Monitoring Global Supply Chains

Jodi L. Short (), Michael Toffel and Andrea Read Hugill ()
Additional contact information
Jodi L. Short: UC Hastings College of Law
Andrea Read Hugill: Harvard Business School, Technology and Operations Management Unit

No 14-032, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: Firms reliant on supply chains to manufacture their goods risk reputational harm if the working conditions in those factories are revealed to be dangerous, illegal, or otherwise problematic. While firms are increasingly relying on private-sector "social auditors" to assess factory conditions, little had been known about the accuracy of those assessments. We analyzed nearly 17,000 code-of-conduct audits conducted at nearly 6,000 suppliers around the world. We found that audits yield fewer violations when the audit team had been at that particular supplier before, when audit teams are less experienced or less trained, when audit teams are all-male, and when the audits were paid for by the supplier instead of by the buyer. We describe implications for firms relying on social auditors and for auditing firms.

Keywords: monitoring; transaction cost economics; industry self-regulation; auditing; supply chains; codes of conduct; corporate social responsibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2013-10, Revised 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hbs:wpaper:14-032

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