The role of intermediaries in governance of global production networks: Restructuring work relations in Pakistan’s apparel industry

Abstract

This article locates the reorganization of work relations in the apparel sector in Pakistan, after the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quota regime, within the context of a global production network (GPN). We examine the role of a network of corporate, state, multilateral and civil society actors who serve as intermediaries in GPN governance. These intermediaries transmit and translate competitive pressures and invoke varied, sometimes contradictory, imaginaries in their efforts to realign and stabilize the GPN. We analyse the post-MFA restructuring of Pakistan’s apparel sector, which dramatically increased price competition and precipitated a contested adjustment process among Pakistani and global actors with divergent priorities and resources. These intermediaries converged on a ‘solution’ that combined and enacted imaginaries of modernization, competitiveness, professional management and female empowerment, while also emphasizing low costs and female docility. We highlight the intersection of economic, political and cultural dynamics of GPNs, and reveal the gendered dimensions of GPN restructuring. We theorize the role of these actors as a transnational managerial elite in GPN governance, who led a restructuring process that preserved the hegemonic stability of the GPN and protected the interests of western branded apparel companies and consumers, but did not necessarily serve the interests of workers.

Contested compliance regimes in global production networks: Insights from the Bangladesh garment industry

“…However, our findings indicate that key actors involved in these compliance measures operate very much within the mandate prescribed by global brands and retailers. Munir et al (2017) reported similar findings in their analysis of global production networks in Pakistan's garment industry where transnational managerial elites played a key role in transforming governance regimes that served to protect the interests of western brands rather than those of workers.…”

The Organizational Reproduction of Inequality

“…For example, women from the Global South are frequently seen as oppressed, lacking confidence and in need of patronage from those in the North. As Munir et al (2018) showed, this image is often used to mobilize women to join factory work, often at a fraction of the wages that were being paid to men, hence not only producing inequality within local organizations but also maintaining the larger inequality between the Global North and South.…”

“…Exploitation is also often rife through global supply chains in which workers in the South are often mobilized into poorly paid, dangerous extractive and factory work (e.g., Hamann & Bartels, 2018;Munir et al, 2018). As Alamgir and Alakavuklar (2018) have shown in the case of the Bangladeshi garment manufacturing industry, monitoring worker abuse is difficult when multinationals engage with networks of subcontractors.…”

Diffusion of labor standards through supplier–subcontractor networks: An agent‐based model

“…Recent literature has also more broadly explored the role and agency of various types of intermediaries in diffusing good labor practices through international supply networks. Munir, Ayaz, Levy, and Willmott (2018) scrutinized how corporate, state, multilateral, and civil society actors have served as intermediaries in global production network (GPN) governance. More closely related to our study's focus, Soundararajan, Khan, and Tarba (2018) highlight the role of sourcing agents as boundary spanners between Western buyers and local suppliers who contribute to labor standards in the Indian garment industry.…”