A growing number of studies have taken various approaches to try to identify the relationship between firm performance and working conditions. These studies show that profits, productivity, and firm survival are positively associated with improvements in working conditions and increased compliance with labor standards (World Bank Group, 2015). A discrete‐time survival analysis model of 595 Cambodian garment factories by Jetha and Linsen (2015) found that increased compliance with social protection standards was associated with reduced odds of factory closure. A survey of management and laborers in the Lao PDR garment sector found that failure to increase worker well‐being led to dissatisfaction, higher labor turnover, lower productivity, and impaired firms’ opportunities to strengthen participation in garment GVCs (World Bank, 2012). Brown et al. (2016) demonstrate that garment factories with higher compliance with international labor standards have higher labor productivity and higher profitability. Oka (2012) examines the link between labor standards and supplier competitiveness. The study finds that better labor standard compliance increases suppliers’ likelihood of retaining buyers that are reputation‐conscious, though it does not drive buyers’ sourcing decisions. Other criteria such as price, quality, and delivery time matter more.

Firm participation in monitoring and training programs, in particular ILO‐IFC Better Factories or Better Work programs, has been more widely studied. These programs combine monitoring, remediation and training for participating factories. For example, Better Factories Cambodia was shown to be successful at improving compliance with national law and international standards since its implementation in 2001 (Robertson 2017). Other studies have shown a positive relationship between program participation and working conditions in Cambodia (Adler and Woolcock 2010, Beresford 2009, Berik and van der Meulen Rodgers 2010, Miller et al. 2009, Oka 2010a, Oka 2010b, and Polaski 2006). Shea et al. (2010) and Brown et al. (2016) find that the improvements in working conditions and factory compliance come through engagements with multiple stakeholders as part of the program in Cambodia. Bair (2017) show similar results for Nicaragua. This stand of literature relates most closely to the three additional research questions of this paper.

Two papers examine transparency through public disclosure and compliance in Cambodia, which relate most closely to the primary research question of this paper. First, using firm‐level data from Cambodia, Ang et al. (2012) find that the end of public disclosure in 2006 adversely affected compliance. The authors also use linear probability modeling to test if compliance in different compliance categories is correlated with a binary indicator during the period of public disclosure. The authors also test for differences in compliance performance of firms that sell to reputationally sensitive buyers. Their results suggest that the threat of public disclosure of noncompliance induces compliance, even in factories lacking reputation sensitive buyers. In the post‐public disclosure period, all groups of factories maintained a significant record of compliance, but the propensity for improvement fell.

Second, Robertson (2017) exploit a policy reversal in Cambodia when in 2014 Better Factories Cambodia announced the return to public disclosure to study changes in compliance trends before and after the policy change. The paper evaluates the change in compliance in Cambodian garment factories using different empirical approaches: estimating endogenous trend breaks in compliance, probit regressions, and survival analysis. Overall, the results found in Robertson (2017) are inconclusive. Compliance was generally falling prior to the change. Controlling for year effects in probit regressions, the author finds 5