Governing Corporate Social Responsibility in the Apparel Industry after Rana Plaza

This edited collection critically explores the efforts of the apparel industry to improve safety conditions and suggests governance reforms that will resolve lingering issues. The volume examines two consortia: the Alliance and the Accord, which set up cooperative auditing systems of supplying factories and penalties for non-compliance, and include funding to help factories comply and for workers if factories are idled during repairs, though the editors raise doubts about the long-lasting value of such efforts.  In the wake of the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, leading researchers across labor relations and industry studies tackle and debate such issues, giving their perspective of how multinationals operating in developing countries should regulate labor standards in order to resolve and improve the substandard working conditions under which much of our clothing is made. 

Andy Hira is Professor of Political Science at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is an expert on economic competitiveness, with an emphasis on the challenges for developing countries. He is the author of What Makes Clusters Competitive? Cases from the Global Wine Industry and Mapping Out the Triple Helix: How institutional coordination is achieved in the global wine industry.