Firm Characteristics, Compliance and the Private Governance of Global Labour Standards

The impact and efficacy of private governance on international labour standards remain variables which are extremely difficult to estimate, let alone measure. The debate surrounding relevant impact factors focusses on two main areas: the study of environmental variables regarding social and economic upgrading on the one hand, and the analysis of firm-specific characteristics on the other hand. Both discourses aim at framing the success or failure of private governance initiatives in a more meaningful way. This paper aims to especially contribute to the latter debate, regarding buyer company characteristics, while also taking environmental variables into account which stem from the former debate. It will do so by observing and comparing relevant structural developments from an original, time sensitive data-set built from over 1000 encoded tracking charts of the Fair Labour Association, substituted with relevant buyer-company information on the one hand and selected economic indicators of production countries on the other hand. While the FLA data-set has its clear limitations, it nonetheless paints an interesting picture of compliance structures and the impact of private governance codes over an aggregate of factories and countries. Focussing on the Apparel, Sports- and Footwear industry, this article structures implicated impacts of the FLA data by company characteristics, while also controlling for economic indicators of the production countries. Central questions I focus on are therefore: Which are the main structural components of compliance regarding corporate characteristics shown by the FLA data, and are they conclusive with previous findings? Is there evidence indicating that certain types of company characteristics, such as value chain structures or brand recognition, are indeed decisive for the improvement of labour standards? Can we make out indications of country-of-origin effects? And finally, are there institutional environments conducive or obstructive to these effects?