ethical labelling, corporate responsibility, ethical business, civil society regulation, Fairtrade,

Aotearoa/New Zealand (Aotearoa/NZ) and the United States (U.S.) suffer inequities in health outcomes by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This paper compares both countries' approaches to health equity to inform policy efforts. We developed a conceptual model that highlights how government and private policies influence health equity by impacting the healthcare system (access to care, structure and quality of care, payment of care), and integration of healthcare system with social services. These policies are shaped by each country's culture, history, and values. Aotearoa/NZ and U.S. share strong aspirational goals for health equity in their national health strategy documents. Unfortunately, implemented policies are frequently not explicit in how they address health inequities, and often do not align with evidence-based approaches known to improve equity. To authentically commit to achieving health equity, nations should: 1) Explicitly design quality of care and payment policies to achieve equity, holding the healthcare system accountable through public monitoring and evaluation, and supporting with adequate resources; 2) Address all determinants of health for individuals and communities with coordinated approaches, integrated funding streams, and shared accountability metrics across health and social sectors; 3) Share power authentically with racial/ethnic minorities and promote indigenous peoples' self-determination; 4) Have free, frank, and fearless discussions about impacts of structural racism, colonialism, and white privilege, ensuring that policies and programs explicitly address root causes.

Despite criticisms of their derivation and implementation, corporate codes of conduct (CoCs) continue to dominate debates on Corporate Social Responsibility and the informal regulation of worker exploitation and abuse by 'sweatshops' supplying northern multinational corporations (MNCs KeywordsSweatshop labour, codes of conduct, corporate social responsibility, supply chains, women workers Corporate codes of conduct (CoCs) have become a critical aspect of debates over business responsibilities to reduce abuse and exploitation of workers by suppliers in developing societies. Attention has focused particularly on high-profile, 'brand' corporations sourcing goods such as footwear and clothing for retailers and consumers in the global 'north'. The public aims of CoCs are to improve the material welfare of workers in contract suppliers' factories, to curb or remove arbitrary and coercive exercises of managerial power and authority, and to substantiate workers' human rights, such as freedom of association and gender rights. A snap verdict of CoC effectiveness in these areas would be largely negative (Hale and Wills, 2007;Raworth and Coryndon, 2004;War On Want, 2008). With ineffective monitoring and unauthorized subcontracting, brands and retailers often fail to track their producers and hence enforce CoCs -not only at factories in developing countries (Level Works, 2009), but even in the heartland of some brands' headquarters, such as the UK (Dispatches, 2010). Through new evidence from garment factories in Vietnam, we challenge and investigate a key assumption of both CoC supporters and some critics: the feasibility of a unilinear corporate chain of command through supply firms' managements into local workplaces.We focus, first, on oversimplifications of corporate power and control presupposing an underlying principal-agent conception in many -especially prescriptive accounts -of corporate responsibility via CoCs. This part of the analysis derives from existing accounts that point to the importance of a wider complex of institutional relationships within which multinational corporations' (MNC) transactions operate: both the globalized industrial and market structures of the clothing industry and the varying socio-political and cultural contexts affecting sweatshop supplier enterprises. The second focus links this 'macro' analysis with new micro-level data on CoC changes and the political economy of labour relations among clothing workers and firms in Vietnam. This data informs our second and more distinctive argument: powerful explanation for CoC's ineffectiveness than those based on deficiencies in the application of codes.These arguments are developed in four sections. The first outlines the general debates over the purposes and role of CoCs in supply relationships between western MNCs and contractors in developing societies. The second section examines the complications posed for these arrangements by the complex economic and social institutions governing supply chains. The third section presents the evide...

DR. PETER SCOTT IS CURRENTLY A researcher at the University of Cardiff, Wales, Dr. Bryn Jones, Professor Alan Bramley and Dr. Brian Bolton are all with the University of Bath, England. This paper discusses the results of, and issues arising from, an interdisciplinary study of technology management expertise in a sample of smalland medium-sized manufacturing establishments in South-west England. Many mature companies suffer from an unrecognised deficiency in high-level technological skills. Although examples of good practice are identified and enabling factors discussed, the stimuli to improvement both within, and external to, the firm are weak overall. Changes in the practices of SMEs themselves, and of external agencies, will be necessary to facilitate progress.

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