Sub-theme 38: Organizing across the Supply Chain: Enlightening Responsible Forms of Organizing
Call for Papers
This sub-theme seeks to enlighten different forms of organizing across the supply chain, paying particular attention to
socially and environmentally responsible forms of organizing. Global supply chains are today’s dominant form of production—yet
they are related to a number of social and environmental challenges, such as substandard working conditions and environmental
damage. These issues are particularly difficult to address in global supply chains, given the lack of legally binding global
frameworks, the many and varied actors involved as well as their dispersed geographical reach and different institutional
contexts (Distelhorst et al., 2015; Frenkel, 2001; Locke, 2013). How can we improve our understanding of the prospects and
difficulties of organizing social and environmental standards across the supply chain? This question can be explored at different
levels.
The organization of global supply chains points to different modes of governance pertaining
to social and environmental standards. These include private, public and civic forms of regulation as well as their interplay
(Fransen & Burgoon, 2017; Levy et al., 2017). While private forms of regulation based on single firms or corporate interest
representation emphasize efficiency and minimum standards, wider stakeholder forms of regulation that include NGOs and unions
are designed to limit corporate power and realize broader values. New institutional innovations such as the Accord for Fire
and Building Safety in Bangladesh in the global garment supply chain may combine various modes of governance (Donaghey &
Reinecke, 2017). Yet, the trade-offs involved in such novel constructions remain to be systematically studied and evaluated
(Alamgir & Banerjee, 2018).
Global supply chains span different geographies and organizational fields
and respective institutional contexts. However, the structure of these supply chains often favors some organizations
at the expense of others. Whereas labor intensive production gets outsourced to countries in the so-called global South, shifting
the most socially and environmentally damaging steps of production to countries like Bangladesh, China or India, the most
value-creating steps such as design, research and development and marketing often remain within the global North, leading
to an unequal distribution of value. How can we analyze these inequalities from an organization theory perspective?
Global supply chains also involve a variety of actors – some of which have been largely overlooked by organization
scholars. Whereas the practices and policies employed by lead firms to govern their supply chains have been in the focus of
organization scholars (e.g. Helfen et al., 2018), the role of governments (e.g. Knudsen, 2018), trade unions (Donaghey &
Reinecke, 2017) or more remote actors such as sourcing agents (Soundararajan et al., 2018) or (sub-)contractors – have gained
less attention. Also, the variety of these actors and their interests implies that organizing across the supply chain is often
accompanied by severe inter- and intra-organizational contestations, such as between lead firms and other
stakeholders or between corporate social responsibility (CSR)- and procurement managers within lead firms. The resulting conflicts
and contestations unfolding on the intra-organizational level are often overlooked.
We invite theoretical
and empirical papers using both qualitative or quantitative research methods (or some combination of the two) that address
modes of organizing across global supply chains by focusing on the following or related topics:
Relationships and potential trade-offs between different modes of governance across supply chains
Tensions between and within organizations working across supply chains, between economic, environmental and social objectives, logics and actions as well as how these are interpreted, resolved (to varying degrees) and implemented
How technology and other innovations may contribute to organizing responsibly (or irresponsibly) across the supply chain
Effects of CSR programs and practices on different stakeholder groups, such as workers in factories
The role of multi-stakeholder initiatives, certification, standards, international trade agreements and other modes of regulation in supporting CSR within supply chains
The role and impact of different ways to organize labor (i.e., unions or worker participation committees)
Appropriate theoretical lenses to analyze organizing across supply chains (e.g. Global Production Networks or Political CSR)
This is an interdisciplinary sub-theme seeking to bring together organizational theorists, sociologists, political scientists,
as well as industrial relations and development scholars.
References
- Alamgir, F., & Banerjee, S.B. (2018): “Contested compliance regimes in global production networks: Insights from the Bangladesh garment industry.” Human Relations, first published online on March 26, 2018, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726718760150
- Distelhorst, G., Locke, R.M., Pal, T., & Samel, H. (2015): “Production goes global, compliance stays local: Private regulation in the global electronics industry.” Regulation & Governance, 9 (3), 224–242.
- Donaghey, J., & Reinecke, J. (2017): “When Industrial Democracy Meets Corporate Social Responsibility – A Comparison of the Bangladesh Accord and Alliance as Responses to the Rana Plaza Disaster.” British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56 (1), 14–42, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjir.12242
- Fransen, L., & Burgoon, B. (2017): “Introduction to the Special Issue: Public and Private Labor Standards Policy in the Global Economy.” Global Policy, 8 (S3), 5–14.
- Frenkel, S.J. (2001): “Globalization, athletic footwear commodity chains and employment relations in China.” Organization Studies, 22 (4), 531–562.
- Helfen, M., Schüßler, E., & Sydow, J. (2018): How can employment relations in global value networks be managed towards social responsibility? Human Relations, first Published March 26, 2018, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726718757060
- Knudsen, J.S. (2018): “Government Regulation of International Corporate Social Responsibility in the US and the UK: How Domestic Institutions Shape Mandatory and Supportive Initiatives.” British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56 (1), 164–188.
- Locke, R.M. (2013): The Promise and Limits of Private Power. Promoting Labor Standards in a Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
- Levy, D., Reinecke, J., & Manning, S. (2016): “The Political Dynamics of Sustainable Coffee: Contested Value Regimes and the Transformation of Sustainability.” Journal of Management Studies, 53, 364–401.
- Soundararajan, V., Khan, Z., & Tarba, S.Y. (2018): “Beyond brokering: Sourcing agents, boundary work and working conditions in global supply chains.” Human Relations, 71 (4), 481–509.