Global Value Chains, Labor Organization and Private Social Standards: Lessons from East African Cut Flower Industries

Lone Riisgaard

World Development, 2009, vol. 37, issue 2, 326-340

Abstract: Summary This article examines the opportunities and challenges that private social standards pose for labor organizations. It explores different labor responses to private social standards in East African cut flower industries. The analysis incorporates the concept of labor agency in global value chain analysis and reveals how retailer-driven chains offer more room for labor organizations to exercise their agency than the traditional cut flower value chains. Labor organizations have been able to influence social standard setting and implementation, and to use standards to further labor representation at production sites. However, labor organizations' ability to seriously challenge the prevailing governance structure of the cut flower value chain appears extremely limited.

Keywords: Africa; Kenya; Tanzania; global; value; chains; labor; organizations; private; social; standards; cut; flowers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (66)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(08)00122-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:37:y:2009:i:2:p:326-340

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().