An essay (max. 2,000 words)
Your research must have at least one interview with a person involved along your chosen
supply chain. This interview shall serve to find additional information or validate it. It
should be documented. If you use information from it, the person who have interviewed
needs to approve the information.
product: Avacado
A) What made you choose your product?
B) How sustainable do you think your product is? Assess the sustainability of your
product intuitively based on your understanding above!
C) Why do you think is sustainability relevant for international logistics?
D) Explore the value chain of your product along the dimension of processes, the trading
dimension and the logistics dimension!
E) Describe the logistics level of your product´s supply chain. What logistics principles
(as per our discussion) are being applied? Add principles as you see fit.
F) What problems have you encountered during your research? How have you
addressed them? Share your experience with your peers.
G) Referring to question 9, what logistics-related problems have you observed along
your product´s supply chain? Identify them and describe the most pressing of them
(that what makes or breaks the supply chain).
H) Having gained an insight into Richard Baldwin´s hypothesis of “Two Unbundlings” of
the evolvement of global value chains, at which state of his framework would you see
your case? Give reasons.
I) In groups, identify and discuss which governmental interventions do you observe in
each of Baldwin´s phases. Interventions could be political measures on national or
international level that either support the status-quo or encourage change.
J) Which of those measures are relevant for your product´s supply chain? How? Give
reasons.
K) Referring back to question 9, and taking into account our discussion of globalisation /
governmental interventions (question 11), what does academic literature suggest
how are (or could be) the problems of your supply chain being addressed?
Concentrate on your most pressing problem.
L) What are external effects of your supply chain? What dependencies can you identify?
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M) How are those external effects currently been mitigated / addressed (by whom, eg
the company itself, by customers, by local municipalities / governments)? With what
tools / measures?
N) Allocate mitigatory actions as per question 14 to the categories of Müller-Christ´s
“Sustainability Management” 1.0 to 4.0. What narratives (according to Müller-Christ)
have you come across along your supply chain/product? Comment on the result!
B) What do you think can be done about category 4.0? Make suggestions.
