How does collaboration between SMEs and large companies appear in the cocoa supply chain?

Details

Supervisors

Reuter, Carsten

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises and large companies are often dissociated from each other, which makes it difficult to imagine any form of collaboration between them. Even less within a supply chain as complex as the cocoa one and with countless smallholders at its base. A significant issue that often occurs in this supply chain is child labor, and more precisely hazardous child labor, which unfortunately continues to be widespread. This research aims to answer the following research question: How collaboration between SMEs and large companies influences child labor in West African countries (mainly Ghana and Ivory Coast)? Indeed, currently, little research on collaboration has focused on social issues (e.g. child labor) and even less on a form of collaboration between SMEs and large companies. This research was therefore the perfect opportunity. The results from the nine interviews with representatives from large/small companies and the qualitative analysis suggest that although the issues arising within the cocoa sector (e.g. environmental, social, illegality, etc.) seem interconnected, the issue of living income appears to dominate. In addition, the socio-cultural context of child labor is still far too little considered, and it is difficult for stakeholders to share a common responsibility. Therefore, many challenges to this collaboration emerge, but there is a growing need for a common vision of such an outcome. And what better example of collaboration would be the one between SMEs and large companies? One can serve as a transmitter and encourage a new vision, the other can provide resources and knowledge. Especially since, in the end, one of them is very present at the beginning and end of the supply chain, and the other one at the heart of it.