It aims to enhance the visibility of research and teaching approaches that offer contextualised and problematized/political perspectives on responsible management in GVCs. We seek to promote approaches that do not systematically subordinate social and environmental concerns to the achievement of economic ends, but rather see (global) economic activities as serving broader societal ends. While such research may stimulate new ways of thinking about social and environmental sustainability in relation to economic activities, our objective is also to foster changes in the education and training of current and future managers in GVCs, so as to encourage a transformation of management thinking and practices in favour of greater integration of social and environmental concerns in economic activities.

The platform is multidisciplinary, involving academics from management, sociology, anthropology, law, economics, geography and history. Acknowledging the prominent role of social movements in making visible and debatable the social and environmental challenges of GVCs, it also combines in novel ways the resources and initiatives produced by academia and NGOs, thus involving NGO experts on major GVCs such as garment, electronics, and agro-industrial food production.