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Jun 28, 2024
Nora Aboushady, Tilman Altenburg, Inga Carry, Jann Lay, Melanie Müller, Mark Schrolle, Frauke Steglich, Lea Strack, Tevin Tafese, Rainer Thiele
The European supply chain law is coming after all – What can we make of the compromise?
In December 2023, the EU Member States and the European Parliament agreed on a directive on corporate accountability along global supply chains – the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) (henceforth: CS3D trilogue agreement). Adoption by the EU Council on 9 February 2024 was considered a formality. However, Germany's veto threatened to derail the directive in the final phase and led to re-negotiations resulting in a new version published on 15 March 2024 and formally ...
Jun 24, 2024
Julia Cajal-Grossi, Davide Del Prete, and Rocco Macchiavello
Supply chain disruptions and sourcing strategies
Supply chain disruptions have recently been at the center of both academic and policy debates. After reviewing some of the emerging literature on supply chain disruptions, we discuss the role of buyers' sourcing strategies in mediating responses to such shocks. We focus on two dimensions of a buyer's sourcing strategy: relationality (the extent to which the buyer concentrates its sourcing in a few core suppliers) and just-in-time. On the one hand, theoretical models of sourcing suggest...
Jun 7, 2024
Sarosh Kuruvilla, Jason Judd
Measuring Supply Chain Due Diligence: Labor Outcomes Metrics
In due diligence and accountability regimes, how will regulators and lead firms themselves know who is harming workers or running big risks for the environment? And, how will the rest of us— business partners, (including upstream suppliers), workers and their unions, investors and researchers—know which lead firms and which practices are failing and which ones are delivering good outcomes? We present here our quantitative metrics that measure labor outcomes—actual impacts for workers
Mar 15, 2024
Rachael Diprose, Nanang Kurniawan, Kate Macdonald, Poppy Winanti
Regulating sustainable minerals in electronics supply chains: local power struggles and the ‘hidden costs’ of global tin supply chain governance
Voluntary supply chain regulation has proliferated in recent decades in response to concerns about the social and environmental impacts of global production and trade. Yet the capacity of supply chain regulation to influence production practices on the ground has been persistently questioned. Through empirical analysis of transnational regulatory interventions in the Indonesian tin sector — centered on a multi-stakeholder Tin Working Group established by prominent global electronics brands —...
Mar 15, 2024
Jörg H. Grimm, Joerg Hofstetter, Joseph Sarkis
Corporate sustainability standards in multi-tier supply chains – an institutional entrepreneurship perspective
This study extends research on buyer firm roles in improving supplier sustainability practices by considering institutions – norms and rules – in the organisational field in which suppliers and sub-suppliers operate, exerting pressures on these actors to align their respectivepractices. We introducethe resource-based view to arrive at a framework outlining key capabilities for institutional entrepreneurs that seek institutionalisation of corporate sustainability standards (CSS) as a new inst...
Mar 11, 2024
Philipp Herkenhoff, Sebastian Krautheim, Finn Ole Semrau, and Frauke Steglich
Corporate Social Responsibility along the global value chain
Locating substantial parts of the production process in developing and emerging economies, many firms face an increasing demand by stakeholders for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) along their value chains. Contractual incompleteness between firms and their suppliers at different stages of production can exacerbate the ability to meet these demands. We analyze a model of sequential production with incomplete contracts where CSR by independent suppliers differentiates the final product in th...
Mar 7, 2024
Angela Heucher, Judith Ihl, Michèle Kiefer, Marcus Kaplan, Steffen Schmok, Kathrin Wolf
The Promotion of Sustainable Supply Chains Through German Development Cooperation Based on the Example of the Textile Sector
German development cooperation is pursuing the objective of reducing negative social and environmental effects in global (textile) supply chains and thus, in the long term, contributing to designing them more sustainably. This evaluation examines, in particular, the interaction between various development cooperation instruments and measures to promote sustainable global supply chains in the textile sector.
Mar 4, 2024
Johannes Jäger, Ewa Dziwok (Eds.)
Understanding Green Finance: A Critical Assessment and Alternative Perspectives
Exploring how green finance has become a key strategy for the financial industry in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis, this timely book critically assesses the current dominant forms of neoliberal green finance. Understanding Green Finance delivers a pioneering analysis of the topic, covering the essential tenets of green finance with an emphasis on critical approaches to mainstream views and presenting alternatives insights and perspectives. This prescient book first introduces the co...
Mar 4, 2024
Johannes Jäger, Gonzalo Duran, Lukas Schmidt
Expected economic effects of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)
This study assesses the possible economic impacts of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (EU CSDDD). On the theoretical level, perspectives from neoclassical economics are combined with the value chain approach, and with the power resources perspective. Empirically, this study provides a brief overview of economic development, international trade, and human rights with a focus on the Global South. Based on a deductive methodology, comparative-static and dynamic analyses ...
Feb 12, 2024
Jann Lay, Tilman Altenburg, Melanie Müller, Tevin Tafese, Rainer Thiele, Frauke Steglich
Europäische Lieferkettenregulierung nicht aufhalten! Sie ist ein wichtiger Schritt für eine bessere Globalisierung
Im Dezember hatten sich die EU-Staaten und das Europäische Parlament auf eine Richtlinie für Lieferketten – die Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) – geeinigt. Die Zustimmung des Rates am 9. Februar galt als Formsache. Doch nun droht das Veto Deutschlands die Richtlinie auf den letzten Metern zu Fall zu bringen. Eine europäische Lieferkettenregulierung allein kann die Probleme niedriger Löhne, schlechter Arbeitsbedingungen und massiver Umweltschäden in vielen Lä...
Jan 19, 2024
Mike Morris
Chinese Firms and Adherence to Global Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Standards in Developing Countries: Is there Potential to Create Common Ground?
This paper focuses on analysing how Chinese firms operate in Latin America, Asia and Africa in regard to ESG (environmental, social and governance) standards and sustainability issues. How do they respond to the increasing global value chain requirement to incorporate and maintain ESG standards? Is their space for an alignment between Western development cooperation ESG policies, frameworks, strategies and practices and Chinese political and economic stakeholders in the developing world? The pap...
Jul 2, 2023
Almut Schilling Vacaflor & Andrea Lenschow
Hardening foreign corporate accountability through mandatory due diligence in the European Union? New trends and persisting challenges
The negative externalities of global commodity chains and existing governance gaps have received wide scholarly attention. Indeed, many sectors including forest-risk commodities (FRCs) like soy and beef from Brazil remain largely unregulated. This article analyzes ongoing policy-making processes at European Union level to adopt new regulations for reducing accountability gaps: one regulation of FRCs and one general, cross-sectoral directive on human rights and environmental due diligence. This a...
May 3, 2023
Markus Krajewski & Gabriel Felbermayr
Debate: “Do due diligence laws improve the rights of workers in production countries?”
Markus Krajewski is University Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and holds the Chair in Public Law and Public International Law. Prof. Krajewski is one of the programme directors of the MA in Human Rights and chairperson of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN). He also chairs the Board of Trustees of the German Institute for Human Rights and is Secretary-General of the German Branch of the International Law Association. Gabriel Felb...
Jan 1, 2023
Melanie Müller, Christina Saulich, Meike Schulze, and Svenja Schöneich
From Competition to a Sustainable Raw Materials Diplomacy
German and European businesses are highly dependent on metals. Demand for these raw materials is expected to grow even further as they will be needed for the green energy and electric mobility transition, digitalisation and other emerging technologies. Geopolitical developments influence security of supply. China’s central role in mineral supply chains is a major factor of uncertainty in this context. The European Union has set ambitious sustainability targets. Implementing these in ...
Dec 30, 2022
Sustainable Global Supply Chains Report 2022
Global Supply Chains (GSCs) have become a key feature of globalisation. Production processes are increasingly broken down into specific tasks and organised across national borders. They are organised and governed by “lead firms” that set many of the standards according to which other firms in the chain operate. About half of all global trade is nowadays organised in GSCs. GSCs have manifold effects on economic, social and environmental sustainability. Changes in the configuration of GSCs –...
Nov 19, 2022
Ari Van Assche, Rajneesh Narula
Internalization strikes back? Global value chains, and the rising costs of efective cascading compliance
Strategies that make quasi-internalization feasible such as cascading compliance provide a means for lead firms to control the social and environmental conditions among their suppliers and sub-suppliers in ways other than through equity ownership. We take an internalization theory lens to reflect on the effectiveness of cascading compliance as a governance mechanism to promote sustainability along global value chains. While cascading compliance provides significant economic benefits to the lead ...
Sep 15, 2022
Luc Fransen, Ans Kolk, and Miguel Rivera-Santos
The multiplicity of international corporate social responsibility standards
This paper aims to examine the multiplicity of corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards, explaining its nature, dynamics and implications for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and international business (IB), especially in the context of CSR and global value chain (GVC) governance. This analysis’ more nuanced approach to CSR standard multiplicity helps distinguish the different categories of standards; uncovers the existence of different types of standard multiplicity; and highlights com...
Sep 15, 2022
Merel Serdijn, Ans Kolk, Luc Fransen
Uncovering missing links in global value chain research – and implications for corporate social responsibility and international business
Amidst burgeoning attention for global value chains (GVCs) in international business (IB), this paper aims to identify a clear “missing link” in this literature and discusses implications for research and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy-making and implementation. Because IB GVC research stems from a focus on lead firms and their producing suppliers, it lacks attention for intermediary actors that may significantly impact the organization of production in general, and firms’ CS...
Jun 28, 2022
Bettina Rudloff
Sustainable international value chains: The EU’s new due diligence approach as part of a policy mix
A new family of regulatory approaches affecting international value chains has been initiated recently, mainly by developed countries, the Due Diligence Laws (DDLs). These new approaches are an addition to already existing (and partially) older trade measures that have already been adapted in the past to better incorporate sustainability goals. However, adding the DDLs on top of already existing other measures begs the question how all these measures fit together, how they interact and which are...
Mar 25, 2022
Janina Grabs, Federico Cammelli, Sam Levy, and Rachael Garrett
How to find synergies between effectiveness and equity when designing supply chain sustainability policies
Companies with global supply chains are under growing pressure to ensure that their activities and sourcing patterns abroad do not contribute to environmental degradation and human rights abuses. In response, many businesses create supply chain sustainability policies. Such company-internal schemes, such as supplier codes of conduct or internal guidelines, specify companies’ commitments and expected supplier practices. These policies are then passed down through multiple tiers of the supply ch...
Mar 7, 2022
Stefano Ponte
Who Gains and who pays the costs of environmental sustainability in global value chains?
The mainstreaming of sustainability management in business is providing new avenues of value creation, capture and (re)distribution, and new opportunities to transfer the costs of environmental compliance along Global Value Chains (GVCs). Suppliers, workers, and farmers – often based in the Global South – create new value through environmental improvements, which are showcased by lead firms to consumers, governments, and the general public. What remains hidden are the additional costs to cre...
Feb 2, 2022
Kristoffer Marslev,Cornelia Staritz,and Gale Raj-Reichert
Rethinking Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains: Worker Power, State‒Labour Relations and Intersectionality
This article builds on critiques of the concept of social upgrading in global value chain (GVC) research, which problematize its coupling to lead firm strategies and economic upgrading by supplier firms, by reconceptualizing social upgrading through the lens of worker power. It argues that a better understanding of the causal processes of social upgrading can be obtained by integrating insights from labour geography, which situates worker agency at the intersection of a ‘vertical’ dimension ...
Jan 25, 2022
GALE RAJ-REICHERT, CORNELIA STARITZ and LEONHARD PLANK
Conceptualizing the Regulator-Buyer State in the European Union for the Exercise of Socially Responsible Public Procurement in Global Production Networks
Labour rights violations and poor working conditions are rife in global production networks (GPNs). Until now research on labour governance in GPNs has been dominated by private measures. We ignite discussions on the role of the state in governing labour conditions in GPNs by focusing on a less well-known public governance instrument – socially responsible public procurement (SRPP). SRPP is the inclusion of social criteria on working conditions in public procurement contracts. Revised European...
Jan 12, 2022
Philipp Herkenhoff, Sebastian Krautheim, Finn Ole Semrau, and Frauke Steglich
Corporate Social Responsibility along the Global Value Chain
Firms are under increasing pressure to meet stakeholders’ demand for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) along their global value chains. We study the incentives for and investments in CSR at different stages of the production process. We analyze a model of sequential production with incomplete contracts where CSR by independent suppliers differentiates the final product in the eyes of caring consumers. The model predicts an increasing CSR profile for suppliers along the value chain: from up...
Jan 1, 2022
Hannes Grohs, Jan Grumiller, Werner Raza
Resilience in Sustainable Global Supply Chains: Evidence and Policy Recommendations
The COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns and export restrictions highlighted the vulnerability of global trade and global value chains (GVCs). What is more, many commentators argue that the likelihood of exogenous shocks that threaten international trade and GVCs, such as natural disasters, pandemics, or political conflicts will increase in the future. In light of the new global context and due to the experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is increasingly acknowledged in the scientific comm...
Jan 1, 2022
Melanie Müller, Christina Saulich, Meike Schulze
Public-Private Alliances for Sustainable Commodity Supply Chains
The promotion of public-private cooperation in resource-rich countries of the Global South can serve as a flanking measure that strengthens the impact of supply chain laws. The case of the South African mining sector in its struggle against Covid-19 shows that close cooperation between companies, the state and private organisations can, under certain conditions, increase the sustainability of transnational supply chains. Nevertheless, these types of alliances carry the risk of negative cascading...
Oct 13, 2021
Due diligence regulations in supply chains
Many European countries have passed due diligence laws. They are supposed to tackle human rights violations - like child labour, or poor working conditions - along the entire supply chain. The European Union is also working on such a law which will also focus on environmental risks in supply chains. But the new legislation also carries risks. This is what we want to highlight in this episode. We want to focus on the agricultural sector and specifically on smallholder farmers which present par...
Sep 1, 2021
Janina Grabs, Federico Cammelli, Samuel A. Levy, Rachael D. Garrett
Designing effective and equitable zero-deforestation supply chain policies
In response to the clearing of tropical forests for agricultural expansion, agri-food companies have adopted promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains in the form of ‘zero-deforestation commitments’ (ZDCs). While there is growing evidence about the environmental effectiveness of these commitments (i.e., whether they meet their conservation goals), there is little information on how they influence producers’ opportunity to access sustainable markets and related livelihood...
Aug 5, 2021
Matthew Alford, Margareet Visser, Stephanie Barrientos
Southern actors and the governance of labour standards in global production networks: The case of South African fruit and wine
Recent studies highlight the emergence of standards, including multi-stakeholder initiatives developed and applied within the global South where supplier firms are usually based. This trend has created a complex ethical terrain whereby transnational standards flow through global production networks and intersect with domestic initiatives at places of production. The paper complements global production network analysis with the concepts of ‘space of flows’ and ‘space of places’ and insigh...
Jul 15, 2021
Sophie Hatte, Pamina Koenig
The Geography of NGO Activism against Multinational Corporations
To what extent do Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) monitor global value chains? While NGOs regularly denounce the behavior of multinational corporations throughout the world, their motivations for choosing campaign targets remain largely unknown. Using a new dataset on activists’ campaigns toward multinational firms, we estimate a triadic gravity equation for campaigns, involving the NGO, firm, and action countries. Our results point to a strong proximity bias in NGO activity: Distance, n...
Jun 25, 2021
Bettina Rudloff
Supply chain legislation: “The EU’s general principle is to support, not to punish
May 1, 2021
Joseph Sarkis
Mandating Sustainable Governance of the Supply Chain – Complementing Old Carrots with New Sticks?
In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, supply chain challenges have received renewed attention and have become a major concern from both resilience (Golan et al., 2020) and sustainability (Sarkis, 2021) perspectives. For example – based on its Green Deal – the European Union (EU) is considering the circular economy as a tool for Post-COVID recovery, which in turn requires closed-loop supply chains to be effective. In the United States (US), the Biden Administration has issued an executive order...
Feb 11, 2021
Tilman Altenburg and Gary Gereffi
The biggest risks for supply chains
In our first podcast episode we talked to Professor Gary Gereffi and Dr. Tilman Altenburg. Professor Gary Gereffi is the godfather of global value chains. In Durham, North Carolina he is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Global Value Chains Center at Duke University. Tilman Altenburg is the head of the programme Transformation of Economic and Social Systems at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (IDOS). Host of the first episode...
Jan 1, 2021
Julia Schwarzkopf, Klaus Fischer, Martin Müller
Success factors of voluntary sustainable supply chain management sector initiatives
Sustainability can create greater efficiency and cost savings in the supply chain. Supply chains, which are more complex and global than ever before, are full of both risks and opportunities. The risks range from inconsistent or poor quality to supply disruptions to health and safety concerns to corruption. Businesses face pressure to adopt sustainable supply chain practices from various stakeholders and motivations typically come from one or more of four sources: customers, compliance, costs, c...
Jan 1, 2021
Almut Schilling‐Vacaflor, Andrea Lenschow
Hardening foreign corporate accountability through mandatory due diligence in the European Union? New trends and persisting challenges
The negative externalities of global commodity chains and existing governance gaps have received wide scholarly attention. Indeed, many sectors including forest-risk commodities (FRCs) like soy and beef from Brazil remain largely unregulated. This article analyzes ongoing policy-making processes at European Union level to adopt new regulations for reducing accountability gaps: one regulation of FRCs and one general, cross-sectoral directive on human rights and environmental due diligence. This a...
Jan 1, 2021
Günther Maihold, Melanie Müller, Christina Saulich, and Svenja Schöneich
Responsibility in Supply Chains – Germany’s Due Diligence Act Is a Good Start
On 3 March, the Federal Cabinet adopted an act on corporate due diligence in supply chains. This represents an important step towards German businesses assuming full and proper responsibility for the supply chains associated with their goods and services. The move puts Germany in a group of European countries like France and the Netherlands that have already instituted legal frameworks of their own. However, by choosing to exclude civil liability the German government has left aside a powerful t...
Jan 1, 2021
Laura Boudreau, Julia Cajal-Grossi, and Rocco Macchiavello
Global Value Chains in Developing Countries: A Relational Perspective from Coffee and Garments
There is a consensus that global value chains have aided developing countries' growth. This essay highlights the governance complexities arising from participating in such chains, drawing from lessons we have learned conducting research in the coffee and garment supply chains. Market power of international buyers can lead to inefficiently low wages, prices, quality standards, and poor working conditions. At the same time, some degree of market power might be needed to sustain long-term supp...
Jan 1, 2020
Krishnan, A and Maxwell, S
Counting carbon in global trade Why imported emissions challenge the climate regime and what might be done about it
The foundations of the climate regime are under threat, with significant implications for developing countries. This report identifies two main threats to the climate regime. The first is the growing importance of emissions traded across national borders, currently accounting for up to 38% of global emissions, with developed countries being net importers and emerging economies mostly net exporters. The second is the increasing focus on action to reduce the carbon intensity of trade, including, ...
Jan 1, 2020
Weiß, Daniel, Garcia Bibiana
Respect for Human Rights in Global Value Chains: Risks and Opportunities for German Industries.
The German Federal Government adopted the National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights (NAP) in 2016. This plan lays down German companies’ responsibility to respect human rights. In addition, it provides for a bundle of measures to assist companies with implementing and organising their due diligence with regard to human rights. The study “Respect for Human Rights in Global Value Chains. Risks and Opportunities for German Industries” is one of these measures. It analyses human rig...
Jan 1, 2020
Lenis Saweda O. Liverpool-Tasie, Ayala Wineman, Sarah Young, Justice Tambo, Carolina Vargas, Thomas Reardon, Guigonan Serge Adjognon, Jaron Porciello, Nasra Gathoni, Livia Bizikova, Alessandra Galiè & Ashley Celestin
A scoping review of market links between value chain actors and small-scale producers in developing regions
Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to end hunger, achieve food and nutrition security and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030. This requires that small-scale producers be included in, and benefit from, the rapid growth and transformation under way in food systems. Small-scale producers interact with various actors when they link with markets, including product traders, logistics firms, processors and retailers. The literature has explored primarily how large firms interact with farmers thro...
Jan 1, 2020
Janpeter Schilling; Almut Schilling-Vacaflor, Riccarda Flemmer, Rebecca Froese
A political ecology perspective on resource extraction and human security in Kenya, Bolivia and Peru
This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimensions of human security in local sites of extraction. We show how the analysis of human security can be embedded in a multi-scalar political ecology perspective to combine the strong suits of both approaches: a detailed, multi-dimensional assessment of impacts on the local scale with a critical transformative view on the interplay of power asymmetries mediating the distribution of costs and benefits ...
Jan 1, 2020
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor
Putting the French Duty of Vigilance Law in Context: Towards Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations in the Global South?
The adoption of the French Duty of Vigilance law has been celebrated as a milestone for advancing the transnational business and human rights regime. The law can contribute to harden corporate accountability by challenging the “separation principle” of transnational companies and by obligating companies to report on their duty of vigilance. However, the question of whether the law actually contributes to human rights and environmental protection along global supply chains requires empiricall...
Jan 1, 2020
Mark Alan Heuer, Usman Khalid, Stefan Seuring
Bottoms up: Delivering sustainable value in the base of the pyramid
Despite a wealth of expertise involving leading institutions over at least 15 years, a base of the pyramid (BoP) model resulting in scalability has yet to emerge. We posit that institutional gaps between BoP goals of developing human and social capital on one hand and a short-term profit focus of business on the other contribute to the lack of scalability. We address this gap by proposing a social intermediary to link the BoP with firms involved in the BoP. The social intermediary will coordinat...
Jan 1, 2020
Iain J. Fraser, Martin Müller, Julia Schwarzkopf
Transparency for Multi-Tier Sustainable Supply Chain Management: A Case Study of a Multi-tier Transparency Approach for SSCM in the Automotive Industry
Sustainability in supply chain management (SSCM) has become established in both academia and increasingly in practice. As stakeholders continue to require focal companies (FCs) to take more responsibility for their entire supply chains (SCs), this has led to the development of multi-tier SSCM (MT-SSCM). Much extant research has focused on simple supply chains from certain industries. Recently, a comprehensive traceability for sustainability (TfS) framework has been proposed, which outlines how c...
Jan 1, 2020
Markus Krajewski
A Nightmare or a Noble Dream? Establishing Investor Obligations Through Treaty-Making and Treaty-Application
This article assesses different approaches currently discussed and developed in international human rights and investment law to establish investor obligations. The article begins with a general framework of analysing and comparing these approaches. Next, attempts to include direct obligations of business entities in international human rights treaties are discussed. Despite earlier indications the recent initiative to create a legally binding instrument on business and human rights will most li...
Jan 1, 2020
Iain J. Fraser, Julia Schwarzkopf, Martin Müller
Exploring Supplier Sustainability Audit Standards: Potential for and Barriers to Standardization
Global focal companies are increasingly required and expected to monitor the sustainability risks and activities in their supply chains, which has resulted in increasing supplier sustainability audit activity and growth in the number of sustainability initiatives/associations. While common, shared audit standards were originally conceived to reduce audit fatigue; with overlapping and converging supply chains there could be a need for cross-recognition or standardisation of supplier audit standar...
Jan 1, 2020
Anthony Goerzen, Ari Van Assche
Global value Chain Governance: A Multinational Enterprise Capabilities View
The drivers of economic globalization are leading many firms to disaggregate and redistribute their operations by outsourcing and offshoring. The result of the process is to create global value chains (GVCs) that are a collection of loosely affiliated, spatially distributed firms engaged in bringing products from raw materials to end use. A key insight from previous research is that GVCs are typically orchestrated by multinational enterprises (MNEs) given their control over key markets or critic...
Jan 1, 2019
Stefano Ponte, Gary Gereffi, Gale Raj-Reichert (ed.)
Handbook on Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVCs) are a key feature of the global economy in the 21st century. They show how international investment and trade create cross-border production networks that link countries, firms and workers around the globe. This Handbook describes how GVCs arise and vary across industries and countries, and how they have evolved over time in response to economic and political forces. With chapters written by leading interdisciplinary scholars, the Handbook unpacks the key concepts of G...
Jan 1, 2019
World Bank
World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production close...
Jan 1, 2019
Lone Riisgaard, Peter Lund-Thomsen, and Neil M. Coe
Multistakeholder initiatives in global production networks: naturalizing specific understandings of sustainability through the Better Cotton Initiative
In recent years, various academics, consultants, companies and NGOs have advocated a move towards more cooperative approaches to private sustainability standards to address the widely identified shortcomings of the compliance paradigm. However, is it possible to address these limitations by moving towards stakeholder inclusion and capacity building while at the same time catering to the demands of lead firms supplying the mainstream market? In this article, we analyse how the Better Cotton Initi...
Jan 1, 2019
Pamina Koenig, Sandra Poncet
Social responsibility scandals and trade
This paper studies the effect of social responsibility scandals on the imports of consumer products, by focusing on an event which generated massive consumer mobilization against neglecting firms, namely the collapse of the Rana Plaza building affecting the textile industry in Bangladesh. We investigate the import repercussions of this major shock in the perceived quality of clothing producers sourcing in Bangladesh. In line with the well-documented home bias in trade and home-country media slan...
Jan 1, 2019
Pamina Koenig and Sandra Poncet
Reputation and (un)fair trade: Effects on French importers from the Rana Plaza collapse
This paper analyzes the effects of a major reputational shock affecting textile importers fromBangladesh. The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in April 2013 generated a surge of activismand media coverage specifically targeting the firms that sourced from the factories affected bythe disaster. Using monthly firm-level import data from French Customs, we ask whether therewas any disruption in these firms’ imports from all origins, and specifically from Bangladesh.We use a difference-in-diffe...
Jan 1, 2019
Stephanie Barrientos, Lara Bianchi, and Cindy Berman
Gender and governance of global value chains: Promoting the rights of women workers
Private governance channelled through social compliance programmes and gender initiatives of multinational companies have had limited impact in tackling gender discrimination in global value chains (GVCs). The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) provide a public–private governance framework to address human rights globally, including gender equality. This article considers whether the UNGPs can provide a more effective governance framework for addressing wome...
Jan 1, 2019
Mahwish J Khan, Stefano Ponte, Peter Lund-Thomsen
The ‘factory manager dilemma’: Purchasing practices and environmental upgrading in apparel global value chains
Economic and environmental upgrading in global value chains are intertwined processes. The existing global value chain literature has so far articulated the relationships between economic and social upgrading but has only recently started to explore the challenges of environmental upgrading from the perspective of suppliers in the Global South. In this article, we examine the ‘factory manager dilemma’ as a way of conceptualizing the purchasing practices and environmental upgrading requiremen...
Jan 1, 2018
Michael Brüntrup, Fabian Schwarz, Thomas Absmayr, Jonas Dylla, Franziska Eckhard, Kerstin Remke, and Konrad Sternisko
Nucleus-outgrower schemes as an alternative to traditional smallholder agriculture in Tanzania – strengths, weaknesses and policy requirements
The public debate about the right type of agriculture for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) often constructs a dichotomy between smallholders and large-scale agriculture. This over-simplification ignores some important intermediary forms for organising agriculture, including nucleus-outgrower schemes (NOSs). NOSs promise to combine the benefits of both while potentially reducing, though not avoiding, (part of) their drawbacks. This article analyses the conditions under which NOSs are feasible and benefic...
Jan 1, 2018
Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Adnan Seric
Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Supply Chains: Deeds Not Words
The disconnect between the lofty aspirations of firms claiming Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and their shortcomings in practice have caused some observers to question its usefulness. The fallout from events like the Rana Plaza catastrophe has highlighted some of these shortcomings—namely, deficiencies in how multinational enterprises (MNEs) transact with suppliers in developing countries. Specifically, our paper aims to investigate whether or not MNEs behave hypocritically by examining...
Jan 1, 2018
Markus Krajewski
State duty to protect and corporate responsibility for human rights in global supply chains
The responsibility of transnational corporations for human rights violations in global supply chains continue to be of public interest: Fires in textile factories in Pakistan, environmental destructions due to oil production or worst forms of child labour in mines which produce minerals for electronic goods are just a few examples. Even if companies are not formally bound to internationally binding human rights according to current legal doctrine, a number of legal and political instruments emer...
Jan 1, 2018
Philipp Herkenhoff, Sebastian Krautheim
The International Organization of Production in the Regulatory Void
In recent decades, a large and increasing number of leading firms in a diverse set of industries have faced allegations of ‘unethical’ practices along their international value chains. In many cases this has triggered consumer boycotts and NGO campaigns, introducing a new link between upstream (un)ethical choices and downstream consumer demand. Does this feedback effect shape the international organization of production, as casual observation of NGO campaigns seems to suggest? In an explorat...
Jan 1, 2017
Melanie Müller
Deutsche Kupferimporte: Menschenrechtsverletzungen, Unternehmensverantwortung und Transparenz entlang der Lieferkette
Die vorliegende Studie untersucht, wie deutsche Unternehmen im Kupferbereich über die Herkunft ihrer Rohstoffe sowie über ihre Menschenrechtsstandards berichten. Die Studie geht dabei in fünf Schritten vor: Das erste Kapitel führt in die Thematik der Unternehmensverantwortung in globalen Lieferketten ein. Es beschreibt die Grundzüge der UN-Leitprinzipien für Wirtschaft- und Menschenrechte, geht auf die Umsetzung durch die deutsche Bundesregierung ein und stellt zudem weitere Initiativen ...
Jan 1, 2017
Matthew Alford, Stephanie Barrientos, Margareet Visser
Multi-scalar Labour Agency in Global Production Networks: Contestation and Crisis in the South African Fruit Sector
Integration into global production networks poses significant challenges, and also opens up opportunities, for labour agency. Governance by lead firms affects working conditions and can drive precarious employment; this interacts with and can constrain national labour legislation covering labour rights. The global production networks (GPN) approach facilitates examination of commercial value chains, their interaction with institutionally and societally embedded labour markets, and potential leve...
Jan 1, 2016
Sebastian Krautheim, Thierry Verdier
Offshoring with endogenous NGO activism
The process of globalization is characterized by an impressive growth of global value chains, as well as the proliferation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) interacting with multinational firms. This paper presents a model of offshoring and NGO–firm interactions in which offshoring to a low-regulation country allows a monopolist to implement a “dirty” technology undesired by consumers. Consumers can reduce the incentive for dirty production by financing an NGO monitoring the firm. N...
Jan 1, 2015
Sadaat Ali Yawar, Stefan Seuring
Management of Social Issues in Supply Chains: A Literature Review Exploring Social Issues, Actions and Performance Outcomes
The social dimension of sustainable develop- ment and its impact on supply chains have so far received less attention than the environmental dimension. The aim of the research is to explore the intersection between social issues, corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions and performance outcomes. A structured literature review of social issues in supply chains is presented, analysing the research published so far in peer-reviewed publications. Linking CSR and supply chain management allows t...
Jan 1, 2014
Jennifer Bair, Matthew C Mahutga
Power, governance and distributional skew in global value chains: Exchange theoretic and exogenous factors
The relationship between power, governance and value creation/capture is a central concern in global value chain (GVC) research. In the context of calls to develop a more expansive view of power in GVCs, we argue for retaining a focus on bargaining power, but shifting the conceptualization of bargaining power from the dyad to the network. We advance two arguments. First, we elaborate an exchange theoretic model in which skew of value capture is a function of the degree of power asymmetry inheren...
Jan 1, 2014
Daniele Giovannucci, Oliver von Hagen, Joseph Wozniak
Corporate Social Responsibility and the Role of Voluntary Sustainability Standards
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming a standard feature particularly for large and consumer-oriented firms. What started in the late 1960s as something closer to charity or philanthropy has evolved dramatically in recent years. Yet, as actualization of the CSR concept is increasingly explored and becoming better-defined, there is limited understanding of how to operationalize CSR and how to manage it for desirable results at the ground level. This gap is particularly salient in the ...
