The Sri Lankan apparel industry is growing along with the strong global relationships built and fostered by players in the industry over the years. Sri Lanka Apparel differentiates itself from the rest of its competitors worldwide by safeguarding claim to be ‘the world’s number one ethical apparel sourcing destination mainly by focusing on the social sustainability dimension of its apparel supply chain while maintaining quality. With the enhanced importance of transparency in supply chains, consumers contemplate company practices to ensure that organisations nurture supply chain ethics in company culture. Therefore, the social sustainability dimension of Sustainable Supply Chain Management addresses the company’s social responsibility which extends beyond profit maximisation for its stakeholders and reaches the society at large (John & Narayanamurthy, 2015). Reporting on these socially sustainable activities increase opportunities for companies to ‘enhance trust, facilitating the sharing of values on which to build a more cohesive society’ (GRI, 2013). Understanding the lack of research carried out in social sustainability reporting of the apparel supply chain, Köksal, Strähle, Müller, & Freise (2017) suggest conducting research considering social media publications. Social media is defined as ‘websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2017). Therefore, this research aims to fulfil this gap looking into how the social sustainability dimension is communicated to stakeholders of the apparel industry via social media.

Sudusinghe, J.I., & Jayaratne, R.P. (2017). Social sustainability reporting in the Sri Lankan apparel supply chain [Extended Abstract]. In T.L. Gunaruwan (Ed.), Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Research for Transport and Logistics Industry 2017 (pp. 175-179). Sri Lanka Society of Transport and Logistics. https://slstl.lk/r4tli-2017/