Do Factory Audits Improve International Labor Standards? An Examination of Voluntary Corporate Labor Regulations in Global Production Networks

Scott R. Sanders, Michael R. Cope and Elizabeth R. Pulsipher
Additional contact information
Scott R. Sanders: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Michael R. Cope: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Elizabeth R. Pulsipher: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA

Social Sciences, 2018, vol. 7, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: This research examined the effects of voluntary factory audits on labor conditions. Sometimes referred to as corporate social responsibility (CSR) codes of conduct, corporations impose voluntary labor standards coupled with regular auditing to help ensure the protection of workers throughout their global production networks (GPNs). While some believe that auditing factories ensures that CSR codes of conduct are followed and helps private corporations promote higher labor standards, others argue that factory audits have little effect on labor standards at the factory level. Using unique panel data of internal factory audit reports of factories in four Southeast Asian countries between 2003 and 2010, this paper sought to understand whether voluntary GPN audits improve labor standards at the factory level. The results showed that a factory’s number of audits between 2003 and 2010 did not improve factory working conditions significantly and that the local neighborhood in which a factory is located has a greater effect on changes in factory audit scores. These findings suggest that CSR codes of conduct and auditing alone are not sufficient to improve labor standards in GPNs. Rather, joint private-public collaboration is needed to improve labor conditions for workers in the global south.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; auditing; global production networks; labor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/7/6/84/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/7/6/84/ (text/html)

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:gam:jscscx:v:7:y:2018:i:6:p:84-:d:149656

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().