Abstract
Juliane Reinecke, University of Warwick, UK
Jimmy Donaghey, University of Warwick, UK
Adrian Wilkinson, Griffith University, Australia
Geoffrey Wood, University of Warwick, UK
The relationship between supply chain relations and the workplace is topical (e.g. Fichter, Helfen and Sydow, 2011), and referred to explicitly within the International Labour Organisation agenda on decent work (Dejardin, 2008). While the globalization of production has brought significant employment and economic growth to many regions of the world, the political and exploitative nature of supply chain relationships often have implications for social relations at work (Scarbrough, 2000). Recent labour scandals involving suppliers in the electronic, food and clothing industries have resulted in increasing public concern with employment relations among suppliers to developed economy firms. At the same time, persistent pressures for weak regulation, cut-throat competition and declining real wages for a large proportion of consumers in the developed world have resulted in downward pressure on work relations. Moreover, innovations in supply chain management such as ‘just-in-time’ production or ‘fast-fashion’ have intensified work owing to increased surveillance and monitoring of workers’ activities (Delbridge, Turnbull and Wilkinson, 2007). The special issue seeks to consolidate recent research in the area and to contribute to theoretical and applied knowledge on how the decisions made by parties in global supply chains impact on social relations at work through the supply chain. The call thus seeks to attract papers from scholars across a range of social science disciplines – including industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour, organizational theory, and the sociology of work – who examine the power dynamics of these relationships.
Since the early 1990s, a number of concepts and analytical tools have been developed to capture the dynamics of global production and distribution, including global value chains and global production networks (Gereffi et al., 2005). Common to these analyses is the centrality of power relations. This special issue adopts the generic ‘supply chain’ terminology and seeks papers coming from a variety of theoretical perspectives and encourages authors to develop new conceptual approaches.
This call for papers seeks to initiate debate around a wider set of theoretical perspectives for understanding supply chains and their effects on social relations at work to address pressing questions around the issue of social relations at work in supply chains. Specifically, what insights can be developed from other disciplines and novel theoretical approaches? And vice versa, how does the phenomenon require a rethinking, adapting or extending of existing conceptual frameworks? Previous research has demonstrated the potential for theoretical insights from neo-Gramscian (Levy, 2008), Foucauldian (Higgings and Tamm-Hallstroem, 2007), feminist (Robinson, 2011), neo-colonial (Khan, Westwood and Boje, 2010), Marxist perspectives (Reinecke, 2010), Varieties of Capitalism (Lane and Wood, 2009), labour process (Robinson and Rainbird, 2013), as well as political philosophy (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011) for analysing organizational, political and ethical questions in global supply chains.
There is a range of issues in need of closer examination that relate to: (1) methodologies for researching supply chains and social relations at work, (2) understanding the effects of global supply chain dynamics on work and workers, and (3) understanding new approaches to governing employment relations in global supply chains.
1. Methodologies for understanding global supply chains and social relations at work
Global supply chains raise methodological questions. How do we methodologically examine organizational relationships which involve multiple actors? Previous research has sought to capture them through techniques such as ‘end-to-end’ supply chain analysis (Robinson, 2010). Are our current methods adequate to capture different aspects of employment relations in supply chain dynamics? How useful are, for instance, survey methods, interviews, ethnographies, network analysis or qualitative comparative analysis in studying the relationship between supply chain dynamics and employment relations?
2. Effects of global supply chains and social relations at work
Recent research has focused on the role of multinational firms in implementing employment policies across borders vis-à-vis the subsidiary embeddedness in the institutions of host countries (Ferner, Edwards and Temple, 2012). Empirical evidence has also highlighted the relationship between supply chains and employment practices such as training, prevention of discrimination and trade union representation (Webster and Bischoff, 2011), and shown how the use of ‘cost-effective’ practices such as downsizing, outsourcing and contingent labour (Wright and Lund, 2003) has incurred social costs and increased levels of precarious work (Kalleberg, 2009) as well as its effect on worker identities (Cohen and El-Sawad, 2007). Concerns have been raised regarding the role of migrant labour (Frenkel and Yu, 2014), the balance between permanent and temporary work and the impact of outsourcing and offshoring on terms and conditions, and regarding the use of domestic versus foreign labour (Jiang and Milberg, 2013). As illustrated in the Bangladesh ready-made garment industry, global supply chains have also led to dramatic shifts in gender relations at work. While female employment has improved women’s economic participation, provides regular income and can thus enable greater autonomy for women workers, the feminization of the workforce also reflects the exploitation of women’s greater willingness to endure low wages and long working hours and unsafe conditions at work (Hossain, 2011). However, in some industries, employment practices may be influenced by pressure from organised labour and civil society to promote better labour standards among suppliers (Fichter et al., 2011). These factors may encourage dominant parties to promote compromises between management and workers. Moreover, dominant players will not necessarily revert to a default mode of forcing down labour costs; in practice, workers and civil society may mount pressure on dominant parties to promote better standards, which may also be necessitated through the use of specific production paradigms (Riisgaard and Hammer, 2011).
3. Governance of global supply chains and social relations at work
Despite increasing attention being paid to global labour rights, and the emergence of a wide-ranging private labour governance regime, globalization’s downward trend has not been reversed. Some studies suggest that rather than improvement over time in average labour rights performance, most regions appear worse off (Levi et al., 2013). Why have current approaches failed to substantively improve labour standards (Locke, 2013)? What new approaches are emerging that would improve labour standards? What is the role of the different actors involved? Described as private or civil regulation, private labour governance finds its roots in firms, industry or social movements, rather than in unions (Fransen, 2011; Donaghey et al., 2014). In countries where freedom of association is suppressed, NGOs may be the only mechanism for drawing a spotlight onto labour issues (Frenkel, 2001). Paradoxically, firms who move abroad to take advantage of lower labour costs may promote improved employment practices through supplier networks, even if only for branding reasons (Bartley, 2007). The forms which regulation of employment relations take in supply chains varies greatly depending on firm, sectoral and national contexts and ranges from those initiatives that mimic traditional collective bargaining, such as international framework agreements (Fichter et al., 2011), to voluntary, market-based standards who often compete for adopters (Reinecke, Manning and Von Hagen, 2012). In addition, relevant actors may include global union federations (Cotton and Croucher, 2011), companies themselves, NGOs/social movement organisations (Bartley, 2007) or the ILO (International Labour Organization). In their recent review, Donaghey and colleagues (2014) highlight that while much research is ongoing into understanding varying aspects of these developments, such accounts are often partial and lack integration of the range of actor motives and forms involved. With these varying motives, forms and actors involved, there is a need to develop more comprehensive understandings of the dynamics within and between these actors.
This special issue invites empirical and conceptual papers that address the following research questions:
How can working conditions (e.g. overtime, child labour, health and safety) be maintained and/or improved when suppliers are facing increased pressure to reduce operating costs?
Are there regional differences in supply chains and how do they impact on social relations at work?
How do global supply chains affect gender relations at work?
How closely do dominant firms monitor employment relations down their supply chains, particularly beyond the first tier?
What ethical frameworks can help us to understand employment relationships in supply chains? How do corporate social responsibility policies of multinational corporations (MNCs) impact supplier employment relations?
How do private forms of regulation impact on social relations at work down the supply chain? What is the relationship between different forms of private regulation such as international framework agreements, codes of conduct, and multi-stakeholder standards? Are there new models emerging beyond monitoring and social auditing?
How do systems of private regulation promoted by non-government actors in buying countries interact with national laws and local employment systems in host countries?
How is labour represented in global supply chains? What forms of agency emerge in the context of structural pressures?
What are the roles of different actors in the design and implementation of labour governance system, including, but not limited to, multinational corporations, supplier firms, managers, unions, social movements/NGOs and intergovernmental organizations?
Which new perspectives and theoretical approaches from different disciplines across the social sciences can inform our understanding of the effect of supply chains on work? How can the phenomena inform existing theories?
This call is open and competitive, and the submitted papers will be double-blind reviewed by experienced scholars in the field.
Submitted papers must be based on original material not accepted for publication by, or under consideration for publication with, any other journal or publication outlet.
For empirical papers based on data sets from which multiple papers have been generated, authors must provide the guest editors with copies of all other papers based on the same data to ensure a unique intellectual contribution is being made.
The guest editors will select a limited number of papers to be included in the special issue. Other papers submitted to the special issue may be considered for publication in other issues of the journal at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
To be considered for this special issue, submissions must fit with the Aim and Scope (http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/submit_paper/guidance.html) of Human Relations as well as this call for papers.
Papers should be submitted online in accordance with Human Relations submission guidelines: http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/submit_paper.html.
Please indicate in your covering letter that your article is intended for this special issue.
Prospective contributors are welcome to consult the guest editors prior to submitting their work:
Juliane Reinecke
Jimmy Donaghey
Adrian Wilkinson
Geoffrey Wood
Please direct any questions about the submission process, or any administrative matter, to the Editorial Office:
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Global%20supply%20chains.html