Code Contingencies: Designing Monitoring Regimes to Promote Improvement in Supply Chain Working Conditions

Jodi L. Short (), Michael W. Toffel () and Andrea R. Hugill ()
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Jodi L. Short: UC Hastings College of the Law
Michael W. Toffel: Harvard Business School, Technology and Operations Management Unit
Andrea R. Hugill: Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

No 17-001, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: Worker rights advocates seeking to improve labor conditions in global supply chains have engaged in activism that led transnational corporations to adopt codes of conduct and monitor their suppliers for compliance, but it is not clear whether these organizational structures raise labor standards. Drawing on thousands of audits conducted by a major social auditor, we identify structural contingencies in the institutional environment and in program design under which codes and monitoring are more likely to be associated with improvements in working conditions. At the institutional level, suppliers improve more when they face greater exposure risk and when their buyers are more sensitive to such exposure. At the program design level, suppliers improve more when the monitoring regime signals a cooperative approach, when auditors are highly trained, and especially when both of these elements are present. These findings should inform monitoring strategies aimed at improving working conditions in global supply chains.

Keywords: Monitoring; supply chain; supplier relationship; supply chain management; corporate social responsibility and impact; labor; Working Conditions; sustainability; Sustainability Management; Sustainable Operations; sustainable supply chains; NGO (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2016-07, Revised 2019-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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