Guest Lecture "Anti-sweatshop campaign images and supply chain traceability"

Dear students,

we would like to invite you to our guest lecture "Anti-sweatshop campaign images and supply chain traceability: a study of global fashion retailers", held by Chris van Staden, Professor of Accounting at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand.

The presentation will take place from 16:15 h to 17:45 h, in room F21/02.41, on Thursday, June 29, 2023.

Abstract:
In this paper we investigate the influence of image-based protests by ethical activists and anti-sweatshop activists on traceability in relation to the supply chains of global fashion retailers.  Traceability, a key part of organisational transparency, is the desire and the ability to publicly observe the entire production process, including the origin of the products, factory locations, the origins of raw materials and the conditions under which labour is used for manufacturing, and so on.  This research builds on past scholarship based largely on social movement theory within the sociology literature and on the disclosure and transparency literature within the field of accounting, by highlighting the notion of ideologically focussed social movements, espoused in Gramscian philosophy. We find that image-based protests by anti-sweatshop activists significantly influence traceability in relation to the production facilities of global fashion retailers in our sample.  Image based protests highlighting production facilities located in the worst countries for workers’ rights is the most significant. Our findings therefore show evidence of the influence of anti-sweatshop activists, using protest images, on the traceability of supply chain information.  Social movement activism and actions are therefore important influences on corporations to be socially traceable (i.e., revealing information that can be used to track and trace social issues) and play an important part to create change in corporate social transparency.

You can find the paper here(1.9 MB).

For more information about our guest lecturer, please have a look here.

We are looking forward to see all of you.