Symposium on Institutional Change and Industry Renewal

9:45-10:00

Introduction

10:00-10:30

The Hidden Costs of Cheap T-Shirts: Understanding Changes in Global Production Networks

Kamal Munir (Judge Business School, University of Cambridge), k.munir@jbs.cam.ac.uk

Recent industrial accidents in the global South have put poor working conditions in emerging market factories into sharp focus. Much of this work has identified absence of oversight and irresponsible factory owners as culprits. In this paper, we show that shop floor level work practices in emerging market factories are inextricably tied to the power relations that operate in global production networks in which these factories are embedded. Drawing on archival, interview, survey and observational data on changes occurring in Pakistani garment factories, we trace recent micro level changes in the Pakistani garment factories ­ from piece-rate work to Fordist assembly lines, and the recruitment of women at the expense of men - to the liberalization of the global textile trade regime. We show how a new production regime was directed, facilitated and legitimated by an alliance of previously overlooked global and local actors. The invoking of new economic imaginaries and a substantial shift in norms and values were prerequisite of making a cost-saving change in the organization and gendered composition of work. Our findings contribute to understanding of how liberalization affects work in emerging market factories and ultimately to the pressures that may lead to industrial accidents.

10:30-11:00

A Processual Approach to Shareholder Activism

Sarah A. Soule (Stanford Graduate School of Business), soule@stanford.edu

This paper looks at the effects of public protest on shareholder resolutions directed at public companies in the US. While many shareholder resolutions focus on issues related to corporate governance, this paper examines social shareholder resolutions, and more specifically, those focusing on environmental issues. I find that public protest directed at a company increases the likelihood that shareholders will subsequently mobilize and submit a resolution. However, this is where the effect of public protest ends; the outcome of a submitted resolution is not influenced by public protest. Instead, only characteristics of the shareholder groups filing the resolution, coupled with the firm’s own characteristics, are correlated with the outcome of resolution. These findings resonate with the processual approach to movement outcomes, which suggests that protest matters differently at different stages of a desired outcome, and with research that stresses the importance of understanding the interactive and contingent nature of activism and the characteristics of the targets of the activism.    

Alternatives to (Banking) Corporations in American Capitalism:  Revival, Economic Renewal and Community Resilience

Marc Schneiberg (Reed College), marc.schneiberg@reed.edu

Scholars of the US economy and contemporary capitalism focus, with good reason, on the centrality of financialization and the corporation. Yet in their haste to highlight central tendencies, scholars generally neglect the role that alternative, cooperative and community based enterprises play in fostering economic renewal and community resilience, even in the neoliberal era. In this presentation, I redress this neglect, highlighting the revival of alternatives to corporations across industries and periods within American capitalism, and using analyses of community bank and credit union effects on local economies in the contemporary period.

11:30-12:00

Open Discussion