Hej everyone! I hope everyone of you is staying safe and healthy!

It has been over a month since my last blog entry and I was able to finish phase #2 since then, meaning that I conducted the literature review based on my search strategy. In the last month I scanned article after article to find the right information to answer my research question: What are the risks prevalent in Textile Supply Chains and what are the strategies to cope with them in terms of Risk Management?

The 2^nd phase was very intense, because it is hard to decide how much and how detailed the articles need to be read to not overlook the information I was looking for. 

During the 2^nd phase, I realized that I needed some adjustments of my search strategy. As a result, I excluded theoretical and conceptual papers, because they do not reflect practical strategies to cope with risks. By focusing on empirical papers, I want to make sure to gather information from real life practices. 

I gathered all the important information, such as basic information like title, authors, journal, etc., as well as the main information which included the research question, research method and findings/results in an excel table. This table allows for a good overview and helps as a base for the 3^rd phase which will focus on analyzing my findings. 

Another step of preparation for the 3^rd phase is to identify and summarize the risks prevalent in Textile Supply Chains in order to apply the strategies gathered in the literature review. It is very interesting to see that although all kinds of risks are prevalent in the Textile Supply Chain, the recent literature mainly focuses on the sustainability risks and the environmental and social impact of this industry. This makes me realize how important and urgent this issue is and that an improvement in the future is more than necessary. And only the future will tell if the disruption caused by the pandemic will function as a “restart”. So many online articles talk about how the pandemic highlighted the grievances in the textile and fashion industry, how unfair and unethical the purchasing practices from Western giant companies are, how much more resilient a sustainable supply chain can be and how this could change our consumer habits. This is still a scary and uncertain time, but it also can bring positive change we are all hoping for!

So, the upcoming weeks I will be analyzing my findings to see what the literature found as strategies to cope with risks in the Supply Chain. I will keep you updated how that is going! 

Stay safe!