Sebastian Oelrich

Sebastian Oelrich is a research assistant at Technische University Dresden, Germany. He studied business economics, economic law, and accounting at the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, the Southwest University of Political Science and Law Chongqing, China, and the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. His research interests include accountability and ethical choices, especially in the areas of sustainability and organizational wrongdoing. He also serves as a working group head for anti-corruption NGO Transparency International in Germany.

In his project, Sebastian looks at the fashion industry which is widely known for its questionable social-sustainable business practices that reveal a multitude of ethical issues along the value chain and negative consequences for society: use of chemicals in production processes that degrade the environment, labor exploitation at production sites with inhumane working and safety conditions in low-wage countries, unequal profit distributions among industry suppliers and buyers, as well as consumerism and the promotion of a waste culture. Here, he aims to investigate how entrepreneurial ventures challenge unsustainable and even harmful practices in the fashion industry by introducing social-sustainable initiatives to the market and consumers. He explores consumer choices of such novel supply attributes and whether (potential) consumers engage with or withdraw from their ethical responsibilities in creating transformative change. Consumer preferences are elicited with a CBC design. This project is a collaboration with Prof. Dr. Nicole Siebold, a renowned researcher in the area of Social Entrepreneurship at Aarhus University, Denmark.