Malfunctioning systems hurt everyone

Example: A company monitoring supply chain risks obediently because of the coming and existing sustainability regulations, while they could actually position themselves as innovative by collaborating with their supply chain partners on eye-level to actually reduce those risks. Collecting more and more data through the next social audit for risk monitoring, not 100% knowing if that data is true, because they do not trust their supply chain partners, instead of asking relevant questions that open room for actual improvement. This comfort is a learned comfort because actually, those companies, their employees supporting the malfunctioning system are also suffering. Suffering from the reporting load, suffering from the fear of what happens if the data is wrong, what happens if the government body controls their data, realizing the fines and lost credibility or from the fear of another Rana Plaza.

So, if we are honest, the malfunctioning system does not serve anyone. It seems the people serve the system, not the system the people. The beautiful thing about this is: Systems are human-made, and we can always change them. Yes, that requires balls, courage, power, resources, and endurance. But ask yourself: Do I wanna keep on suffering, even if it seems comfortable, or do I want to work and live in a system that serves me, us, my work, my company, our growth?

The hidden champion: Responsibility and its distribution

Since the answer is obvious, here is the first step for this change: Start questioning what and why you do things, where you take over responsibility and where you do not, and if that were different, how would it change the system? Creating a landscape of responsibility distribution is a helpful framework to learn the starting points of change. It lays open power hierarchies, processes, and boundaries of responsibility, giving room to analyse and realize imbalances. The system usually hides responsibility in the complexity of its networks, which today's so-called supply chains have become. Plus, we do not talk about responsibility; we usually just assume it. Therefore, responsibility itself is like a liquid, moved by the least resistance, which means it usually ends up with the most vulnerable.

A liquid state also means lacking control. So, looking at responsibility in a precautionary way allows each of us to take back control of our own integrity, over the things that lie in our reach, so they do not backfire. Isn’t it a nice thought: Everyone taking over the responsibility for the things they can control, which means none of us has to worry that something goes wrong? This is why supply chain integrity, as I define it, matters.1 It takes the heavy burden from one shoulder and shares it among all actors equitably. And yes, I am aware that this is very tightly connected to trust. You might ask yourself: How can I trust that my supply chain partner pays their workers a wage they can actually live with without me enforcing it? Very valid question that I answer in another article, connected to my master's thesis, as I covered this in different chapters. Reason: Before we can even start talking about trust, we need to understand where the responsibilities are and where they should be.

The reason for the architecture of silence around responsibility

One factor that influences the flowing state of responsibility is our perception of it. When we hear the term, it has a neutral to negative connotation, connected to blame, guilt, and mistakes. To move away from this backwards-oriented definition of culpability, we need to sit down and think about the distribution of responsibility proactively, consciously, not just letting it flow. This then allows for a precautionary approach, distributing responsibilities to those actors who can influence the system in a way that harm doesn’t even appear. Then it becomes less about collecting sustainability certificates and audits to prove nothing is wrong through a third party and more about figuring out what the actual levers of change are to get to a healthy system.

This is why looking at responsibility and its distribution is such a good entry point for evaluating a system and coming up with solutions, because as soon as you actually think and talk about it, you catch that liquid and can assign it consciously to those actors who have the capacities to take over responsibility in a meaningful way. Let’s change this system with its architecture of silence to a system of awareness, consciousness, so that all of us get rid of the worries and gain good sleep (I wish I could add an ‘again’ here, but let’s be honest: When it comes to these matters, when have we ever had a truly good night’s sleep?).

Responsibility Distribution in my Thesis

To give more background to the topic of responsibility distribution, here is the introductory part of the literature review in my master’s thesis. Reading this part again at first left me kind of frustrated because it is still the same four years later: Who actually looks at responsibility distribution proactively to change malfunctioning systems? And yes, we have tools like RASCI2 - but are they used on a societal level? By sitting with this discomfort, though, it reminded me why I am building my Perspective Lab, why I want to strategically advise companies for supply chain integrity, because it is easy to mope around and complain, but why should anyone else do the work for me? This is my way of changing the world for the better. Enjoy!

Preparing the work: How does the literary landscape of responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks look like?

Responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks is a cross-cutting issue for many research areas, primarily economics, law, business ethics, and sustainability (Radcliffe & Humphries,2004, p. 1; Spence & Bourlakis, 2009, p. 292). However, defining a framework for it is challenging not only because of its thematic interdisciplinarity but also because of its tacitness: It is difficult to put the finger on it. Responsibility distribution influences every level of our global economy, is omnipresent, yet not visible because hardly anyone talks about it and research does not prioritize it (Phillips & Caldwell, 2005, p. 349). That is why, in addition to academic literature, this research is also informed by other content formats, such as blog posts, podcasts, or social media postings, to depict as holistic and current a status quo as possible. To cast the responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks into tangible forms and cope with its complexity, I developed four overarching questions that are relevant to the question of an equitable responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks and will structure the coming sections:

1. Why are Global Production Networks an ideal case study for responsibility research?

2. What does it mean to assume responsibility in Global Production Networks?

3. What are the relational factors influencing Global Production Networks?

4. What does technology contribute to equitable responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks?

What I did:

I came up with a fictional news story for May 12th, 2025, about an incident similar to the Rana Plaza collapse. The difference being that this time around, the brands producing there could prove their innocence through various certificates and other data in dedicated software and platforms. The questions I posed: Who bears accountability? Who is responsible for fixing?

Why is it as relevant as it was 4 years ago?

We still cannot answer it, even though we have more data, more tech. We keep on talking about sustainability, resilience, fairness, and environmental protection, but lack the necessary foundation for the implementation of it all:

• Dialogue on eye level with all parties involved

• The Global North stepping down from its golden ladder, telling the world how it should run because we think we know it - we might know some parts, but we also screwed the world with our cultural concept of meritocracy1, and dependency on fossil fuels and rare earths.

The existing and coming sustainability regulations - focusing on the European ones, since I am situated in this area - like the digital product passport, corporate sustainability due diligence directive, corporate sustainability reporting directive, or the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, have good intentions. They do not answer the question of responsibility, though. They try to establish a data foundation, certain safety loops for suppliers, and a whole mountain of reporting work. Does that solve the issues?

I doubt it. It takes attention away from the people in the appropriate positions who can actually improve something in global supply chains, away from the actual work. Don’t get me wrong: No regulations also don’t make sense. That has been proven in the last few decades, because of no regulations, we are in the position we are in. I am just questioning the perspective these regulations take, the goals they set - if they even do - and, with that, their ability to ask the right questions.

What if they included more diverse perspectives? What if they started asking what actually matters to sustainability and the people affected by those regulations, like:

• What problems are you actually suffering from?

• How do you define sustainability?

• What is your take on responsibility distribution along global supply chains?

• How do you protect the planet and society already, and how can we as Regulators support you in that?

And then combine the answers to those questions with the scientific goals our society has to achieve to have a future worth living for? What if they would shift their perspectives away from defining and asking for proof that certain mechanisms, like a grievance mechanism or a corporate sustainability officer, have been established towards actual improvements, and leave it to a co-created/-designed system by all the companies in a supply chain, including suppliers in deeper tiers, even farmers, on how sustainable practices look like and are reached?

This kind of policy work would have the potential to tackle the actual structures and business models, like fast, linear consumption, that cause our society so many problems. But of course, this requires more balls than asking companies for regular PDF reports of their sustainability achievements…

I am not part of making regulations; I just see the outcomes of it, and they do not make it easy for anyone involved. It creates an environment in which everybody is overwhelmed, disliking sustainability more and more, not because of sustainability itself, but because of how it is requested to be implemented, which is shifting the workload on the individual and back into global supply chains to actors who are already doing the work for too little. I would love to know more about the perspectives of the minds developing those regulations and their thoughts, but also about the perspectives and thoughts of those who have to follow them.

Hope you enjoyed my perspective on my past writing. If you wanna know more about how I got them: In the following, I pasted the introduction of my thesis that I wrote four years ago. Still so proud of that achievement, writing a whole thesis - 26.6777 words - without ANY AI.

A news story on May 12th, 2025: Brands prove their innocence in factory collapse

Last night, a twelve-story factory building collapsed in Savar, near the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, burying hundreds of employees. Leading NGOs quickly went public with statements seeking responsibility from brands producing there. They referred to Rana Plaza, where the biggest disaster in the history of the textile industry occurred in 2013.

At the time, this tragedy triggered discussions about the desolate working and safety conditions throughout the textile, clothing, and footwear industries worldwide. To this day, the results of this controversy continue to impact the industry through intergovernmental regulations and supply chain laws. It had been hoped that such horrific accidents could be prevented in this way.

The firms, however, bear no responsibility this time. After all, the companies that had manufacturing operations at the collapsed factory were using blockchain-based supply chain transparency and sustainability management platforms. They implemented those to ensure that they have valid certificates for occupational safety and environmental standards at every step of their supply chains. But if the brands did everything in their power, who bears responsibility?

1. Introducing the work: What kind of world do we want to live in?

The news story is fictional. Nevertheless, it is still a story showing the relevance for this research because the technologies enabling transparent supply chains already exist (Roeck et al., 2020, para. 1). Through them, it will be possible to assign responsibilities and identify culprits (Kamilaris et al., 2019, p. 647). However, they do not necessarily address structural injustices (Abebe et al., 2020, p. 252). In the news story, we need to question how the valid certificates could have been issued. Did the issuing auditor examine everything accurately? If not, what were the reasons for it?

This case gives an insight into the complexity and multi-layered nature of Global Production Networks2. They are the backbone of our society and the basis of global trade (Siddiqui, 2020, p. 25). As the Literature Review of Latapí Agudelo et al. (2019) shows, companies pursued a micro-level perspective and therefore an “out of sight, out of mind mentality” concerning their Global ProductionNetworks. That leads them to disregard the negative impacts they create(d) and a simultaneous focus on their financial success and economic growth (Porter & Kramer, 2011, p. 64). The responsibility distribution is naturally affected by this: It ends where there is no financial control (Mares, 2010, pp. 38–39). The results are anonymous Global Production Networks in which those involved know at mosttheir direct supplier and customer (Giunipero et al., 2008, p. 82). This way of doing business has corresponding effects on the planet and society. The production of consumer goods has a significant impact on climate change and environmental pollution (UNEP, 2017, pp. 9–13), and we are presented with severe social issues (Nfa et al., 2005) since the Global North enjoys most of the benefits. In contrast, the Global South must live with the disadvantages of global trade (Odeh, 2010, pp. 346–347).3

By now, global corporations are aware of the burden they bear on society. They have been trying to better themselves and reverse their impact (World Economic Forum, 2015, pp. 6, 11–21). Many publish their attempts and measures in non-financial reports, so-called sustainability reports (Phillips & Caldwell, 2005, p. 253). Technology is an essential tool for that since the companies would not be able to assume their responsibility, measure their sustainability, make their efforts transparent and show their customers that they do as they say (Norton Rose Fulbrights, 2020). However, to become truly sustainable, there is no way around the fact that companies have to deal with their production networks. On the one hand, they enable anonymous global trade, which leads to the degradation of natural and social capital. On the other hand, they are connectors between the actors and could become catalysts in the transformation to a sustainable economy and society (Matthews et al., 2016, p. 82).

Although global corporations are aware of the potential inherent to their Global Production Networks and are starting to assume responsibility for them (Fashion Revolution, 2021, pp. 6–17), what remains unconsidered in their effort is the sustainabilization4 of their Global Production Networks. It is based on colonial power structures and thus goes hand in hand with sustainability imperialism. Pressured by their stakeholders to produce in social and planet-friendly ways, companies of the Global North apply corporate responsibility concepts to their Global Production Networks and expect the remaining stakeholders upstream to follow along (Touboulic & Ejodame, 2016, pp. 631–635). After the last decades of outsourcing to produce as cheaply as possible and exploiting suppliers and producers, forcing them to give up their traditional ways of living and working (Bartsch et al., 2017, pp. 11–12), this is another forced change by global companies to ensure sustainable production – at least in the understanding of sustainability of the Global North. In this context, the motivation and the approach of the Global North must be questioned: Are they open to equal partnerships, or do they want to command their will to protect their reputation? Is it possible to justify sustainable production in the eyes of the Global North if the journey towards it is unfair and forced?

Mind the Gap or c’est le ton qui fait la chanson

How do we establish equitable responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks, and what role does technology play in this context?

Launching my perspective lab, thinking and working deeper again into perspectives, how to mediate between differing ones, made me realise the quality of my work back then in 2021/2022, my extensive knowledge about equitable responsibility distribution in global supply chains and the challenges that come with it. Which is why I want to focus my work in the perspective lab on it for now. One step of this is to publish my thesis here, chapter by chapter, and contextualize it with my current knowledge and today’s societal situation, as back then, when I was writing it, responsbility regulations like the German supply chain due diligence act, the EU corporate social due diligence directive or the digital product passport were mere discussion points and far from being the mulit-million risks reality for companies and their supply chains which they are today. My research already pointed to upcoming challenges for companies, called out the sustainability imperialism that companies of the Global North live in their supply chains, and established that technology will never be the solution, only a tool that can be used in good or bad ways.

Today, I start by sharing the abstract and my personal note.

Trade is based on Global Production Networks and on the interaction of many different actors. This way of doing business has corresponding – mostly negative – effects on our planet and society. By now, global corporations – who seem to be responsible for these impacts – are aware of the burden they bear on society and try to better themselves. What remains unconsidered in their efforts to assume responsibility: The sustainabilization of their Global Production Networks goes hand in hand with sustainability imperialism. In this context the role of technology cannot be ignored because it enables multinational companies to assume their responsibility, measure sustainability, and make their efforts transparent to customers. However, as valuable as it might be, the digital space takes over the unjust societal structures from the analogue world which only strengthens the current power structures.

Therefore, this research deals with finding answers to the question: How do we establish equitable responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks and what role does technology play in this context? Conceived as a proof of concept, I interviewed the actors of a production network individually and in a joint workshop to figure out which approaches are helpful for equitable responsibility distribution. The most important finding was: There must be a clear separation between corporate and product responsibility, as each company in Global Production Networks is to be understood as an independent actor. We need to stop talking about and start talking with other actors because Global Production Networks consist of many companies, all of which have to carry their burden and assume responsibility in their ways. Only through this separation can equitable structures emerge. With this change of perspective, the existing approaches in academia and business must be re-evaluated. For these have been developed from the perspective of the Global North and for its benefit. Only with a holistic approach, through which all actors in a production network are given a voice, will equitable responsibility distribution be possible. Technology plays a subordinate role here, because it is only a tool, not the solution.

Overall, my research has delivered insightful results, and I hope to have already contributed to a fairer distribution of global trade advantages and disadvantages among all stakeholders. However, due to its scope and the selected production network, it can only be the first step towards equitable responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks. I look forward to future research projects that benefit from my experience and apply it in various settings.

Personal Note

The anchor point of my research is the topic of responsibility and its distribution in Global Production Networks. Its driver is my innate sense of justice. Due to my motivation for this research, I decided to use the first-person narrative. If this text seems overly critical or activist to readers, it is a by-product of my caring attitude – developed through my studies and work experiences – towards societal structures that I perceive as unjust for living beings in Global Production Networks and my sense of urgency towards the societal challenges we face. In addition, I would like to state that I do not want to evaluate the ways global actors have tried to assume their responsibility so far. It is much more a reference point for me to uncover transformation potential. I want to critically examine existing approaches while remembering that those approaches brought us to where we are now.

I also want to state that while justice is a central concept to address equitable responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks, I did not concentrate on this notion for my research. I was more concerned with the engagement and interaction among actors in a production network to negotiate equitable responsibility distribution. In this context, the concept of justice seemed like a hindrance because it carries certain societal perceptions. Equitable responsibility distribution in a production network is not primarily about what society perceives as just, but about the participants’ perception of what they feel is fair or unfair regarding the assumption of responsibility. Furthermore, the legal situation biased the notion of justice, which is not helpful for an equitable responsibility distribution in Global Production Networks as I will show.

After this personal remark, I now start reporting my results from the last six months of research.

When I use the word perspective, I point to something less physical: The view I have on something - be it a topic, a challenge, a situation, another person, etc. When I use it, it says more about my standpoint than the object; it is more about how I look at something, how I position myself towards the object, not about how I position the object on a two-dimensional surface.

This is important to distinguish because the object that I have in my mind when using this word is not necessarily something I can just take and change its place like a flower vase. How do I then change something about those mental frameworks, abstract concepts, situations, or relationships? How can anybody do this? And is it even necessary?

The necessity of changing one’s perspective arises when the current standpoint becomes uncomfortable. In situations where I think, "Why the hell don't they understand. My plan/idea - replace with what you usually think - is the best?"

The secret is: Everyone has that. Every human has their own perspective on things, does things their way, and cannot translate it 100% to others. This causes friction, conflict, discomfort, anger, annoyance, burnout, and economic failure. It would be so much easier if we could just take the object we are in relation to that causes the discomfort and reposition it like that flower vase. However, I have not come across a situation in which this is possible. Humans or situations I am in don’t just change because I want them to. They usually only do when I move. So, instead of focusing on changing others’ standpoints, or situations I am in and investing energy in something highly unlikely to happen, why not change or widen my perspective?

Let’s go with this thought. Let’s say the key to getting rid of the discomfort is not another plan, another measure to become more efficient - basically, moving the object. Let’s say the key is communication, building bridges, being open to widening and changing one’s own perspective, and taking the time to come to a common understanding. Based on my experience, this is way more effective and causes a lot less headache.

When we shift the approach from wanting to change the other side to trying to understand them without having to agree to it, or letting our own perspective go, the pressure goes away and opens room for actual progress. All of a sudden, there is space to think about what we actually want. It invites all the potential that is there to be explored, and allows for collaboration instead of competition.

That also means building ambiguity tolerance, accepting complexity, not ignoring it anymore, but flying with it. Yes, that takes courage and time in the beginning. It saves you so much down the line, though, and actually gives you a way better experience, maybe even happiness and a smile in the long run.

So, that is what I am proposing, that is where my expertise lies, and what I wanna offer to the world: My support in changing and widening perspectives in any form or service that makes sense to me. In my Perspective Lab - one part being the writing here - I will experiment with known approaches, combining them with new ways, and figure out how we as humans can make changing perspectives, accepting other perspectives our go to and evolve as society to a point that is less black and white, less dichotomous, more appreciative of our diversity, and happier.

I wanna end with this photo of a pin that has accompanied me quite a while now, as it always reminds me of the same thought I gave room in this text: