Exploring suppliers’ perceptions and approaches toward codes of conduct: behind the scenes at Indian apparel export firms

ABSTRACT

To address labour issues with apparel suppliers, many multinational enterprises adopted codes of conduct (CoC) policies. However, lack of contextualisation in CoC implementation has challenged their effectiveness. This study explored how apparel export firms perceive, and implement CoCs within the Indian apparel industry. Fifteen semi-structured in-depth interviews of factory managers were conducted. The frameworks of divergent and convergent thinking that represented human response to a problem, and the top-down and bottom-up policy approaches toward CoC implementation were used. Six themes surfaced from the analysis. Respondents with convergent thinking viewed CoC as a rulebook given to them by the executives or government to achieve minimum standard goals, while divergent thinkers perceived CoC as a growth plan set by multiple stakeholders, focused on improving labour standards and worker benefits. Findings of this study demonstrate how CoC implementation approaches vary depending on the psychological orientation of company management.

KEYWORDS:

• Code of conduct
• divergent thinking
• convergent thinking
• monitoring
• enforcement
• transparency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Jung Ha-Brookshire http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2639-3709