Zahra Shirgholami
PhD Student
Academic and research departments
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of Business Transformation.My research project
Zahra Shirgholami is a PhD candidate in the Department of Business Transformation at Surrey Business School. Her work is centred on modern slavery in supply chains focusing on the conflict between multinational corporations' purchasing practices and labour standards. She has interviewed more than 50 top experts on modern slavery and apparel value chains worldwide.
Zahra has presented at national and international conferences, including the British Academy of Management 2019 and the European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) 2020. She has also previously taught Business Ethics module.
In 2021, she was awarded the Surrey Business School Postgraduate Research Student of the Year.
Supervisors
University roles and responsibilities
- SBS Accreditation Administrator - assisting in collating data and preparing evidence for AACSB Accreditation (Nov 2020 - Jan 2021)
- Research Assistant - Modern Slavery and labour exploitation in UK Hotel Chains (Jan 2022 - present)
Research
Research interests
- Labour exploitation, forced labour, modern slavery;
- Business and human rights;
- Sustainable supply chain;
- Field research activities;
- Qualitative methodologies.
My publications
Publications
Cole, R. and Shirgholami, Z. (2021). The outlook for modern slavery in the apparel sector in a post-lockdown economy
View abstract View full publication
In the spring of 2020, global clothing retailers were advised or ordered to close physical stores due to lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic and many supply chains temporarily halted production. This paper explains how pre-pandemic modern slavery advancements will be detrimentally affected as a result of societal lockdowns and apparel retail closures around the world.