Is There Anyone Listening?: Women workers in factories in Central America, and Corporate Codes of Conduct

Self Cite

The restructured globalized economy has provided women with employment opportunities. Globalisation has also meant a shift towards self-regulation of multinationals as part of the restructuring of the world economy that increases among others things, flexible employment practices, worsening of labour conditions and lower wages for many women workers around the world. In this context, as part of the global trend emphasising Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the 1980s, one important development has been the growth of voluntary Corporate Codes of Conduct to improve labour conditions. This article reviews from a feminist interdisciplinary perspective the broad academic literature on women workers, covering the more classical debate on women workers in the industrialization process and entering into women workers in the global supply chains and women workers and corporate codes of conduct. The main argument is that this research on women workers is crucial to frame the issues of business ethics and in particular CSR and Codes of Conduct in the context of women in the global political economy. When this crucial knowledge is ignored, then the ethical policies of the companies also ignore the real situation of the women workers at the bottom of their supply chains.

Section: Codes Women Workers and The Micro Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women Workers, Industrialization, Global Supply Chains and Corporate Codes of Conduct

Prieto-Carrón

2008

Self Cite

“…Gendered analysis of corporate supply chain codes of conduct extends attention to the second and third tier supply chains where workers are predominantly women, and where CSR codes of conduct rarely reach. This analysis reveals how such codes can exacerbate gender inequality when working standards are raised in formal supply chain factories and women are driven into informal sub-tier production networks (e.g., Barrientos et al 2003;Prieto-Carrón 2004. Other research reflecting this approach analyses various aspects of CSR from a gender perspective, including: CSR benchmarks and socially responsible investment criteria (e.g., Grosser and Moon 2005a); CSR initiatives such as the UN Global Compact (Kilgour 2007(Kilgour , 2013; CSR and sustainability leadership (Marshall 2007(Marshall , 2011; and CSR as a process of governance (Grosser 2016).…”

Section: Feminist Organization Theory and Csr Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the field of CSR, it is rarely explicitly referenced (c.f., Prieto Carrón 2004). However, this lens appears relevant to much research in the field, for example on CSR and development, and global supply chains (e.g., Barrientos et al 2003;Kabeer 2004; Barrientos and Smith 2007;Pearson 2007;Prieto Carrón 2004, which highlights the importance of local knowledge. This perspective is more clearly evident in research exploring the impact of the mining industry on indigenous women, and women in developing countries (Lahiri-Dutt and Macintyre 2006;Keenan et al 2014), and in CSR, particularly in Lauwo's (2016) study of mining in Tanzania.…”

Section: Feminist Organization Theory and Csr Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An emerging literature explores gender issues through a CSR lens. This has led to research not only on workplace practice (e.g., Moon 2005a, 2008;Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al 2015), but also on the wider gender impacts of corporations in the marketplace, including through supply chains (e.g., Barrientos et al 2003; Barrientos and Smith 2007;Hale and Opondo 2005;Prieto-Carrón 2004, through corporate value chains via entrepreneurship programs for example (e.g., Dolan and Scott 2009;Dolan et al 2012), and in the community (e.g., Newell 2005;Pearson 2007;Rio Tinto 2009). In addition, research has explored gender and CSR with respect to corporate governance (Bear et al 2010;Fernandez-Feijoo 2014), CSR governance (Kilgour 2007(Kilgour , 2013Keenan et al 2014;Prügl and True 2014;Grosser 2016), CSR leadership (Marshall 2007), and CSR's institutionalization (Karam and Jamali 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

CSR and Feminist Organization Studies: Towards an Integrated Theorization for the Analysis of Gender Issues

Grosser

Moon

2017

Although Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice increasingly addresses gender issues, and gender and CSR scholarship is expanding, feminist theory is rarely explicitly referenced or discussed in the CSR literature. We contend that this omission is a key limitation of the field. We argue that CSR theorization and research on gender can be improved through more explicit and systematic reference to feminist theories, and particularly those from feminist organization studies (FOS). Addressing this gap we review developments in feminist organization theory, mapping their relevance to CSR. With reference to six major theoretical perspectives in CSR scholarship, we note feminist research relating to each. Drawing upon FOS theory and CSR theory, we then develop an integrated theoretical framework for the analysis of gender issues in CSR. Our framework enables us to identify research strengths in the gender and CSR literature, as well as gaps therein, to open new conversations, and to posit future research directions for this emerging area of scholarship. Our paper illustrates how a better grounding of CSR in feminist theory can contribute to CSR research more broadly.

“…However, until recently, there are much less academic research on social impacts of labor-related CSR policies or codes -for example, their effectiveness in combating sweatshop abuses and upholding labor standards (Elliott and Freeman, 2003;Sethi, 2003;Esbenshade, 2004), transforming employment relations (Frenkel, 2001;Frenkel and Kim, 2004;Pun, 2005;Sum and Pun, 2005;Wang, 2005), or revitalizing labor movement (Frundt, 2004;Prieto-Carrón, 2004;Armbruster-Sandoval, 2005;Ross, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Impacts of Corporate Code of Conduct on Labor Standards: A Case Study of Reebok’s Athletic Footwear Supplier Factory in China

2007

236

211