures stem from professional expertise of the organization's activities (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983).
Numerous SSCM scholars have addressed the strategic use of stakeholders to achieve sustainability goals using both theoretical lenses.In this work, we adopt stakeholder theory as it explains why internal garment stakeholders implement SSCM practices in their shop floor activities, considering the benefits of these practices to all stakeholders.
In understanding stakeholder forces and the rationale behind implementing SSCM in a specific field, we initiated our inquiry by examining the stakeholder perspective within the context of an emerging country.Surprisingly, over the past decade, relatively little attention has been paid to stakeholder forces, especially in the context of the Bangladeshi garment industry, while aspects such as buyer requirements (Nath and Eweje, 2021), compliance initiatives (Roy et al., 2020), decoupling responses (Nath and Eweje, 2021), collaboration (Huq and Stevenson, 2020), governance mechanisms (Yadlapalli et al., 2019) have been considered from an institutional perspective rather than from a stakeholder perspective.Moreover, there has also been a strong focus on external stakeholder studies (Nath et al., 2020, Wilhelm et al., 2016) due to the scarcity of sustainability implementation in manufacturing factories' shopfloor activities, partly because there are norms and legitimacy aspects of stakeholder theory that overlap with institutional considerations.On the contrary, Wahl and Bull (2014) argue that "stakeholder theory shares common views with institutional theory" as it describes a homogeneous isomorphism that can influence the adoption of sustainability by manufacturers.Turning to the contextual evidence, Mausumi, and Rahman (2018) showed how stakeholder decisions improve the health and safety of garment workers, contributing to social responsibility.Sajjad et al. (2015) highlighted the need for garment businesses to meet the expectations of foreign retailers and address occupational health and safety value classes.Stakeholder forces play a crucial role in understanding SSCM practices and driving garment stakeholders to adopt these practices on a daily basis (Sajjad et al., 2015).Studies, including those by Sajjad et al. (2015) and Klassen and Vereecke (2012), use stakeholder theory to examine the drivers and motivations behind SSCM practices and performance.Despite this, SSCM research often neglects sustainability forces in the context of the garment business (Nath et al., 2019;Huq et al., 2014).
Therefore, the use of stakeholder theory to explore dominant sustainable forces in SSCM implementation is an appropriate theoretical lens to start, which should be designed both to accommodate contextual characteristics as well as manufacturing-based sustainability goals (Mausumi and Rahman, 2018;Huq et al., 2016).

Sustainable practices and stakeholder forces
Sustainable practices implement initiatives that advance internal goals and enhance external performance (Nguyen et al., 2020), while stakeholder forces are drivers influencing phenomena from their perspective to achieve these outcomes (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018;Park-Poaps and Rees, 2010).These practices, widely represented by the triple bottom line, measure success in environmental, economic, and social dimensions.For instance, economic sustainability measures economic value, environmental sustainability assesses resource impacts, and social responsibility encompasses the supply chain and societal well-being (Huq et al., 2021;Marshall et al., 2015).Achieving sustainability in all areas is challenging; for example, companies like the Body Shop that emphasise environmental credentials are criticised for social issues (Purkayastha and Fernando, 2017).Clothing giants such as Nike, Gap and H&M have long faced accusations of poor worker conditions (Distelhorst et al., 2017).Initiatives such as the Clean Clothes Campaign (2009) enforce a 'code of conduct' through audits of social and environmental performance (Ablander et al., 2016).Previous research highlights the role of individual firms' stakeholders and supply chain initiatives in sustainable practices (Gold et al., 2010).
Stakeholder forces correlate with improved firm performance (Pagell and Wu, 2009), while sustainable practices such as environmental assessment and social awareness require collaboration between these stakeholder forces (Youn et al., 2013).For instance, legislation and government regulations (Esfahani et al., 2022), addressing delivery time, and cost sensitivity (Anner et al., 2013) require collaboration and transparency among SC stakeholders.Compliance practices and adherence to regulations are seen as pathways to sustainable performance (Nath et al., 2020;Hoque et al., 2020), but are sometimes perceived negatively due to their association with coercive stakeholder management forces (Boyd et al., 2007).
Furthermore, countries with a prominent role in the garment supply chain, such as Bangladesh, are facing scrutiny regarding ethical sourcing practices (Huq and Stevenson, 2020).This scrutiny is particularly intense concerning environmental and social issues (Zorzini et al., 2015).Key social issues such as workers' health and safety, well-being, human rights, and community welfare have been identified as critical factors that directly influence a firm's sustainable performance (Zorzini et al., 2015;Marshall et al., 2015).Environmental practices in this context include resource management, which includes efforts to reduce carbon emissions, engage in tree planting, mitigate noise, and use renewable resources in operations (Steurer et al., 2005).Despite this, most studies on SSCM in the garment industry have primarily focused on the influence of retail buyers on the implementation of sustainable practices and standards, such as lean orientation, codes of conduct, and third-party auditing (Nabelsi and Gagnon, 2016;Rahman and Haque, 2016;Ehrgott et al., 2011).However, the sustainable perceptions of other stakeholders play a critical role in shaping an organisation's sustainable practices (Huq and Stevenson, 2020).
These forces can be either internal forces or external forces, and we will now have a look at each in turn.

Internal forces practiced by the Bangladeshi stakeholders
There are a variety of internal forces which can contribute to the implementation of sustainable practices.Amongst those considered most important, researchers have identified working conditions, human rights, owners' commitment, and collaboration among SC partners (Kumar et al., 2020;Nguyen et al., 2020;Sajjad et al., 2015).In response to these forces, various potential Internal sustainability practices have been suggested as contributing to improved organisational performance, including risk assessments, operational efficiency, cost reduction, carbon emission, reuse of recycled products, and disposal of harmful materials (Sajjad et al., 2015;Chkanikova and Mont, 2015;Giunipero et al., 2012).However, research has emphasised that a resourceful firm could manage its social and environmental sustainability more positively than its competitors (Phan et al., 2020;Diabat et al., 2014).Hence, forces like awareness, owners' commitment, risk management, technological advancement, internal policy, and regulation have been identified as crucial forces for ensuring internal sustainable performance.In particular, Hoque et al. (2020) identified an interesting point that in the case of lean orientation, the involvement of top management is essential, especially when sustainable decisions are required.Hoque et al. (2020) also focused on limited commitment from top management, low competence, and role uncertainty as potential constraints for sustainable performance.

External forces practiced by the Bangladeshi stakeholders
External forces are those which originate beyond the focal firm's internal environment yet encourage organisations to implement sustainable performance (Walker and Jones, 2012).Previous research has identified a significant number of external forces, with the most important being retail buyers' requirements and governmental regulations (Nguyen et al., 2020;Sajjad et al., 2015).As an illustration of this, to meet buyer requirements, suppliers may be required to comply with regulations and codes of conduct (such as the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh), use green materials for eco-production (Samanta et al., 2017) or receive training and development assistance for garment workers (Rahman and Haque, 2016).Such operations between stakeholders can also lead to further external forces.Communication between partners (Cheng et al., 2008), knowledge sharing (Oelze, 2017), competitor pressure (Huq et al., 2014), and stakeholder participation in sustainable activities (Phan et al., 2020) were essential external components of stakeholder collaboration, which in turn enhance sustainable performance (Alvarez et al., 2010).Finally, in response to social and environmental disasters, such as the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh (2013) or the contamination of waterways in India (2015) (UNI Global Union, 2023), forces like social responsibility and environmental assessment have been selected (Nath and Eweje, 2021;Chowdhury et al., 2020).Research has emphasised supporting forces for sustainable performance which indicate a preference for positive outcomes.Less research emphasised hindering forces against both internal and external sustainable practices like inappropriate factory infrastructure, backdated production processes, and heightened cost (Nath et al., 2020;Oelze, 2017).It is important to note that in practice it is often difficult to find exact examples that fall within a specific classification of hindering forces.The reality is that stakeholder practices present a mix of both supporting and hindering forces.
Nevertheless, despite having the breadth of stakeholders' sustainable practice types and definitions from the Bangladeshi garment industry, their underlying applications sometimes overlap the meanings.Clarity may be found by considering those forces identified in previous SSCM research.It appears that the sustainability grasp gained by authors from sustainable development and SSCM literature such as Steurer et al (2005), Carter and Rogers (2008), and Pagell and Wu (2009), together with the support of Bangladeshi garment research papers such as Mac-Carthy and Jayarathne (2012) and Huq et al (2014) has helped focus attention on the early defined fundamentals of sustainable forces.Table 1 provides a summary of these forms of stakeholder sustainable forces, together with an overview of definitions that have been used as prior constructs in data analysis.
To sum up, while producing a classification of forces, it is essential to understand which forces are most intriguing and permit the highest form of SSCM implementation, particularly from a manufacturing contextual perspective.For instance, in their research on multi-tier supply chains, Nath and Eweje (2021) have identified institutional pressures and challenges that might be coupling and/or (de)coupling sustainable supply management.Despite this, SSCM research has yet to thoroughly examine various logic for sustainable practices, particularly in a developing country context (Xiao et al., 2019).Thus, more empirical explorations are required to understand the existing phenomenon of sustainable practices, specificallyexactly what criteria motivated manufactured-based stakeholders to employ sustainable practices.Accordingly, our paper is not only focusing on supporting responses but also attempting to understand the conflicting causes (trade-offs and decoupling) logic that might disassociate with SSCM practices.

Research design
As this research aims to capture the dominant stakeholder forces that predominantly influence the implementation of sustainability in the Bangladeshi garment industry, an exploratory, qualitative research design with an abductive approach (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012) was adopted for this study.Several logical considerations were taken into account − first, the abduction approach starts with elementary theoretical knowledge, then collects and analyses data, stays with theory matching (going backwards and forwards), and continues with

Table 1
Prior constructs developed through the literature review.

Forces definition Examples of Bangladeshi garment industry research
Internal sustainable forces (emerged from data coding)

Compliance
MacCarthy and Jayarathne, 2012 The onsite verification activity includes environmental and social inspection to ensure the factory's compliance as well as the evaluation of the third party's selection.Huq and Stevenson, 2020;Nath et al., 2020;Hoque et al., 2020 Manufacture auditing, owners' commitment, compliance initiatives, third-party assessment Ethical sourcing Blowfield, 2000 The evaluation of sources that includes inspections of products from each point of a business's supply chain has been attained ethically.The state of employees' mental and physical health results from dynamics within and sometimes outside the workplace.Kumar et al., 2020;Nguyen et al., 2020;Sajjad et al., 2015 Working conditions, employee benefits, decent work Firm's resources Steurer et al., 2005 The capability of an individual firm to accept innovation and developments for maintaining sustainable practises.The way two or more supply chain partners work together to achieve a static goal.Kumar et al., 2020;Nguyen et al., 2020;Sajjad et al., 2015 Trust, communication among SC partners, collaborative advantage Knowledge sharing Cheng et al., 2008 The exchange of expertise between supply chain partners with benefits including retaining intellectual assets and improving productivity.The assessment of the environmental consequences of a programme or actual project before the decision to move forward with the proposed action.
Nath and Eweje, 2021; Chowdhury et al., 2020 Carbon emissions, reuse of recycled products, disposal of harmful materials Third party's audit/ assessment Ehrgott et al., 2011 Confirmatory assessment activities operated by a thirdparty organization independent of the organization and providing the regulatory object and the business interests in that object.Huq and Stevenson, 2020;Phan et al., 2020;Yadlapalli et al., 2019 Buyers' evaluation, Supplier's assessment.

Stakeholder perceptions/ engagement
Kannan, 2018 Stakeholder's involvement in the identification, analysis, planning and implementation of sustainable activities to achieve a certain outcome.

Phan et al., 2020
Supplier selection, performance evaluation, proposing new suggestions and/or explaining the existing theoretical framework (Spens and Kovacs, 2006).Second, abduction shows 'how something might be' rather than how something must be (Meyer and Lunnay, 2013).Finally, abduction 'generates social science accounts from the accounts of social actors' (Ong, 2012), allowing them to see relationships, formulate new ideas and 'see something different' (Meyer and Lunnay, 2013).Stakeholder theory exists as a lens to guide our exploration of the relatively understudied issue of sustainability forces in an empirical context.In addition, the use of prior constructs developed from the existing literature on stakeholder theory allowed other themes to emerge intuitively from the data.For data analysis, thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was embraced since it offers flexibility to analyse detailed accounts of textual data using a step-by-step framework in supply chain sustainability research (Soundararajan and Brown, 2016) and supports the qualitative data analysis using abductive reasoning logic (Sodhi and Tang, 2018).Data collection took place in the major important garment manufacturing regions in Bangladesh − Dhaka City, Gazipur, Narayanganj, Ashulia and Mymensingh -from late November 2019 to February 2020.Qualitative data was collected primarily through faceto-face in-depth semi-structured interviews with various garment and textile stakeholders, mostly employees of the manufacturing-based garment factories.

Interview protocol and pilot study
Background information on SSCM and the Bangladeshi garment industry was gathered through a literature review, contact with local experts via email, government agencies and informal discussions.Following debriefing, a semi-structured interview protocol was developed as it allows for both focus and flexibility, ensuring that interviewees have the freedom to develop their responses.A pilot study was conducted via Skype with two managers to justify the relevance and modify the interview questions and guide (Saunders et al., 2019).One of them emphasised the importance of a bilingual approach, to get the gist of the conversation.Based on their feedback, some changes were made to the interview protocol, particularly the use of hybrid linguistic terms in Bengali to get the most out of it.The questions were constructed around sustainability, sustainable practices, SSCM and sustainable performance.The full interview protocol can be found in Appendix A.

Data collection and interviewee selection
Participants in this study were purposively selected (Patton, 2015) based on several criteria recommended by Soundararajan and Brown (2016).Firstly, the level of involvement and relevance to the research context was important.The main focus was on garment and textile manufacturers in Bangladesh, although officials from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and Bangladeshi academic experts were also involved.Secondly, it was important for participants to have a level of awareness of various aspects of sustainable practices.For manufacturing companies, the focus was on those that followed legislation such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for infrastructure, Accord, and Alliance regulations for compliance, along with their SC partners.A third consideration was practical accessibility, given the potential for geographical dispersion of participants.Finally, participants had to be willing to participate in the research process on a voluntary basis.
During the interview process, a snowball sampling technique suggested by Miles et al. (2014) was used to gain access to additional potential participants through referrals.For example, initial points of access were BGMEA officials and a LEED-certified garment manufacturer via email.These initial participants referred the researchers to other potential interviewees with whom they had a personal or professional relationship.Thirty-five interviews were then conducted, covering a range of manufacturing activities such as yarn production, weaving, knitting, compliance, logistics and quality control, as well as support activities such as facility maintenance.Each interview lasted between 25 and 70 min, with the interviewer making an audio recording and taking written notes.The interview process ended when responses became repetitive and reached theoretical saturation (Soundararajan and Brown, 2016).Table 2 provides an overview of the participants, along with the most frequently cited supporting and hindering forces, with detailed information summarised in Appendix B.

Unit of analysis
We followed a step-by-step thematic analysis process similar to that suggested by authors such as Braun and Clarke (2006), Creswell (2014) and Miles et al. (2014).The thematic analysis allows the researchers to identify themes relevant to the research questions (Joffe and Yardley, 2004); and also allows quasi-quantification (i.e., how many participants mentioned a specific theme) to be combined with the meaning of the particular context (Braun and Clarke, 2006).The unit of analysis followed each stakeholder as an individual opinion generator, e.g. at the individual level rather than at the firm level.Ultimately, these will influence the collaborative knowledge of lower-level management as well as top-level management disseminated throughout the hierarchy of the stakeholder group.It will also reflect the identification of types of internal stakeholders (i.e. who are the inbound stakeholders in the Bangladeshi garment industry?)and identification of stakeholder forces (i.e.how do these stakeholders exert sustainability practices to implement SSCM performance?).
Initially, the audio clips were transcribed and cross-checked with the written notes and within the research team to check continuity and reliability.The transcription file was then coded using open coding, with codes developed and modified as the coding process progressed.Fig. 1 illustrates the coding process.For instance, the quote by F2-PO was coded as 'incentives' and 'encouragement'.
Abductive reasoning guided the coding process: first, the initial coding within the first set of two interviews from different factories was cross-checked by the research team to identify any recurring initial codes and their relationship to the research questions.A manual Post-It note code chart was created and, following this stage, the remaining interviews were coded.Having done the coding, then clustering them into themes has taken place.Nevertheless, some of the sub-themes, such as lower level of inbound stakeholders, came from the literature and some did not and were essentially derived from the data, such as social recognition.Gradually, all the sub-themes were then further consolidated into broader themes, such as supporting or hindering forces, to support the content of the study.It is worth noting that the data analysis developed by moving back and forth between the literature and the empirical data.In the end, all themes were grouped as either internal or external forces.
The final stage involved reviewing the codes based on the research questions and consolidating them into first-order and second-order themes.Quotes from participants were highlighted as evidence to identify relationships between stakeholder practices and sustainable decision-making power authority.These thematic findings were also compared to the garment SSCM literature to identify new insights distinct from existing knowledge.

Research quality evaluation
As Strauss and Corbin (1990) stated, 'the rigour and trustworthiness of research outcomes stem from the strict implementation of procedures.'This study follows the criteria drawn from interpretive research to ensure trustworthiness and rigour (Stubbs and Cocklin, 2008), as outlined in Table 3.

Findings
To enhance the clarity of the findings, the coding process focused on the central concept of internal and external stakeholder practices.Consequently, a distinction was made between supporting forces (encouraging sustainability practices) and hindering forces (creating barriers to sustainability practices).All emerging codes are presented in relation to the practices of inbound stakeholders in the Bangladesh manufacturing-based garment industry.Furthermore, the identified forces have been organised into first and second-order codes as shown in Fig. 2. In addition, the findings have uncovered emerging forces that may affect sustainable practices in the Bangladesh garment industry, including those that may lead to conflicts between environmental, economic, and social sustainability goals.A sample of illustrative quotes is related to first-order codes also presented in Table 4.

Internal supporting forces
As Fig. 2 shows, there are a significant number of forces from internal stakeholders that influence the implementation of SSCM in the Bangladeshi garment industry.For example, 'value assessment' is a significant force from internal stakeholders to use sustainability practices, and this theme relates to manufacturers auditing for quality checking of converting fabric and thread into finished garments, perceived by both top and bottom management (cited eleven times).For instance, proprietor BD1-O commented: 'We maintained our value throughout the process, and we need to ensure a standard in production quality, like an exact match with the code of conduct [retail buyers ' requirement], providing visibility for our raw material providers to transporters and vice versa.These ultimately increase our cost consideration, but we assure superior quality.'.The above-mentioned view supports the assertion that management value assessment characteristics influence business practices which are the basic requirements for sustainable corporate value.Similarly, stakeholder assessment is also related to the themes, like buyers' directing supplier selection procedures to maintain internal compliance and quality (cited nine times), product responsibility for continuing time and consistency in finished products (cited five times) and use of organic materials (cited seven times).A manager FT2-TM remarked: '…. it's a chain……and while we select our partners (manufacturer, supplier, wholesaler, retailer) we need to follow sustainable development requirements [from the buyer] which ultimately helps us to sustain in future.'.
This viewpoint demonstrated that retail buyers imposed sustainable assessment criteria as a precondition to gain production orders and in turn pressurised management to follow sustainable practices.In terms of decent work, the findings revealed forces including working conditions (cited seven times), employee benefits (cited eight times) and compliance initiatives, like Organisation Health and Safety (OHS) checklists and retail buyers' governance (cited sixteen times) worked together for better sustainable practices.As the manager FT3-TM stated: 'We have our own fair price shop, credit card payment systems, knowledge exchange programs between workers and monthly health and safety trainings…Apart, we have a company-owned school for our children.And these motivate us to stay focused.'.
The quote indicates that the different incentives taken by the management to ensure a safer workplace along with sustainable practices increase employee commitment towards higher productivity which positively affects factories' economic viability.Another important force perceived as valuable by the participants is organisational infrastructure, which represents themes including LEED regulations (cited five times), building new infrastructure (cited eight times) the latest automation (cited four times) and better technological competence (three times) in factory premises.Participant FT3-TM mentioned: '……. you can't think about employing LEED regulation while you are using your existing building.It takes lots of investment to renovate the old building as well as employ technological advancement to apply for the LEED certification…….'.
This assertion confirmed that LEED is expensive but at the same time might produce sustainable site development and infrastructure efficiency (cited ten times) including water efficiency, energy efficiency, and indoor and outdoor environmental quality.On the other hand, Bangladeshi Accord, and Alliances (cited five times) are the legal agreements to ensure occupational health and safety standards for the Where necessary, appropriate changes were made.Transferability • Coded file was checked and compared with transcription and coded files, through highlighting the spreadsheets.Dependability • The participants provided numerous examples to support their opinions.
For consistency, the explanations of the coded file were crossmatched across factories by the authors.

Integrity
• A rigorous coding protocol was followed.Initial coding was performed manually using a colour-coded board to guide the evaluation.
The first set of interpretations was cross-checked with other members of the research team.
The consent form was signed by all participants.Validity • The first findings were crosschecked with other members of the research team.
The first findings were presented to pilot participants who confirmed rationality.
An initial draft was presented at the academic conference.
Fig. 2. Thematic coding into first-order themes to generate theoretical dimensions.
S. Julie et al.This shows that in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza tragedy, Bangladeshi factory owners implemented various platforms to improve worker welfare and safety, which are closely linked to the social dimension of sustainable practices.Ten participants identified information flow as an important internal force, addressing issues such as sustainable knowledge sharing between SC partners (cited eight times), lean management for logistics-based activities (cited seven times), and process transparency to allow, for example, the rapid adaptation of product progression (cited six times).A sub-manager MT2-TM commented: '

…To get a better performance, we have to maintain lean management among these [production areas]. For example, if I know my monthly requirement of grey cotton in advance then I can set up my goals [depending] on the forecast, and I don't need to store any extra grey fabric. Similarly, if we have coordination with other sections we can adjust, reschedule our requirements quickly and be prepared for the sudden /occasional changes [from retail buyers].'.
This view clearly supports that information flow between stakeholders has a positive impact on both the economic and social dimensions of SSCM.Finally, five participants talked about their commitment to community well-being (cited three times) and effective commitment towards social welfare (cited two times); both are related to the theme of community advancement.For example, the owner MF-O commented: 'Our motive is not only sustaining our factory's environment but also maintain [ing] the surrounding locality's sustainability.Say, the local tea stall opened at 8o'clock cause….our factory's gate opened that time.A major part of that very shop's customers is the hundreds of employees, who work with us.
This revealed that the factory's social management practices improved surrounding development as well as enabling public development (Huq et al., 2016).

Internal hindering forces
When looking at the overall internal hindering forces, several themes emerged that were not conducive to sustainable practices.In particular, participants mentioned multi-stakeholder involvement which includes issues such as stakeholder perception of new investments to meet sustainability requirements (cited nineteen times).To illustrate, owner LS-O commented: '…honestly, we perceived sustainability as an expense, and it is quite the opposite of profit.But we are bound to [by retail buyers]

follow these [sustainability] rules and all these regulations [ACCORD and Alliance] update frequently which requires new investment to meet them.'.
This implies that investment is really important, but at the same time, it becomes harder to justify.Similarly, participant PF2-TM remarked: '….to get orders [from retail buyers] we have to follow all these LEEDS, Accord, and Alliance regulations.But you know….it's hard to get these [certifications] and we have to update these [certifications] regularly.If you want to build a brand-new factory, then maybe it is possible to employ [LEEDS rules] but for [an] existing one….it's tough.And all of these [require] huge investment.'.
This view pinpoints a few impediments to sustainable requirements.Firstly, significant reinvestment is required to improve social sustainability certifications, and retail buyers impose these assessment criteria as a precondition for receiving production orders.Secondly, environmental sustainability is difficult to implement without a strong financial base.Finally, manufacturers are struggling with a small profit margin while considering the return on investment of sustainable practices.In addition to this, six participants cited buyer audits and third-party involvement as a hindering force.As an example, the manager FT2-TM commented: '…buyers visit the factory, audit inside and out whether we are following the sustainability requirements or not.But at the end of the day, they [retail buyers] squeeze the price.Sometimes, they place the order through a [third party] merchandiser who really doesn't care about compliance or anything….'.
This view is important, as management brings lots of changes, particularly in compliance management due to maintaining sustainability as well as the monetary benefits.As an argument manager, BD2-TM remarked: '…in these days the cost of living is getting higher day by day while the profit level is becoming narrow.At this point, new investment for updated sustainable requirements is tight.Particularly, when new intervention is necessary…' This insight outlined that updated requirements for sustainability are essential, but at the same time provide evidence for the necessity of new investment in business (cited six times).Other forces such as trust (cited four times), mock compliance (cited five times), personal relationships (cited five times), and recruitment of new employees (cited twice) are important here.A manager MF-BM validated the situation: 'We have a strong reputation in the field [export garment market] and most of our current buyers have been doing business [outsourcing] with us for a long time.They have faith in us and are happy with our current compliance assessment.'.
These quotes reveal a two-fold truth: that the management attitudes to sustainability are not always conducive and sometimes perceive sustainability requirements as an expense rather than an investment.It was also suggested that, where management has been through compliance procedures before, they may subsequently engage in mock compliance without being detected, because auditors trust them to be compliant.We also identified employee dissatisfaction due to a lack of appreciation (cited three times) as an internal hindering force, which occasionally leads to employees changing jobs (mentioned by two participants).For example, a line manager PF2-BM commented: 'If we don't follow these [social incentives for employee recognition] we can't just keep our skilled employees.They will switch to another factory.'.
This finding is important as it means management is aware of the significance of workplace-related initiatives, which might reduce employee turnover and absenteeism (Huq et al., 2014).The next important theme when considering logistics-based difficulties is supply chain risk.Twelve participants pointed out vulnerability as an important theme when talking about supply chain disruption while six participants highlighted issues with outsourcing some production activities, like  supplier, maybe [doesn't] follow sustainability requirements.'This view sheds light on the importance of sub-supplier's sustainability practices and how primary manufacturers try to conceal the hidden secrets of sustainability disruption to secure profitability.

External supporting forces
As illustrated in Fig. 2, the majority of these forces acted as hindering forces.In particular, we identified two second-order external forces that supported the implementation of sustainable practices, namely B2B collaborative advantage and networking.Themes such as buyers' led inspection (cited 20 times) and performance evaluation by other stakeholders (cited 10 times) are the most prominent here.These empirical findings suggest that manufacturers are encouraged by the assessment criterion of both buyers and external stakeholders (e.g., legislative bodies and governments) in enforcing sustainable practices on the factory shopfloor.Textile manager ET1-TM remarked: '….even though we are certified producer [s], buyers inspect our automation, air quality, wastewater effluent and noise pollution frequently, specifically before finalising an order.It kind of forces us to be updated.'.
In a similar vein, garment manager MF3-TM asserted: 'We have different certifications for different buyers.For example, we maintained BSCI and ISO 14001 certifications for US buyers.Sometimes, a specific type of buyer maintains certain regulations, and these are widely accepted by others [buyers], particularly for the UK, and we always try to maintain those at any cost.We also have to be careful while we are choosing sub-suppliers, like from where we are getting our materials.It's like a pictorial representation before getting orders.'.
These views suggested B2B collaboration between stakeholders such as certification bodies and buyers could enhance sustainable practises through inspection, but at the same time, manufacturers have to be careful with their outsourced suppliers.Several participants also put forward the significance of supply chain finance (cited nine times) and sustainable materials (cited four times).As evidence, a supply chain manager of EN3-TM: '… [retail] buyers gave us a sample before placing an order and we needed to deliver the exact type.Sometimes they [retail buyers] help us with the R&D and share the cost with us.For example, we covered 80 % and the buyer covered 20 % of the total expenses.'Furthermore, a production manager DBL2-TM stated: 'All our big buyers have their contingency plan, say for 2025 or 2030.Maybe they will move to 100 % or 50 % recycled products in the coming season.So, we need to forecast their requirements and set our activities according to them.'.
This highlighted the fact that modern consumers are informed about the production procedures of high-street fashion brands, specifically how and where big brands outsource their product lines from emerging countries.This awareness is related to the theme of customer awareness (cited three times) and compels retailers to go for recycled and organic product portfolios, and similarly binds manufacturers to go for organic product lines.In terms of networking, there are also two themes which prompted manufacturers to adopt sustainable practices: price flexibility (cited three times) and organisational reputation (cited by two participants).Particularly, manufacturers' reputations helped them to secure a higher profit margin.As participant PF3-BM noted: 'If you linked with us that means you are following all rules and regulations appropriately, and buyers don't need to be worried regarding sub-supplier compliance conditions etc.This is some kind of uplifting [recognition] of your image for the mass suppliers.'This statement clearly suggests that not only do sustainable practices enhance the quality of the production inside the factory premises, but they also serve as a trademark for the factory.

External hindering forces
In terms of external hindering forces, we have identified monetary sensitivity as one of the key reasons why stakeholders dissociate from sustainable practices.Several themes like price uncertainty (cited six times) and price variation among garment manufacturers (cited four times) are most common here.For instance, a participant from FT4-TM commented: '…there is no unity between garment factories.if I charge $2.00 for a tee shirt, my competitors charge $1.50 for that same tee shirt, and this creates uncertainty in orders''.This is also reflected by themes like price disagreement leading to differentiations between countries such as Vietnam, India, and Thailand (cited five times) and legislative role play (cited two times) relating to setting a standard rate for similar products.The same participant argues that: 'By contrast, Indian factories have unity in terms of a pricing point.They [stakeholders of India] fixed a rate for all garment companies and others [garment companies] have to follow it.But in Bangladesh, we don't have anything like that.'.
This statement was supported by other participants, including MG2-TM and LS2-TM, and these discussions also identified a link with buyer shifting (cited three times).Another comment from PF3-BM extended this argument with: 'The [garment] manufacturer is always the loser.If you give a 100 % sustainable product, that doesn't matter.I gave you a lower price, that's what matters.Whether the raw materials are organic or not, he [the retail buyer] didn't consider that.At the end of the day, price is what matters.'These comments revealed that the global market consists of various types of garment buyers, and some do not want to use sustainable materials, even when the buyers have the opportunity to do so.This leads to a lack of consistency in embedding sustainable practices in SSCM.Twelve participants also identified management's strategic decisions as a significant theme related to logistics-based decisions (cited seven times) and local government policies (cited five times).As an enabler, EN2 remarked: '…the major portion of the garment factories are established around Dhaka city, which caused [a] significant rate of air and water pollution… [the] government tries to push garment manufacturers away from [the] city area.But, if you consider transportation and other facilities, it may cause hindrance to the garment supply chain.'.
In a similar way, manager FT2-TM remarked: 'If we talk about transportation, we need to think about our drivers.Are they trained enough?Is it possible to deliver [promptly]?What about the route or zone?Another important thing is theft issues and maintenance of containers… The Bangladesh government is now maintaining a zone-based transport system for the garments industry, but that's not enough.We need to think about our ship [seaport] and cargo facilities.'.
This point showed garment manufacturers are aware of the severe impact of pollution and are considering their options while setting up infrastructure but are still struggling to decide on an actual solution.A comment from an influencer EN3 compared this situation with other countries: '[China] moved their industrial sites far from the city area.Our [Bangladeshi] government is trying to initiate the same phenomenon by imposing more tax, lots of rules and regulations, hurdles to authentication and surprise visits from legislative bodies, while established garment manufacturers want to build new infrastructure.'.
The last theme which also functioned as a hindering force is knowledge sharing amongst competitors (cited by two participants) − sometimes competitors don't want to share the details of current practices, specifically for the research and development phases to maintain the status quo in the market.

Discussion
We now discuss the above findings, examining how they address the research questions posed and reflecting upon the contributions made to both theory and practice.

Stakeholder forces affecting SSCM implementation
The first research question asked: What are the existing stakeholder forces that dominate the implementation of SSCM in the Bangladeshi garment industry?
This paper provides nuanced insights into the dynamics of internal and external sustainability forces among inbound stakeholders in the manufacturing garment sector, thereby contributing to the existing body of empirical research on SSCM in the Bangladeshi garment industry (Nath and Eweje, 2021;Huq and Stevenson, 2020).Specifically, we examined the stakeholder forces that either support or hinder the adoption of sustainable practices.As outlined in Fig. 2, we highlight certain forces that have the potential to promote sustainable practices among both internal and external stakeholders.For example, regulations such as LEED certifications, Bangladeshi Accord and Alliance are relevant to both internal and external sustainable practices.LEED actively encourages the development of new infrastructure to address air, water, and noise pollution, while Accord focuses on ensuring health and safety standards for garment workers who rely heavily on the factory's infrastructure.In addition, certification contributes to a degree of standardisation for the company.This interpretation is consistent with the findings of a previous study by Huq et al. (2016), who refer to this type of collaboration as 'buyer-consortium auditing', where regulatory bodies facilitate the monitoring of sustainable practices (Nath et al., 2019).
Interestingly, in terms of the top support forces for sustainable practices, top-level management identifies collaboration as the dominant force, which contrasts with previous research (Nath et al., 2019) as well as lower-level management's perception of buyers' auditing.Nevertheless, it's important to note that top management recognises the importance of quality assessment, albeit with a focus on internal audits for finished garment quality checks.
By focusing on the forces that affect SSCM practises, this study has specifically identified the importance of decent work and the risk to the supply chain.In particular, a view from lower-level management expressed that compliance practices have a deep relation with supply chain finance.This agrees with previous studies (Nath et al., 2020;Tseng et al., 2019) which identified that economic struggles inhibit social sustainability practices, and that sustainability can be seen as excessively costly (Soundararajan and Brown, 2016).In particular, a comment from a top-level manager also justified the argument: 'I heard a rumour that [for those who want] to practise sustainability in their operations, [the] government will give them [a] loan with lower interest rate or other benefits, but [I'm not sure about the evidence.From buyers, we have not received any higher price prices or anything yet for our initiatives.' (PF2-TM).
The participants also shed light on the hidden side of SC actors, including unethical competition between partners and lack of consistency to make more money.However, in other instances, the internal stakeholder (i.e., top management) also explained how suppliers sometimes engaged in mock compliance with respect to social and environmental sustainability practises, for example, compliance certificates.Therefore, legislative certification is sometimes overlooked, but at the same time, it is justified that this only works when the supplier has already retained some statutory standard.From the above findings, the following proposition can be made: Proposition 1: Superficial compliance exists only if suppliers already adhere to certain legal standards.
These findings slightly support previous research (Huq and Stevenson, 2020) where buyers are prepared to source from non-compliant factories to maintain their profits.This is a noticeable hindering force for sustainable practices and further supports the argument that developing countries' stakeholder's value price (monetary gain) over sustainability.Similarly, Glover et al. (2014) pointed out that economic security is stronger than environmental and social logic and occasionally inspires stakeholders to be noncompliant.Montabon et al. (2016) also identified that economic interest suppressed social and environmental interests while considering firms' sustainability.Process transparency among SC partners could be a probable solution for this situation Surprisingly, the results for the most cited hindering forces in Table 2 argue against the opposite view, providing evidence that inbound stakeholders recognise the importance of sustainability regulations and infrastructure development (frequently cited by enablers), but fail to maintain them due to their costly characteristics (frequently cited by owners).This is important as it extends Nath and Eweje's (2021) finding that factory management only implements sustainability practices for higher economic and operational returns.Finally, there was evidence to suggest that both monetary sensitivity and strategic decision-making are strongly related to sustainable performance.In particular, there were many examples of stakeholders demonstrating their commitment to sustainable practices in the face of government mechanisms.

Conflicting forces discouraging SSCM adoption
The second research question considered: What conflicting forces cause Bangladeshi garment stakeholders to disassociate with SSCM practices?
The overall findings show that there exists a large number of supporting forces for successful sustainability implementation but, simultaneously, several forces are impeding stakeholders.Three major areas were identified from the interview data: (1) conflict in sustainability cost and economic gain; (2) conflict in standardisation and employee sustainability; and (3) conflict in economic gain and social image.

Conflict in economic gain: Investment vs profit margin
Twelve participants suggested that garment manufacturers experienced financial difficulties while implementing SSCM.In evidence, the buyers didn't confirm any extra monetary benefit for sustainable initiatives.For example, manufacturers adopt different types of rules and regulations to enhance environmental and social sustainability through huge investments, yet then lose profits by not getting enough orders or an appropriate price point from buyers.As an example, the owner BD-O explained: '…after the Rana Plaza and Tazreen fashion accidents, we are investing a lot in health and safety standards, building up new infrastructure.We perceived that order quantity, as well as the price point, would increase from buyers a little bit.But that does not actually come along… Price is at 15 the same level and at some point, it is quite down [than it was before], and the cost is growing… because of new infrastructure, rules and regulations, workers' salary and automation.And ultimately, [the] profit margin is shrinking up for shareholders.'This quotation reflects the contradictory view that there is a dispute between sustainability-related costs and economic gain.Garment manufacturers are struggling with cost-related decisions while integrating environmental and socially sustainable investment in their premises.Specifically, after the Rana Plaza and Tazreen Fashion accidents in 2013, factory owners carried out huge health and safety improvements to their workplaces but perceived they didn't derive a tangible monetary gain in return.This finding is somewhat supported by Nath et al. (2020), in that Bangladeshi stakeholders perceived sustainability-related costs as an expense but not as an investment.However, it may be that there are long-term benefits.A remark from a top-level manager also agreed with this viewpoint: 'We have to be visionary while thinking about sustainable practices….the initial training and rebuilding will be expensive, but we can hope that the ultimate result will be fruitful.At least it will create a brand image and that will help to get more [orders from buyers].' (LS2-TM).Hence, the following proposition can be made: Proposition 2: Financial difficulties impede SSCM implementation, with investments in sustainability not always yielding immediate profit gains.
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Conflict in employee empowerment: Employee empowerment vs employee satisfaction
We found that forces like working conditions, employee benefits and compliance initiatives related to factors of employee sustainability which represent the second-order theme of 'decent work' (Soundararajan and Brammer, 2018)  .This quote reflects dissatisfaction from some employees, which is an internal hindering theme.Research suggests that engaged and motivated employees play a vital role in sustainability excellence (Diabat et al., 2014).Thus, improvements in employee social sustainability can significantly mitigate sustainability risks for manufacturing firms (Hoque et al., 2020).Apart from mitigating this, factories would be (or should be) motivated to increase employee social sustainability in the supply chain given that they are advised to abide by the Ruggie principles (2011).These principles require a variety of actions to uphold employee rights, and treat employees as 'responsible corporate citizens' and employ recognition for all employees (Kuruvilla and Li, 2021).
Interestingly, three participants acknowledged 'outsourcing of skilled employees' and 'lesser opportunistic behaviour from the management' as significant hindering forces in sustainable practices.These findings uncovered that there is a significant dispute between domestic employees' perception and outsourcing of skills.The domestic employee sometimes perceived 'outsourcing of skilled employees' as a threat rather than an opportunity to learn, with EN2 commenting '… meritocracy should be given priority over national and racial identity'.However, an ET3-TM countered: '…with proper training and motivation from higher management we can do better in our performance.For example, management can send the existing employees to get higher education and learn new skills from overseas or can arrange training programs more frequently instead of getting foreign employees….but you know money is a fact.Training a new bunch [a line of employees] needs lots of investment''.This statement extends previous research showing that, with the intention of earning greater profits, management sometimes pretended to be opportunistic (Nath et al., 2020) and that for productive sustainable performance, management should focus on domestic culture and cognition rather than other aspects (Montabon et al., 2016).From the above findings, the following proposition can be made: Proposition 3: Enhancing employee sustainability through investing in the workforce and cultural alignment mitigates sustainability risks.

Conflict in the global image: Economic gain vs social image
Another significant conflict arises from how Bangladesh is perceived globally.Despite having increasing numbers of LEED-certified factories, the global image/reputation of the Bangladeshi garment industry has not changed much (Dhaka Tribune, 2024).This leads to a disconnect between the global reputation of the Bangladeshi garment industry and the reality observed by stakeholders in Bangladesh: 'After the Rana Plaza accident, when buyers landed in Zia Airport [International Airport of Bangladesh] the first things came into the [buyer's] mind was that we are not practising social and environment sustainability appropriately here.But if you see the global picture, [Bangladesh has] the highest number of LEEDcertified green factories compared to other countries.But this has not really changed our image'.(BD3-TM).Internal stakeholders are well-informed about the global garment picture, and frustrated with this perception and see it as a possible hindering force for sustainable implementation.While Nath et al. (2020) suggested that confusion and a lack of awareness from stakeholder perspectives could be significant factors for dissociating sustainable practices, the evidence from this study confirms this to be the case.Hence, the following proposition can be made: Proposition 4: The disparity between global perception and local reality hinders sustainable implementation, emphasizing the need for alignment between global reputation and local realities.

Theoretical contribution
Our paper underlined several sustainable forces influencing SSCM practices as well as performances from manufacturing-based stakeholders' points of view, with a particular focus on dominant stakeholder forces and the associated impact.By considering stakeholder theory and job responsibilities, this thesis highlights different types of inbound stakeholder groups and their operational activities and explains how garment inbound stakeholders (i.e., the top level of management and lower level of management) enhance business performance by adopting sustainable practices in their operational activities.Prior contextual research has explored sustainability, and sustainable supply management practice is based on literature (Sauer and Seuring, 2018;Schneider and Wallenburg, 2012).In particular, Nath et al., (2020Nath et al., ( ,2019) ) explored sustainability from multi-tier suppliers and Huq et al., (2021Huq et al., ( ,2020) ) explored SC disturbances from the managerial point of view, but did not explore the perspective of inbound stakeholders' participation in SSCM.
To fill this research gap, this study has offered an in-depth understanding of the participation of inbound stakeholders in sustainable practices through an expansion of stakeholder theory based on empirical research.
In the wider stakeholder theoretical context, our analysis contributes to an enhanced understanding of the connection between manufacturing-based garment factories' inbound management process and shopfloor sustainability practices.As shown in Table 5, a summary of themes and subthemes derived from literature and also bred from empirical data showed the golden thread of contributions to the contextual field, particularly highlighting the contextual literature review, theoretical participation and empirical findings.Moreover, Table 5 also reflected a pictorial presentation of novel or counterintuitive findings.Under the influence of stakeholder forces, our paper highlighted several conflicting (self-contradictory) forces through qualitative findings, which could impede sustainable practices within factory boundaries.For instance, the empirical evidence provides greater insight into the initial findings from Nath et al. (2020) that manufacturer perceives sustainability-related costs as an expense but not as an investment.In particular, one additional contribution of this paper is toward the view of employee engagement in the Bangladeshi garment industry.Previous research identified different upstream management actors and how they linked each other while implementing sustainability decisions and have not actually focused on the downstream tiers of stakeholder engagement (Huq et al., 2021;Nath et al., 2019).A research gap is to note-as a key stakeholder of sustainability practices in the factory premises-how shop floor employees' engagement can enhance the sustainability practices.Specifically, Nath et al. (2019) explored through a secondary analysis that multi-tier apparel suppliers could influence governance mechanisms for sustainability practices, and Huq et al. (2021) explored disturbances in SC from a managerial point of view.
Moreover, this paper makes a significant contribution by revealing emerging conflicting forces such as employee empowerment and global image.It paves the way for further empirical analysis of sustainability practices within the garment industry and its supply chain and opens a new avenue of research on the institutional logic and implementation of sustainability.For example, Nath and Eweje (2021) used institutional theory to delve into the internal dynamics of sustainability within subsupplier firms, while Huq and Stevenson (2020) identified socially sustainable practices within a specific context.Notably, these studies did not thoroughly investigate the employee dimension of institutional theory.The empirical evidence also points to a gap regarding the advanced stage of Mitchell et al.'s (1997) power dependence.

Practical contribution
Our research has important implications for practitioners and policymakers.First, by delineating job responsibilities at different levels of inbound management, our study sheds light on the integration of sustainability practices into operations.This insight highlights the importance of job responsibilities in determining the prevalence and effectiveness of sustainability practices, enabling management to identify areas for improvement in SSCM.Second, the study provides strong insights for policymakers to reassess economic policies aimed at incentivising retail buyers to engage in sustainability initiatives.This may include financial engagement based on the economic costs and benefits associated with sustainability initiatives to encourage greater participation.In addition, our findings provide empirical evidence for regional SCM partners to showcase LEED-certified factories as models of sustainable practices with enhanced brand value, resulting in a significant return on investment.In the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster, retail buyers are prioritising certifications such as LEED, Accord and Alliance when placing orders.Incorporating sustainable practices not only improves economic performance but also improves environmental and social performance by fostering a skilled workforce.In addition, our research identifies various sustainable forces associated with SSCM practices, including supporting, hindering, and conflicting forces.These insights help management make decisions and adopt sustainable practices, such as establishing robust compliance structures to protect manufacturers, especially during unexpected events such as COVID-19 and economic downturns.Working with SC partners also facilitates the adoption of sustainable practices by other stakeholders.Overall, our research highlights the importance of sacrificing short-term benefits for long-term gains, particularly in promoting sustainable practices on the factory shop floor.

Conclusions
This paper examines the stakeholder forces influencing the adoption of sustainable practices in the Bangladeshi garment industry.In response to the first research question, our findings highlight key emerging forces such as employee retention and supply chain finance as dominant forces.In addition, top-level stakeholders demonstrate an understanding of the long-term benefits of sustainable practices and engage in them on the basis of economic logic.For the second research question, potential areas of divergence include conflicts over economic gain, employee empowerment and global image.Our analysis highlights differences in perceptions among existing employees, particularly in terms of the perceived barrier to employee empowerment posed by the involvement of expatriates.Empirical evidence also supports divergent perspectives on the Bangladeshi garment industry, comparing local perspectives with those of expatriate stakeholders (Nath et al., 2019;Jamali et al., 2017).While this study makes important research and practical contributions, it is important to acknowledge certain limitations.
Our findings are primarily applicable to Bangladeshi manufacturers and their stakeholders, limiting their generalisability to other contexts.The sample consists predominantly of middle and upper management, potentially overlooking the perspectives of garment workers directly involved in production on the factory floor.Similarly, a sample of 37 managers may not reflect the opinions of the population.Future research should examine the long-term effects of stakeholders' sustainable practices with a broader sample, particularly in light of the ongoing

Table 2
Overview of interview participants.

Table 3
Criteria for evaluating trustworthiness and rigor i.e., interview ( Interviews conducted over a period between 2019 and 2020.Across all interviews, the averages duration is 47.5 min.The lead author personally visited each sample.The first set of transcriptions was checked with other members of the research team.

Table 4
Sample illustrative quotes representing code/s.

Table 4
(continued ) 'If we can't measure the profitability from sustainability activities or can't have any visibility….we may be then, will (continued on next page) S. Julie et al.

Table 4
(continued ) '…certifications, like Bangladeshi Accord and Alliance are setting some standards.So that we can compete in the same range with other companies globally.As you know Bangladesh is the 2nd largest exporter in the world and these certificates[are]the justification that we are following the global standards.'.
(continued on next page) S. Julie et al. workers.A line manager PF1-BM commented:

Table 4
(continued ).For example, participant MF3-TM commented: 'Sometimes, we do [a] cost calculation, like we have[a]labelling department but we're not using that − instead we outsource [the] labelling section.And this kind of labelling . Despite numerous OHS (Occupational Health and Safety) compliance initiatives, progress on creating decent work is limited: '…All types of rules, like Accord or ALLIANCE, talk about workers' safety and benefits, but what about us [middle managers]?Like, what will boost our engagement, or what will give us safety from [getting sacked] or anything…You need us…without us, you just cannot operate anything here".