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The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, it attempts to determine whether suppliers perceive distributive justice (equity) when their key customers implement sustainable sourcing initiatives based on assessment governance, composed of codes of conduct and auditing; second, it generates insights into specific costs, rewards, and investments and how these together result in perceived equity.

A qualitative research design was adopted for this study. A total of 30 executives from textile manufacturing suppliers in China, India, and Bangladesh were interviewed to determine their perceptions of distributive justice in relation to their key customers’ sustainable sourcing initiatives.

Most of the interviewees perceived that their customers’ assessment of governance initiatives was unfair. Four types of suppliers are identified based on their varying perceptions of the equity equation.

The findings introduce distributive justice as an important mediating variable between assessment-based governance and compliance. They also provide insights into the various types of perceived costs, rewards, and investments related to sustainable sourcing, and how they form varieties of the equity equation. The findings rely on a limited number of respondents and should, therefore, be researched further.

Assessment based on codes of conduct and auditing is the most prevalent sustainable sourcing governance approach, but suppliers may perceive this as an injustice leading to non-compliance. Buying companies are therefore advised to consider supplier perceptions of costs, rewards, and investments and adapt their sustainable sourcing initiatives accordingly.

Increased consideration of distributive justice in sustainable sourcing should increase the likelihood of supplier compliance, improving conditions for employees in global textile plants.

Extant research has studied the connection between assessment-based sustainability governance and compliance or overall performance. This paper contributes by suggesting that distributive justice might be a mediating variable helping to explain this connection.

A shift in supply management is underway. Nonlinear connections of buyers and sellers in business ecosystems challenge conventional supply management practice. Digital technologies and network connectivity lower the costs of connecting and collaborating with loosely related external parties. This paper aims to explore how this challenges conventional purchasing and supply management (PSM) practice.

This paper builds on the extended case research method. It is based on a theoretical conceptualization, which is explored through a case study.

The authors find that both supply management’s contribution to value creation, value appropriation and collaborative interfaces change with the emergence of multifaceted business systems.

The paper is developed within a specific industrial context, and the findings are not directly transferrable to other contexts. However, the authors believe that on an analytical level, there is value in transferring the insights into other manufacturing contexts.

Managers must challenge the taken-for-granted thinking that follows from linear supply management practices and start rehearsing the role of PSM when dealing with supplies from business ecosystem lead firms.

This research takes up a novel issue, highly relevant for PSM practitioners as well as for theory. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, nothing has been written about the colliding business logics of conventional PSM and that of business ecosystems.