FOR AN INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH TO CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: MAKING SENSE OF NGO CAMPAIGNS IN GLOBAL APPAREL CHAINS

Abstract

In the 1990s, increased inequalities and the continuous deterioration of working conditions in global value
chains (GVCs), especially in labor-intensive production segments such as apparel assembly, prompted the
emergence of a ‘corporate accountability movement’ made of transnational networks of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and trade unions seeking to improve work conditions at the bottom of GVCs, by
empowering workers and re-establishing the social responsibility of large profit-accumulating firms operating
at the top of these global chains (Newell, 2002; Bendel, 2004; Utting, 2005a).
The paper highlights key features of such networks’ modes of operation on the basis of case studies of two
transnational activist campaigns in the apparel industry, respectively organized around the Matamoros factory
(Mexico) in 2003 and the Hermosa manufacturing facility (El Salvador) in 2006. Three theoretical and normative ways in which these activist campaigns can be analyzed are then considered, from a market-oriented,
‘contractual’ view of governance and a seemingly milder ‘ethical’ management perspective, to an ‘institutional’ approach highlighting the role of strong counter-power, conflict and negotiation in building sustainable
forms of regulation in GVCs. The significance of transnational activists campaigns is further discussed from the
third, institutional perspective, highlighting the ways in which such campaigns seek to contribute, through a
complex and dynamic articulation between conflict and cooperation, to the emergence of new forms of regulation more protective of workers’ rights in the global economy