Corporate human rights performance and moral power: A study of retail MNCs’ supply chains in Bangladesh

Modern Slavery Disclosure Regulation and Global Supply Chains: Insights from Stakeholder Narratives on the UK Modern Slavery Act

“…We argue that anti-slavery campaign groups and civil society organisations are in a better position to provide narratives about the limitations of the act. In other words, in line with the counter-account literature focussing on working conditions within global supply chains (Islam et al, 2021Semeen & Islam, 2021), we problematise the disclosure regulations through counternarratives by anti-slavery campaign organisations. While the existing literature is rich in terms of exploring counternarratives/accounts on different social and environmental issues (see, for example, Semeen & Islam, 2021;Neu et al, 2020;Lehman et al, 2016), the issues of modern slavery are under-researched.…”

“…With regards to global supply chains, there is a ubiquitous public and academic discourse suggesting that the use of forced labour facilitates lower labour costs and boosts the revenues of multinational retailers and suppliers (Chalmers, 2013;FEE, 2017;Oxfam, 2018) and this, in turn, raise problematic issues regarding the ethical standing of both retailers and suppliers (Islam et al, 2021). 2 Modern slavery issues are gaining significant public and academic attention because high-profile human rights crises are emerging in global supply chains (Christ & Burritt, 2018;Crane, 2013;Gadd & Broad, 2018;Gold et al, 2015;Islam et al, , 2021Landau & Marshall, 2018;Mehra & Shay, 2016;New, 2015;Turner, 2016), for example, the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, and because new forms of modern slavery regulation are evolving to regulate MNCs and their suppliers in the developing world. Transparency and disclosure regulations such as the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 (CTSCA), the US Dodd-Frank Act's conflict minerals rules, the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, the French Duty of Vigilance Law 2017, The Netherlands Due Diligence on Child Labour Act 2017 and the Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018, have implications for companies operating in the West as well as their suppliers in the developing world.…”

“…We contribute to the interdisciplinary literature on transparency and regulatory normativity by highlighting anti-slavery activists' critical evaluations of a new transparency and disclosure regulation with regards to the elimination of modern slavery within global supply chains. We also contribute to the counter-account/narrative literature (see, for example, Semeen & Islam, 2021;Islam et al, , 2021) that shows that NGOs, activists and social movement organisations are crucial actors in exposing the lack of corporate transparency and accountability, and failures of responsibility to protect workers within the global supply chains.…”

“…Modern slavery is an unethical practice (ILO and Walk Free Foundation, 2017;Blitz & Simic, 2019) and its pervasive presence in global supply chains has attracted global criticism (Ansett & Hantover, 2013;Arnold & Hewison, 2005;Barrientos & Smith, 2007;Hughes et al, 2007;Kasperkevic, 2016;Kelly, 2014). Major disasters, such as the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 that killed more than 1100 workers in factories in Bangladesh that produced garments for western retailers, are indicative of weak moral and ethical standards applied by global retailers in their supply chains (Islam et al, 2021). This has led to new forms of regulation (such as the UK Modern Slavery Act of 2015; the US Dodd-Frank Act's conflict mineral reporting rules, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, and the Australian Modern Slavery Act of 2018) that attracted significant academic and social activist attention (Roshitsh, 2021;Sobik, 2020;Rogerson et al, 2020;Hansard, 2019;LeBaron & Rühmkorf, 2019;Blitz & Simic, 2019;Stevenson & Cole, 2018;Christ & Burritt, 2018;Birkey et al, 2018;Islam & Van Staden, 2018;The Guardian, 2015;New, 2015;Crane, 2013;Gold et al, 2015).…”

“…Drawing on notions of supply chain transparency (Egels-Zandén et al, 2015;Gold & Heikkurinen, 2018) and regulatory normativity (Ewick & Silbey, 2003;Gray & Silbey, 2014) and the literature on counter-accounts/narratives (Islam et al, 2021;Semeen & Islam, 2021;Neu et al, 2020;Lehman et al, 2016;Vinnari and Laine 2017;Gallhofer et al, 2006), we use interviews and publicly available reports and documents to provide an insight into the limitations of the UK Modern Slavery Act. Previous research examined the normativity of social and environmental disclosure regulations by documenting the extent of corporate disclosure in compliance with the regulations (see, for example, Birkey et al, 2018;Chauvey et al, 2015).…”