The Impact of Suppliers’ Adoption of Voluntary Labour Codes/Certifications on Job Quality in Global Supply Chains: The Sri Lankan Case of Garments without Guilt

Codes of conduct and certifications on labour standards are designed to distinguish export manufacturing suppliers offering higher quality jobs from those offering poor quality jobs. However, previous research suggests that such codes/certifications have a limited impact on job quality. These studie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBritish journal of industrial relations Vol. 58; no. 4; pp. 844 - 873
Main Authors Jayasinghe, Mevan, (Chip) Hunter, Larry W.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.12.2020
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects
Certification
Clothing industry
Codes
Codes of conduct
Compliance
Data quality
Enforcement
Exports
Guilt
Labor
Labor standards
Logistics
Quality of work
Supply
Textile industry
Voluntary
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Summary:Codes of conduct and certifications on labour standards are designed to distinguish export manufacturing suppliers offering higher quality jobs from those offering poor quality jobs. However, previous research suggests that such codes/certifications have a limited impact on job quality. These studies do not differentiate between ‘compliance‐based codes of conduct’ that retailers enforce on suppliers and ‘voluntary labour codes/certifications’ that suppliers adopt at their discretion. We examine the relationship between suppliers’ adoption of the Garments without Guilt (GwG) voluntary labour code/certification and job quality using fieldwork and longitudinal data on Sri Lankan export apparel suppliers. We find that GwG adoption is associated with higher base pay and safer work, while base pay is lower for GwG adopters that are simultaneously subject to retailers’ enforcement of compliance‐based codes.
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ISSN:0007-1080
1467-8543
DOI:10.1111/bjir.12538