Labour Standards in the Global Supply Chain: Workers’ Agency and Reciprocal Exchange Perspective

Abstract

In the recent decades, fashion brands and retailers in the West have introduced supplier’s Codes of Conduct (CoC) to strengthen international labour standards in their supply chain. Drawing from the concept of workers’ agency and the theory of reciprocity, this paper examines the implementation of CoC from the workers’ perspective and identifies the mechanism used by the workers to negotiate with their employer. Qualitative data was collected from forty semi-structured interviews with mangers, union representative and workers at a garment factory in Vietnam which manufactures clothes to a few well-known fashion brands in the US and Europe. The findings show that, externally, workers are united with the management in hiding non-compliance practices to pass labour audits while, internally, workers challenge the management about long working hours and low pay. This finding highlights the active roles workers play on the two fronts: towards their clients and towards the management. Their collaboration is motivated by the expectation that the management will return the favour by addressing their demands through a reciprocal exchange principle. This paper sheds light on an alternative approach to understanding collective bargaining and labour activism at the bottom of the supply chain and provides recommendations for further research.

The portrayal of effectiveness of supplier codes of conduct in improving labor conditions in global supply chains: A systematic review of the literature

“…One repetitive conclusion in several papers is that SCs do not profoundly challenge the existing labor governance and thus root-causes issues for labor violations, as substantial issues remain untouched in supply chains. However, codes may have a positive effect on technocratic issues of OHS, mainly when the buyer and the supplier have a direct relationship (Hoang, 2019). In the same line of thoughts, some authors distinguish process rights from outcome standards to explain the uneven impact of codes (papers 1, 2, 7, 8, 16, and 25).…”

“…These mixed approaches give the most complete overview. Studies relying on workers or workers' representatives' answers to assess SC effectiveness are also reliable, especially when the researcher has gained the trust of workers over a long course of time or is culturally and linguistically close and accessible by workers, as promoted in the designs of Barrientos and Smith (2007) or Hoang (2019). Similarly, Bartley and Egels‐Zandén (2015) underline that relying on union representatives' opinions better reflects working conditions than auditors.…”

“…They however acknowledge that even seemingly objective measurements of compliance are the result of imperfect judgments. Hoang (2019) considers that workers themselves can provide biased answers to support their managers in the hopes of compensation, or in fear of retaliation (Hoang, 2019; Ruwanpura, 2016). Egels‐Zandén (2014) acknowledges this difficulty and try to counter this potential bias by performing unannounced interviews with workers outside of the factories and after working hours.…”

Corporate social responsibility and firm financial performance: A literature review

“…Even though this literature remains thin, it shows a good level of diversity. Prior research on CSR in Vietnam has mainly focused on (1) conceptual framework [31][32][33] , (2) perceptions on CSR [34][35][36] , (3) CSR adoption and CSR performance 23,[37][38][39][40][41][42] with relevance to employee rights, labour standards and industrial actions [43][44][45][46] , (4) CSR in MNCs [47][48][49][50] , ( 5) CSR disclosure 51,52 and governance 53 , ( 6) government responsiveness and regulatory compliance 54 , and ( 7) the business case for CSR, which will be discussed in detail below. Though still scarce in quantity, the extant studies focusing on organisational-level consequences of CSR have provided evidence to support the business impact of CSR, such that CSR engagement can bring benefits to organisations in Vietnam, including enhancing employee behaviour [55][56][57] and customer behaviour [58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65] , improving firm efficiency 66 , promoting knowledge sharing 67,68 , increasing firm engagement to foreign markets 69 , increasing employees' productivity…”

Perubahan Peranan Wanita Sunda: Studi Kasus Di Kota Bandung

“…Hal ini diasaskan kepada masalah dan tujuan penelitian yang mengarahkan kepada perlunya analisis kuantitatif dan kualitatif untuk saling melengkapi antara satu sama lainnya. Dengan penggabungan dua pendekatan dapat mempertajam hasil analisis kuantitatif, sebagai strategi yang memberikan jalan keluar bagi sosiolog yang sering dihadapkan pada "dualitas struktur", yaitu memahami masyarakat secara makro struktural yang cenderung diterministik dan mikro struktural yang menekankan perlunya penjelasan dan proses kreatif-interaktif (Hoang, 2019). Kemudian Vredenbregt (1997: 89) menyatakan bahwa pendekatan kuantitatif memberi kerangka atas realitas sosial yang telah diteliti dan pendekatan kualitatif akan mampu menempatkan data kuantitatif itu dalam perspektif yang benar.…”