clusters chains and compliance corporate social responsibility and governance in football manufacturing in south asia a recent concern in the debate on corporate social responsibility csr in developing countries relates to the tension between demands for csr compliance found in many global value chains gvcs and the search for locally appropriate responses to these pressures in this context an emerging and relatively understudied area of interest relates to small firm industrial clusters local clusters offer the potential for local joint action and thus a basis for improving local compliance on csr through collective monitoring and local governance this article explores the interrelationship between global governance exercised through gvc ties and local governance via cluster institutions in ensuring compliance with csr pressures it undertakes a comparative analysis of two leading export oriented football manufacturing clusters in south asia that have both faced common challenges on child labour the article shows that both forms vertical and horizontal governance have played a part in shaping the response of the two clusters on child labour moreover these two distinct forms of governance have also led to quite differentiated outcomes in terms of forms of work organization and child labour monitoring this raises broader questions on how global csr demands can locally be better embedded and the conditions under which football stitchers labour in these new work forms

sharing the shared value a transaction cost perspective on strategic csr policies in global value chains this paper explores the conditions favouring or inhibiting the implementation of strategic corporate social responsibility csr policies in the context of global value chains gvcs using transaction cost theory tct we specify the economic and behavioural issues raised by strategic csr policies we show that the existence of market rewards for such policies does not constitute a solution per se but tends to increase the difficulties that value chain members face bringing tct into the analysis of the diffusion of strategic csr policies in gvcs helps us to make different contributions we first theoretically identify some limiting conditions of strategic csr policies in gvcs we also contribute to developing a more robust theoretical perspective for csr in gvc research which remains underdeveloped and mostly driven by empirical case studies finally we shed light on new research questions and topics that could guide major theoretical and empirical investigations in the capacity of gvcs members to bypass the numerous difficulties involved in the implementation of strategic csr policies

multinationality and corporate ethics codes of conduct in the sporting goods industry the international operations of firms have substantial impact on the formulation and implementation of business ethical principles such as codes of conduct the international sporting goods industry has been a pioneer in setting up codes and thus provides much relevant experience different sourcing strategies degrees of multinationality and national backgrounds affect the contents of codes moreover international non governmental organizations prove equally effective in triggering sophisticated codes

the power lessness of industry self regulation to promote responsible labor standards insights from the chinese toy industry the provision of responsible labor standards along the entire value chain poses considerable challenges for corporations in particular management shortcomings and institutional deficits which are partly related to cultural issues frequently impede the realization of responsible business practices in emerging and developing countries it is widely established in theory that industry self regulation constitutes a particularly promising approach for overcoming these challenges nonetheless it is still an open question as to whether industry initiatives effectively promote responsible standards in practice this contribution aims to enrich the current discussion about the power of industry self regulation to ensure responsible labor standards in factories in emerging and developing countries for this purpose we analyze the icti care process icp the self regulation initiative of the international toy industry that aims to promote responsible business practices in chinese toy factories the assessment of the icp shows that corporations buying behavior is decisive in order for industry self regulation to become an appropriate means of improving labor standards based on the insights from the study and from theoretical reasoning we develop a framework for effective industry self regulation that integrates the perspective of factories

how virtuous global firms say they are a content analysis of ethical values this study compares the different emphases on virtuous characters presented in their values across global firms considering country and industry of origin it presents a content analysis of the 122 codes of conduct statements from fortune global 500 firms drawn from four sectors and using correspondence analysis american firms tend to emphasize courage while european firms emphasize integrity and empathy surprisingly with asian firms being closer to european ones retailers and pharmaceutical firms emphasize empathy while banks and petroleum emphasize courage this study extends the newly emerging strategic paradigm of organizational virtue by introducing an empirical study of ethical values implications for multinational companies are then discussed

do codes of conduct improve worker rights in supply chains a study of fair wear foundation the rise of private regulation of sustainability in global production networks has led to intensive debates about the impact of this regulation at the point of production yet few empirical studies have systematically examined this impact in practice based on multiple factory audits of 43 garment factories conducted by the multi stakeholder initiative fair wear foundation we show that codes of conduct improve although marginally worker rights on an overall level but that few significant results are found for specific worker rights our findings also lend support to the widespread argument that codes have uneven impact furthermore we show that even rigorous multi stakeholder factory audits seldom are able to identify process rights violations such as those affecting freedom of association and discrimination and that auditing is thus is more fundamentally flawed than assumed in previous research given companies extensive investments in private regulation of worker rights the findings have important implications for both scholars and managers

responsibility boundaries in global value chains supplier audit prioritizations and moral disengagement among swedish firms to address substandard working conditions in global value chains companies have adopted private regulatory systems governing worker rights scholars agree that without onsite factory audits this private regulation has limited impact at the point of production companies however audit only a subset of their suppliers severely restricting their private regulatory attempts despite the significance of the placement of suppliers inside or outside firms responsibility boundaries and despite scholars having called for more research into how firms prioritize what suppliers to audit few if any systematic studies have examined the topic this is problematic as the placement of firms responsibility boundaries determines what suppliers and workers are included in firms private regulatory attempts based on a study of 12 swedish firms and the theory of moral disengagement this paper starts to fill this research gap by exploring how firms responsibility boundaries are placed the paper illustrates how firms responsibility boundary placement is best described as a patchwork with firms defining and delimiting their responsibilities differently the paper also demonstrates that three supplier types i e the worst morally justified and immediate suppliers are particularly likely to be placed inside firms responsibility boundaries while a fourth type i e disregarded suppliers is likely be placed outside

unraveling the mne wage premium whereas ib has extensively studied mnes generic positive impact on host economies but rarely on employee wages economics research has only shown an overall mne wage premium we unravel this premium considering multiple levels of analysis and accounting for host country contextual contingencies to unveil mnes different positive or negative distributional effects using unique micro level data from over 40 000 employees in 13 countries we examine mnes distributional effects for employees gender experience and immigrant status the influence of host country property rights protection and labor regulation and interplays with region and industry effects mnes distributional effects show marked differences that largely depend on the host country context and that are positive for experienced and foreign born employees in developed countries but negative for females working in developing countries whereas in developed countries the gender wage gap is smaller in mnes than in domestic firms as hypothesized we find evidence of a larger wage gap in developing countries the analysis also reveals that the higher host countries level of property rights protection the lower the mne wage premium our study points at the need to reassess statements about the generic positive impact of mnes in host countries particularly in developing countries and discusses further research implications

revisiting supplier compliance with mnc codes of conduct recoupling policy and practice at chinese toy suppliers does private regulation of workers rights in global value chains improve working conditions on the factory floor drawing on one of the first systematic longitudinal studies of supplier compliance with multinational corporation mnc codes of conduct this paper finds in contrast to previous research substantial improvements over time while in 2004 the four examined chinese toy suppliers violated most of the evaluated code of conduct criteria and consciously decoupled the code of conduct policy from actual practices by 2009 they had recoupled policy and practice and complied with nearly all examined criteria except working hours the paper contributes to the private regulation literature by challenging previous research claims identifying factors that could make private regulation effective and outlining a research method for empirically studying the effects of codes of conduct over time the paper also contributes to new institutional theory by discussing how recoupling could be influenced by two factors not identified in previous research i trusting relationships between the organization and the stakeholder exerting pressure and ii factors unrelated to main external pressures leading to accidental recoupling

macroeconomies as constructively rational games real world decision makers are forced to be locally constructive that is their decisions are necessarily constrained by their interaction networks information beliefs and physical states this study transforms an otherwise standard dynamic macroeconomic model into an open ended dynamic game by requiring consumers and firms with intertemporal utility and profit objectives to be locally constructive tested locally constructive decision processes for the consumers and firms range from simple reactive reinforcement learning to adaptive dynamic programming adp computational experiments are used to explore macroeconomic performance under alternative decision process combinations relative to a social planner benchmark solution a key finding is that simpler decision processes can outperform more sophisticated decision processes such as adp however memory length permitting some degree of adaptive foresight is critical for good performance

suppliers compliance with mncs codes of conduct behind the scenes at chinese toy suppliers despite increased academic and practitioner interest in codes of conduct there has been little research into the actual compliance of suppliers in developing countries with the codes of conduct of multinational corporations mncs this paper addresses this lack by analysing chinese suppliers level of compliance with swedish toy retailers codes of conduct based on unannounced and unofficial interviews with employees of chinese suppliers the study shows that all of the nine studied suppliers breached some of the standards in the toy retailers codes with over two thirds of the suppliers not complying with the majority of the studied standards while there are different explanations of this lack of compliance the main explanation seems to be that chinese suppliers successfully deceive toy retailers monitoring organisations by decoupling the formal monitored part of their organisation from the actual operational part of their organisation the paper concludes with a discussion of how to increase compliance with mncs codes of conduct

rising power clusters and the challenges of local and global standards this paper explores the intersection between three processes associated with globalisation first the rise of emerging economies like china brazil and india the so called rising powers and their potential to define the contours of globalisation global production arrangements and global governance in the twenty first century second the importance of corporate social responsibility csr goals in the shaping of global trade rules and industrial practices third the significance of small firm clusters as critical sites of industrial competitiveness some of the most significant examples of successful innovative and internationally competitive small firm clusters from the developing world are located in the rising powers and cluster promotion is a core element of national industrial policy in some of these countries there is also evidence of engagement by clustered actors with corporate social responsibility goals around labour and environmental impacts while these three processes have been separately studied there has been no attempt to explore their intersections this paper addresses this gap through a comparative analysis of secondary data and a detailed reading of the literature on csr and clusters in brazil china and india it assesses the evidence on small firm clusters in the rising power economies and considers how these rising power clusters engage with csr goals pertaining to labour social and environmental standards it argues for a greater focus on the formal and informal institutional context termed the social contract in explaining divergent experiences and practices observed across these countries this raises important questions for future academic and policy research on clusters csr and the rising powers the paper concludes by outlining a research agenda to explore the local and global consequences of the relationship between rising power clusters and international labour and environmental standards

firm self regulation through international certifiable standards determinants of symbolic versus substantive implementation international certifiable management standards that have been advocated as a governance mechanism for firm self regulation of corporate social responsibility issues are effective only if certified firms comply with the requirements of the standards our empirical analysis shows that iso certified firms in china strategically select their level of compliance depending on customer preferences customer monitoring and expected sanctions by customers our findings have implications for the effectiveness of a global system of self regulation based on certifiable standards research on certifiable standards and for practicing managers who require suppliers to obtain standard certifications

private regulation and trade union rights why codes of conduct have limited impact on trade union rights codes of conduct are the main tools to privately regulate worker rights in global value chains scholars have shown that while codes may improve outcome standards such as occupational health and safety they have had limited impact on process rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining scholars have though only provided vague or general explanations for this empirical finding we address this shortcoming by providing a holistic and detailed explanation and argue that codes in their current form have limited impact on trade union rights due to i buyers paying lip service to trade union rights ii workers being treated as passive objects of regulation in codes of conduct iii auditing being unable to detect and remediate violations of trade union rights iv codes emphasizing parallel means of organizing v suppliers having limited incentives for compliance and vi codes being unable to open up space for union organizing when leveraged in grassroots struggles our arguments suggest that there is no quick fix for codes limited impact on trade union rights and that codes in their current form have limited potential to improve trade union rights we conclude by discussing ways in which codes of conduct and private regulation of worker rights more generally could be transformed to more effectively address trade union rights

the social construction of market value institutionalization and learning perspectives on stock market reactions this study advances a social constructionist view of financial market behavior the paper suggests that the market s reaction to particular corporate practices such as stock repurchase plans are not as financial economists contend simply a function of the inherent efficiency of such practices rather stock market reactions are also influenced by the prevailing institutional logic and the degree of institutionalization of the practice the theory first predicts that the emergence of the agency perspective on corporate governance in the mid 1980s represented a powerful new institutional logic that would lead the market to reverse its prior aggregate reaction to stock repurchase plans in the united states the paper then considers the potential for institutional decoupling of repurchase plans and develops competing hypotheses about how the market value of these policies might have changed as more firms formally adopted but did not implement the plans over time in contrast to a financial economic pers

multi stakeholder regulation privatizing or socializing global labor standards summary this paper evaluates leading non governmental labor regulation initiatives in the united states and europe it comparatively assesses the codes of conduct and monitoring systems within these initiatives discusses their different models of regulation and proposes criteria for evaluating their effectiveness it identifies critical factors which appear to support more effective non governmental regulation such as substantive participation of local stakeholders public transparency of methods and findings and mechanisms that bring market pressures to bear on multi national corporations and simultaneously support processes of multi stakeholder problem solving within factories and global supply chains

corporate social responsibility in global value chains where are we now and where are we going we outline the drivers main features and conceptual underpinnings of the compliance paradigm we then use a similar structure to investigate the drivers main features and conceptual underpinnings of the cooperative paradigm for working with csr in global value chains we argue that the measures proposed in the new cooperation paradigm are unlikely to alter power relationships in global value chains and bring about sustained improvements in workers conditions in developing country export industries after that we provide a critical appraisal of the potential and limits of the cooperative paradigm we summarize our findings and we outline avenues for research purchasing practices and labor standard noncompliance csr capacity building among local suppliers and improved csr monitoring by local resources in the developing world

implementing supplier codes of conduct in global supply chains process explanations from theoretic and empirical perspectives western buying companies impose supplier codes of conduct scc on their suppliers in developing countries however many suppliers cannot fully comply with scc and some of them even cheat in scc in this research we link contract characteristics price pressure production complexity contract duration to the likelihood of supplier s commitment to scc through a mediating process how the buying companies govern their suppliers our structural equation model analysis shows that the hierarchy relational norms governance is a perfect mediator of contract characteristics effects on the likelihood of supplier s commitment the market governance an insignificant one the managerial implications are provided for successfully implementing scc in global supply chains

institutional emergence in an era of globalization the rise of transnational private regulation of labor and environmental conditions1 why have systems of transnational private regulation recently emerged to certify corporate social and environmental performance different conceptions of institutional emergence underlie different answers to this question many scholars argue that firms create certification systems to solve problems in the market a view rooted in a conception of institutions as solutions to collective action problems the author develops a different account by viewing institutions as the outcome of political contestation and by analyzing conflict and institutional entrepreneurship among a wide array of actors using a comparative case study design the analysis shows how these arguments explain the formation of social and environmental certification associations both theoretical approaches are needed but strong versions of the market based approach overlook an important set of dynamics that the author calls the political construction of market institutions the analysis shows how both problem solving in markets and

governing corporate social responsibility an assessment of the contribution of the un global compact to csr strategies in the telecommunications industry csr has become an important element in the business strategy of a growing number of companies worldwide a large number of initiatives have been developed that aim to support companies in developing implementing and communicating about csr the global compact gc initiated by the united nations stands out since its launch in 2000 it has grown to about 2900 companies and 3800 members in total the gc combines several mechanisms to support csr strategies normative principles networks for learning and co operation and communication and transparency about csr activities however up to now only a few empirical evaluations of the contribution of the gc to csr strategies have been conducted that however have not differentiated between different types of companies regarding type of industry or regarding the maturity of csr this paper aims to partly fill this knowledge gap by a case study examination of three frontrunner companies in the telecommunications industry the results show that the gc is only one of the many initiatives that these companies employ in shaping implementing and reporting about their csr strategies and that its role is at most modest there are two important reasons one is that many of the csr issues that these companies deal with are industry specific and are hence addressed in specific networks the second reason is that the gc principles are perceived as minimum requirements that do not provide many incentives to the three case study companies to perform better a differentiation of norms for gc members is expected to enhance the contribution of the gc to csr strategy employment not only for frontrunner companies but as well for other categories of companies

how international oil and gas companies respond to local content policies in petroleum producing developing countries a narrative enquiry this paper uses narrative analysis to critically examine the business practices used by five international oil and gas companies iocs chevron exxonmobil shell bp and total to respond to local content policies in petroleum producing developing countries nigeria angola venezuela kazakhstan brazil indonesia yemen and indonesia during the period 2000 2012 the business practices include the formulation of local content strategies that are implemented through programmes and initiatives aimed at developing and using host country suppliers and workforce such practices and the narratives used to communicate them implicitly reflect the context in which the effectiveness of local content policies on economic development can be assessed by comparing and contrasting the narratives across the five iocs in relation to the wider literature four emergent narrative strategies justifying the business practices of iocs are identified and discussed they include 1 direct engagement to renegotiate local content requirements with governments 2 legal compliance framework 3 the business case for local content strategies and 4 corporate social responsibility csr initiatives the conclusion considers the policy implications of these findings for local content development in petroleum producing developing countries

child labor in carpet weaving impact of social labeling in india and nepal summary does the labeling of tradable products like carpets which have been produced without child labor increase the welfare of children and their families this paper presents results of surveys conducted in india and nepal the findings suggest a positive link between social labeling and the removal of child laborers for households above the subsistence level however for households below the subsistence level no significant influence has been found

socially and environmentally responsible purchasing comparing the impacts on buying firm s financial performance competitiveness and risk abstract the paper presents a study that aims to compare the contribution of social and environmental practices along the purchasing process to economic performance competitiveness and risk mitigation of the buying firm the number of studies dealing with the topic has significantly increased in the last few years the majority of the extant research is focused on the environmental dimension whereas fewer studies have explored the social dimension or the combination of both factors the results are mixed with some scholars supporting the existence of a positive relationship between socially and environmentally oriented purchasing management and financial performance competitiveness and risk mitigation and others being more cautious relying on suggestions from earlier literature the study presents an analysis of a database made up of 189 international buying companies operating in italy and the results have provoked two main observations data were collected through a closed question questionnaire to purchasing managers which was defined from items and variables identified in the previous literature on the one hand the results corroborated the hypotheses of the study confirming that both dimensions contribute to firm performance on the other hand the findings showed that differences do exist and that the positive relationship between social and environmental dimensions and firm performance depends upon the stage into which those criteria are integrated the integration of social criteria has proven to impact only risk mitigation throughout the purchasing process whereas the environmental dimension contributes to risk mitigation and competitiveness when included in the supplier selection phase and to economic performance when considered in supplier relationship management

does a foot in the door matter white nonwhite differences in the wage return to tenure and prior workplace experience author affiliation arthur h goldsmith department of economics washington and lee university lexington va 24450 usa goldsmitha wlu edu corresponding authordarrick hamilton milano the new school of management and urban policy 72 fifth avenue new york ny 10011 usa hamiltod newschool eduwilliam darity jr department of economics university of north carolina at chapel hill chapel hill nc 27514 usa darity unc edu this work is supported by grant 0213838 from the national science foundation acknowledgment we are grateful for suggestions provided by barry hirsch and seminar participants at bond university gold coast australia in addition we are grateful for comments from julie hotchkiss co editor for this journal and two anonymous referees this paper was presented at the 2004 southern economic association meetings 1 overviewthere is an extensive literature documenting the lower wages of black and latino workers relative to white workers in the united states the explanations for these racial and ethnic wage disparities have ranged from differential accumulation of human capital to labor market discrimination 1 farmer and terrell 1996 and more recently lewis and terrell 2001 extend this literature by advancing a hypothesis which we summarize as the theory of ability misperception this hypothesis explains how group membership may differentially influence the gains associated with workplace experience and hence the relative wages of black and latino workers over the course of their working lifecycle their basic idea is twofold first employers believe nonwhite employees acquired fewer skills on prior jobs than white workers thus employers will reward additional experience with prior employers to a greater extent for white workers than for nonwhite workers we refer to this hypothesis as proposition 1 this first proposition falls under the umbrella of statistical discrimination which explains wage inequality as a result of employers offering nonwhite workers lower wages as a result of employer reliance on their perception that the distribution of skills for nonwhite workers is worse than that of white workers second as employers directly observe nonwhite workers on the job they come to realize that their perceptions concerning the distribution of skills for nonwhite workers were incorrect and consequently they have underrated the ability of nonwhite employees this learning leads employers to update their assessment of the relative productivity of nonwhite workers therefore racial ethnic differences in the return to additional tenure or seniority with the current employer will be smaller than the racial ethnic difference in the return to prior experience when proposition 1 holds this prediction constitutes proposition 2 of the theory of ability misperception in addition we introduce a third proposition or a strong form of proposition 2 which suggests that the returns to additional tenure for nonwhite employees will actually exceed that of white employees thus proposition 2 requires that the difference in returns to additional tenure with the current employer between nonwhite and white workers be smaller than the difference in returns to prior experience while proposition 3 requires that nonwhite workers actually receive a higher return for tenure the purpose of this paper is to advance the existing empirical literature aimed at evaluating the validity of the propositions central to the theory of ability misperception using data drawn from the multi city study of urban inequality mcsui if farmer and terrell 1996 and lewis and terrell 2001 are correct that employers underestimate the skills of nonwhite workers before directly observing them at the worksite then many capable nonwhite applicants will be denied work and if employed will suffer undue economic losses

embedding csr values the global footwear industry s evolving governance structure many transnational corporations and international organizations have embraced corporate social responsibility csr to address criticisms of working and environmental conditions at subcontractors factories while csr codes of conduct are easy to draft supplier compliance has been elusive even third party monitoring has proven an incomplete solution this article proposes that an alteration in the supply chain s governance from an arms length market model to a collaborative partnership often will be necessary to effectuate csr the market model forces contractors to focus on price and delivery as they compete for the lead firm s business rendering csr observance secondary at best a collaborative partnership where the lead firm gives select suppliers secure product orders and other benefits removes disincentives and adds incentives for csr compliance in time the suppliers csr habit should shift their business philosophy toward pursuing csr as an end in itself regardless of buyer incentives and monitoring this article examines these hypotheses in the context of the athletic footwear sector with nike inc and its suppliers as the specific case study the data collected and conclusions reached offer strategies for advancing csr beyond the superficial and often ineffectual code of conduct stage