The impact of corporate production systems on working conditions in global production networks

• Applicant: Dr. Patrick Feuerstein
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321673991

Working conditions for employees working for western transnational corporations have been a highly debated issue ever since the rise of global production networks. This has been especially true regarding conditions in low wage emerging economies, where wages and working conditions have often been deplorable. There is significant public policy and scientific concern for how these poor working conditions can be improved. Up to now, debate has focused primarily on private ordering and compliance issues. The idea is for large buyers to impose constraints on suppliers (private labor standards) and then audit the suppliers to ensure that they are complying, threatening to terminate the cooperation in case of non-compliance. A consensus is emerging in the scientific literature that these efforts have been only partially successful, at best. Hence, the proposed project intends to investigate an alternative and more promising way to improve working conditions in global production networks. Recent research shows that improvements in working conditions can also be achieved by fostering cooperation and closer strategic integration of suppliers and buyers via corporate production systems and lean production informed supplier governance practices. In these cases, improvements in supplier production and management, capabilities and competences also improve competence and working conditions for workers. In other words, rather than through command and control (top down) compliance measures, improvement in labor standards is achieved by integration and cooperation, through competence building and supplier upgrading. By conducting case studies in three sectors (Automobile and food industry, as well as IT enabled services) the proposed project will investigate how corporate production systems and other lean supplier governance principles impact on working conditions for employees in global production networks.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Co-Investigator: Professor Gary Herrigel, Ph.D.