Corporate Social Responsibility and Global Labor Standards: Firms and Activists in the Making of Private Regulation

by Fransen; Luc

• ISBN13: 9780415808279
• ISBN10: 0415808278
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-21
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

How effective are multinational companies at improving working conditions in their supply chains? This book focuses on a crucial dynamic in the private efforts at regulating labor standards in international production chains. It addresses questions regarding the quality of rules ("Are existing efforts to privately regulate labor standards credible?") as well as business demand for private regulation ("To what extent are different types of regulation adopted by companies?"). The underlying question is whether private regulation can be both stringent and popular with firms? The study describes and explains the organization of private regulation as to improve labor conditions in clothing production. It analyzes the nature and origins of, the business demand for and the competition between all relevant private regulatory organizations. The argument of the book focuses on the interaction between activists and firms, in consensual (developing and governing private regulatory organizations) and in contentious forms (activists exerting pressure on firms for specific regulatory solutions). Theoretically, the study adopts an institutional perspective, arguing how the embedding of interactions between activists and firms in historical and industrial contexts matters for the stringency of and the business demand for regulatory organizations. This then explains an emerging divide in the effort to regulate working conditions in clothing production between a larger cluster of less stringent and a smaller cluster of more stringent pr ivate regulatory organizations and their supporters.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. ix
List of Tables	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Understanding Private Labor Regulation
Private Labor Regulation: Why and What Is It Good For?	p. 3
Understanding Developments in Private Labor Regulation: A Research Framework	p. 16
Organizing Private Labor Regulation
Labor Standards, Implementation, and Degrees of Control: A Power-Based Analysis of Private Regulatory Approaches	p. 39
How to Dress Up a Code: The Politics of Developing Private Regulatory Organizations	p. 68
Business Demand and Competition
Choosing a Code: Understanding Business Support for Private Labor Regulation	p. 103
Competing Codes: Understanding the Dynamics of Private Regulatory Competition	p. 135
The Future of Private Labor Regulation
Conclusions and Prospects	p. 167
Glossary of Organizations	p. 193
The Eight Private Regulatory Organizations	p. 195
Methodology	p. 199
Notes	p. 205
Bibliography	p. 217
Index	p. 229
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.