Responsibility And Neglect In Global Production Networks: The Uneven Significance Of Codes Of Conduct In Indonesian Factories

Global Networks

Tim Bartley

Asia

In response to anti-sweatshop activism, lead firms in global production networks (GPNs) have adopted voluntary corporate social responsibility commitments such as codes of conduct. Scholars have begun to examine whether and how these shape labour conditions at the point of production, but existing research either focuses on a small number of cases or lacks a control group of factories that are not exposed to codes of conduct. In addition, scholars have sometimes suggested that codes of conduct can only influence certain types of factory conditions, or that government labour inspection can accomplish as much or more than codes. These possibilities have rarely been assessed systematically. In this article, we analyse data on 192 electronics, apparel/textile and footwear factories in Indonesia and show how the significance of codes varies across issues. Our findings also suggest that codes and government labour inspection fill different niches, although neither guarantees decent factory conditions. The findings have implications for the study of ‘labour agency’ and the ‘complementarity’ of public and private governance in GPNs.

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Egels Zandén Niklas