‘Beyond Auditing’, Financial Crisis and Competitiveness
Challenges: Remaking Global Governance Standards/Norms
5th ESRC Seminar Series on ‘Changing Cultures of Competitiveness’, 17th April 09
Ngai-Ling SumPolitics and International Relations
Lancaster University
Outline: Six Parts
• Building on existing research on Wal-Mart
• ‘Going beyond auditing’
• Scaling Up Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR): 2 Stages
• ‘Responsible Competitiveness’ as an
Emerging Knowledge Brand
• Recontextualizing for developing countries
• Concluding remarks
I Building on Existing Research
• Wal-Mart/ASDA’s bargain model of retailing • Price-value competitiveness
– ‘Always Low Prices’– Low cost accumulation strategy
• Labour issues and Wal-Mart watching by SACOM and similar movements
• Adopting and enhancing self-regulated corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• Managerial focus on codes of conduct, factory inspection, certification, auditing, reporting, scorecards, etc.
• Foucault: a process of rarefaction
– selective thinning of major elements (e.g., CSR) +
thickening of other aspects (e.g., codes of conduct,
reports, audits, scorecards, best practices, etc.)
– Technification and managerialization of the social
• More ‘corporate audit responsibility’ than
‘corporate social responsibility’ (Sum 2009)
• Recognizing some of these problems as private
governance failure
II ‘Going Beyond Auditing’
• Corporate-consultancy-NGO talks of ‘going beyond auditing’
• For example
• ‘To help bring trade justice to workers’ (ETI Training Programme 2005)
• ‘Identifying the root causes of non-compliance’ (Ethical Trading Action Group 2006)
III Scaling Up CSR in 2 Stages
• Towards ‘responsible competitiveness’
• 2 overlapping stages
• 2001-9: the rise of responsible
competitiveness
• 2007-9: consolidation and extension
First Stage: 2001-9
• Nodal actors in discursive network of networks– Simon Zadek + AccountAbility
– Harvard Kennedy School of Government + John Ruggie + Global Compact
– Research institutes, corporate organizations, labour organizations, NGOs, etc.
• Producing discourses & knowledging apparat-uses around ‘responsible competitiveness’– Chaining ‘corporate social responsibility’ with
‘competitiveness’ at corporate and national levels
‘Responsible Competitiveness’
• Corporate level ‘Responsible competitiveness’ stands for
markets that reward business practices that deliver improved social, environmental and economic outcomes
• Country level ‘Responsible competitiveness’ means economic
success for nations that encourage such business practices through public policies, societal norms and citizen actions.
[AccountAbility http://www.accountability21.net/default2.aspx?id=982]
Corporate social responsibility
Competitiveness of nations
‘Responsible Competitiveness’
Source: Zadek 2003
“Responsible competitiveness is about making sustainable development count in global markets. It means markets that reward business practices that deliver improved social, environmental and economic outcomes; and it means economic success for nations that encourage such business practices through public policies, societal norms and citizen actions”. (Zadek & MacGillivray, 2007)
Stage 1 Rise of a New Knowledge Brand of ‘Responsible Competitiveness’: 2001-2007
Major Actors and Institutions
Characteristics Discourses/Knowledging Apparatuses
Dr. Simon Zadek
‘One of the leading big-picture global thinkers’, ‘Citizen Zadek’, ‘Madonna of CSR’
Set up AccountAbility and ETICEO of AccountAbilityInvolved in the building of the UN Social CompactSenior Fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School – CSR Initiative (2004)MFA Forum convenorILO’s World Commission on Social Dimension of Globalization
Books and reports
Civil Corporation (2001)
The Logic of Collaborative Governance (2006) CSRI No. 17
Governing Collaborative Governance (2006) CSRI No. 23
AccountAbility
Promoting Accountability for Sustainable Development
+ Responsible Competitiveness Consortium
Established in 1996Not-for-profit organizationGlobal think tank
Reports, journals + indexCorporate Responsibility and the Competitive Advantage of Nations (2002)
Responsible Competitiveness: Corporate Responsibility of Clusters in Action (2003)
The State of Responsible Competitiveness Report (2007)
The Responsible Competitiveness Index (2003)
Accountability Forum (journal)
AA 1000 Standard and Series (2008)
MFA Forum
Established in 2004Not-for-profit organizationA collaboration of brands and retailers, trade unions, NGOs and multi-lateral institutions in the textile and garment sector after the MFA
Building Success: Indicators of ProgressPurchasing Practices Research
search MFA Forum • home | • about MFA Forum | • participants | • publications and research | • contact us |
MFA Forum in Brief
The MFA Forum is a not-for-profit, participation-based open network established in early 2004 to address key concerns that were predicted with the end of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement.
The Forum works as a collaboration of brands and retailers, trade unions, NGOs and multi-lateral institutions in the textile and garment sector. It aims to improve sustainability while promoting social responsibility and competitiveness in national garment industries that are vulnerable in the post-MFA trading environment.
Major Actors and Institutions
Characteristics Discourses/Knowledging Apparatuses
Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative
Ruggie, Zabek and others Research reports (e.g., Building Linkages for Competitive and Responsible Entrepreneurship 2007 with UNIDO)
Training on CSR
Prof. John Ruggie Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs in Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Faculty Chair of the HKS’s CSR Initiative
Assistant Secretary-General and Chief Advisor for strategic planning to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan (1997-2001)
Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on busi-ness & human rights (2005-)
Founder of the UN Global Compact and the 10 Principles
Constructivist theory in international relations (Ruggie 1982, 1983)
International norms shape/create actions
Norms are productive (not constraining)Norms-changing and learning strategies are the core in search of the common good
Norms-mediated regulation (soft law) of business community
Global governance and Global Compact (Ruggie 2002, 2003)
UN Global Compact
Learning Forum in Brazil 2003
Global Policy Dialogue
Leaders Summit 2007
ISO
Index, reports and standard
Launching of the Responsible Competitiveness Index
Collaborative efforts of public institutions, business and civil society
State of Responsible Competitiveness Report
ISO 26000 standard on Social Responsibility (2008)
Five core UN organizat-ions in Global Compact
UNIDO
UNEP
UNDP
ILO/IFC
Commission on Human Rights
Aligning with UN’s Millennium Goals and the Global Compact especially the ’10 Principles’
Building Linkages for Competitiveness and Responsible Entrepreneurship (2007)Responsible Entrepreneur Achievement Programme 2007 (software tool)
County Carbon Competitiveness Index
Launching CSR project in development countries
Better Work 2006
Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations 2003
Greenleaf Publishing CSR publications
‘Sustainability, Responsibility and Accountability’
Journals and Books
JournalsJournal of Corporate CitizenshipAccountAbility Forum
BooksTomorrow’s History (2004)Learning to Talk (2004)Rising the Bar (2004)Putting Partnership to Work (2004)
Stage 2 2007-9: Financial crisis and competitiveness challenges
• Challenges of the crisis upon corporations and nations
• The intensification of the discourse on ‘responsible competitiveness’
• Moving onto stage 2 – wider discursive resonance and chaining as well as suturing
• Mediated and recontextualized by Obama, Saudi Arabia’s Global Competitiveness
Forum, UNEP, banking communities, etc.
– Obama – ‘Hold Corporations Responsible’ (2008) + middle east dialogue
– Saudi Arabia emerging as another nodal point – imagined as the ‘House of
Wisdom’ and coordinating the Global Competitiveness Forum - adopting
‘responsible competitiveness’ as its central theme 2009
– UNEP’s call for ‘Green New Deal’ and ‘Green Economy Initiative’
– World Economic Forum in Davos – ‘Green New Deal for a Post-Crisis World’
– HSBC – responsible investment (sustainable finance)
– Wal-Mart – ‘Sustainability Summit’ in Beijing 2008
• Consolidating and resonating among transnational socio-economic forces
Major Actors and Institutions
Characteristics Discourses/Knowledging Apparatuses
Saudi Arabia Investment Authority General (SAGIA) King Khalid Foundation
Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School (CSRI)
AccountAbility World Bank Institute
The Prince of Wales International
Business Leaders Forum
Tamkeen
Co-hosting a series of leadership
dialogues consisting of leading
Saudi Arabian and multinational
companies, educators, policy
makers, chambers of commerce, the
media, and global thought-leaders in
the area of corporate social
responsibility and responsible
competitiveness
Global Competitiveness Forum 2009
– ‘responsible competitiveness’ as
its central theme
Responsible Competitiveness Leadership Dialogues
Forum reports and blogs
Stage 2 in the Development of ‘Responsible Competitiveness’ Discourses and Practices 2007-9
Global Competitiveness Forum 2009
Over 100 world leaders including former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, Shinzo Abe, former prime minister of Japan; Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Nissan Motor Company; and Mary Robinson, seventh president of Ireland, will speak at this international gathering.
Other prominent speakers: Abdullah Zainal Alireza, minister of commerce & industry, Paolo Coehlo, renowned author; Timothy Shriver, chairman, Special Olympics; Thomas Enders, president and CEO of Airbus; Nandan Nilekani, executive co-chairman of Infosys; Mohammed Al-Mady, vice chairman and CEO of SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.); Thomas Russo, vice chair, Lehman Bros; and Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Eni SpA.
Amr Al-Dabbagh, governor of Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the main organizer, said the forum would be based on the theme entitled “Responsible Competitiveness,” which is essential for the world to confront future economic challenges
Selecting ‘Responsible Competitiveness’ as its central theme
Forum programme, reports + blogs
Recommendations in an open letter to G20
IV ‘Responsible Competitiveness’ as an Emerging Knowledge Brand
• Ruggie-Zadek + UN-Harvard Kennedy School-
AccountAbility + research institutes, corporate
organizations, NGOs, etc.
• Gaining greater resonance since the crisis and
recontextualizing at different sites and scales
• Emerging as a new knowledge brand
How does it function as a knowledge brand?
• Claims problem-solving competencies – ‘beyond auditing’, ‘financial crisis’
• Quality guarantee from Harvard Kennedy School
• Many technologies (theories, principles, methodologies, reports, indexes, best practices) marketed by network of UN agencies, national research institutes, think tanks, NGOs, etc.
• Popularized by journals, business press, reports, forums, blogs, etc.
• Circulated by idea entrepreneurs from think tanks, trade bodies, financial institutes, etc.
• Appeals to fear/anxieties of crisis and restructuring
Knowledge brands can be defined as sets of
hegemonic meaning-making devices that are
promoted by “world-class” guru-academic-
consultants who claim unique understanding
of the economic world and who translate this
into pragmatic policy recipes and
methodologies that address crisis, social
contradictions and also appeal to pride and
anxieties of subjects in the process of socio-
economic changes
V Recontextualization
• Building on work of World Bank and UNDP• Harvard Kennedy School of Government and UNIDO
– Report on Building Linkages for Competitiveness and Responsible Entrepreneurship (2007)
• Re-contextualize ‘corporate responsibility’ for Develop-ing Countries
• Linking ‘corporate responsibility’ with ‘poverty reduction’ (one of the Millennium Development Goals) – Narrates growth in terms of job creation, income
generation and provision of livelihood for the poor– Requires ‘new types of public-private partnership and
business linkages between large corporations and small enterprises offer great potential to improve economic opportunities, productivity and growth’ (2007)
• Builds new kind of clusters
– ‘Corporate responsibility clusters’ to promote enterprise development, poverty reduction and spread more competitive and responsible business practices
– Targets ‘governments of developing countries’, ‘small-and-medium-enterprises’ and ‘the poor’ as sites of intervention
• Such reinvention of ‘cluster’ metaphor echoes what neo-Foucauldians call a ‘technology of agency’
– a mix of participation, capacity-building and control
• Creates agency in terms of ‘partners’ but also controls sites for exercising agency and types of agency
Sites of Organising Agency
Types of Agency
Government • Development partners• Creating necessary enabling environment• Part of multi-sector partnership to promote business impact• Attract FDI
Multinational and domestic corporations
• Create jobs and develop human resources
• Upgrading the value chains
• Adopt CSR strategies and social investment
• Public policy advocacy for small enterprises
Small and medium enterprises
• Involved as key producers, employers, distributors, innovat- ors, and wealth creators• Important part of a vibrant private sector • Implement responsible business practices
NGOs• Multi-sector partnership
• Strengthen development impact of business
The poor• Competitive, entrepreneurial, self-help, self-improved, and self-managed individuals
Technology of Agency: Sites and Types of Agency
• This technology partners government, NGOs and people with markets in new ways
• It imbues their relationship with new meanings of responsibilities
– To participate in clusters, production, the markets and global trade
– To become builders of ‘social capital’ and ‘catalyzers’ of entrepreneurship
– To become self-help, self-improved, and self-managed individuals
VI Concluding Remarks
• Examine the scaling up of CSR in face of private governance failure
• The making of a new global governance standard/norm– through suturing different knowledging techniques
and apparatuses (e.g., reports, indexes, journals, best practices) a project related broadly to ‘responsible competitiveness’
– two overlapping stages • mediated by knowledge brand that resonate among
transnational socio-economic forces • Recontextualize in different sites and scales
• Examine recontextualization of corporate respons-ibility to developing countries
• For example, ‘corporate responsibility clusters’ – ‘Making markets work better for the poor’ or ‘making
the poor works for markets’?– ‘Marketization of the social’ or ‘socialization of the
market’?– Moving to post-Washington Consensus or a case of
enhanced neoliberalism/neoliberalism expansionism?
• Cultural Political Economy Approach to ‘changing cultures of competitiveness’ in neo-liberalism– Beyond how question and materiality of the technical – Who is involved? What is involved? And why?
The End
Thank you!
1. Build on Existing Research
• CPE of competitiveness, Wal-Mart and corporate social responsibility
• Wal-Mart – largest service company in the world
• Its brand – ‘Always Low Prices’/ ‘Save Money, Live Better’
– The bargain model of retailing - price-value competitiveness
– Low-cost accumulation strategy– Entering into ‘ultimate joint partnership’ with
China
• Two ways these two systems meeting points
– The role of dormitory labour regime in
industrial clusters
• Lengthening of the workday
• Easy access to labour
• Daily labour reproduction (food,
accommodation, etc)
• Compression of work/life
– Disciplining of suppliers’ costs and margins
through scorecards• A body of knowledge enables W-M managers to have
key-hole views into suppliers’ costs and margins
• A mechanism of control – evaluate its costs and require
them to match its lowest price, comparing their costs
with the average, etc.
• Informational super-vision – allow Wal-Mart managers to
demand lower prices, benchmark average and demand
refunds
• Power asymmetry between retailer and supplier-manufacturers – pass their costs onto workers
Table 1: Knowledge Produced in Wal-Mart Supplier Scorecards
Measurement Criteria Measurement Components
Sales Measurements
Overall % increase Comps Avg. Sales/Store Sales at Full Prices vs. Markdown
Markdown Measurements
• Mark-ups and Markdowns (dollars, units and %)
Prior and current retail price
Margin Measurements
Initial margin Average retail price Average cost Gross profit at item level Gross profit/item/store Margin mix
Inventory Measurements
• Replenishable store inventor Non-replenishable store delivery Warehouse inventory Lost sales from OOS Excess inventory DC outs Total owned inventory
Return Measurements Customer defective returns Store Claims
(Source: American Logistics Association, Exchange Roundtable, March 8, 2005, Dallas TX, http://www.hoytnet.com/HTMLobj-315/ALA2005R3-FINAL_with_Pics_March_8_2005.ppt, accessed on 12 May 2008)
1992Wal-Mart’s Factory Certification programme Include Standards for Suppliers according to local employment and labor laws Focus on Bangladesh and China
1993-96First Factory Certificate programme manual
Pacific Resources Exports Ltd. auditing factories directly producing for Wal-Mart PriceWaterhouseCoopers was involved auditing at a later stage
1997-2001 Factories in Egypt, Pakistan, India and Nicaragua were added
2002 Assuming its own global procurement and directly managing its Factory Certificate
programme
2003Wal-Mart Ethical Standards associates train buyers, suppliers and factory managers on
Wal-Mart Supplier Standard – a product quality assurance programme (including
reviews and internal audit)
2006
2008
Now includes environmental elements in the audit process (e.g., packaging scorecard)
‘Sustainability Summit’ in Beijing
(Source: http://www.bworld.com.ph/Downloads/2006/Outsourcing4.ppt, accessed on 4th September 2007 and other sources)
Wal-Mart’s Ethical Standards Programmes
Wal-Mart Watching
• Anti-Wal-Mart groupsalternative voices, campaigns, exposure of
abuses, name and shame strategies etc.
Table 1: Examples of Anti-Wal Mart Groups Involved in Corporate Watching
Name of Union/NGO/Community Group
Nature of the Group
AFL-CIO
Largest union in the USA Runs the ‘Paying the Price at Wal-Mart’ website News and specialized topics on Wal-Mart (e.g., job exports, environment)
CorpWatch A research group based in Oakland, California, USA Campaigns against sweatshops (e.g., Wal-Mart and Nike) and private military contractors
Wal-Mart Watch
A US-wide public education campaign Sponsored by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) A watchdog on Wal-Mart business practices
Wake Up Wal-Mart Sponsored by the Union of Food and Commercial Workers (US) Critic of Wal-Mart and its business practices (e.g., sub-standard wages)
Sprawl-Busters Consultancy group to design and implement campaigns against megastores Pro-local business and community
Frontline: Is Wal*Martgood for America?
A foundation-funded group Specialized interviews with Wal-Mart insiders Anti-Wal Mart news from America and China
Wal-Mart Class Website Female workers in Wal-Mart and their class lawsuit
Student Against CorporateMisbehaviour (SACOM)
A Hong Kong-based NGO Partly sponsored by the Service Employees International Union Campaigner for workers’ rights and monitor of workers’ conditions in China (e.g., Wal-Mart subcontractors)
2008 Presidential Debate• We need Wall Street responsibility BEFORE financial crises • Q: Are you going to vote for the Senate bailout plan?• McCAIN: Sure. But there’s also the issue of responsibility. I’ve been heavily
criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the SEC. We’ve got to start also holding people accountable, and we’ve got to reward people who succeed.
• OBAMA: McCain’s absolutely right that we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there is a crisis. We’ve had years in which the reigning economic ideology has been what’s good for Wall Street but not what’s good for Main Street. There are folks out there who have been struggling before this crisis took place. And that’s why it’s so important we look at some of the underlying issues that have led to wages and incomes for ordinary Americans to go down, a health care system that is broken, energy policies that are not working. Unless we are holding ourselves accountable day-in, day-out, not just when there’s a crisis for folks who have power and influence and can hire lobbyists.
• Source: 2008 first presidential debate, Obama vs. McCain Sep 26, 2008
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2009 Global Competitiveness Forum is Launched
Tue, 06/01/2009 - 5:32pmUnder the Patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, for the third year, the Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh is a global platform for constructive dialogue on core competitiveness issues. Since the last forum, the world has faced unprecedented social, environmental, and economic crises that challenge nations, companies, and individuals to react in ways that place competition on a responsible footing. More than ever, the world needs its leaders to discuss, debate, and take action on issues such as:- How can we avoid similar economic crises in the future?- What does responsible competitiveness mean for a company and for a nation?- What are the barriers to creating a responsible business, and how can they beovercome?- What does the financial crisis teach us about responsible business? How can firms compete responsibly amid crisis?- Is collaboration implied in competition?- Are efficiency and responsibility mutually exclusive?- Are we maximizing the value of our national resources?- What leadership role should businesses play on environmental challenges?Achieving responsible competitiveness amid economic upheaval requires a vital rethinking of the role of the public and private sectors in fostering sustainable prosperity. The Global Competitiveness Forum strives to be the premier gathering for provoking comprehensive thought and leadership on this pressing challenge.
HSBC websiteThe UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI)
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns such as climate change, water shortages, the use of arable land for competing needs or the link
between health and nutrition are generating new risks and opportunities for companies.
HSBC believes that the ability of companies to manage these risks and opportunities impacts the value of our investments. The business case for
responsible investment is clear. We believe it is in the interest of our clients and society at large to encourage the companies we invest in to manage
environmental, social and governance issues appropriately, as well as to understand the materiality of these issues and to incorporate them into our investment decisions. These beliefs underpin our commitment to the United
Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.Launched in April 2006 by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, this
initiative consists of a set of voluntary principles for asset owners and investment professionals. The six principles are not prescriptive, but instead provide a framework to incorporate environmental, social and governance
issues into mainstream investment decision-making and ownership practices. Approximately 300 financial institutions have signed the UNPRI, representing a
total of over US$12 trillion in assets under management as of January 2008.
• AccountAbility has joined with the United Nations Global Compact and a network of research institutes, business schools and civil society organisations to explore how responsible business practices can most effectively become an embedded feature of global markets.
• relies on technologies of agency to• shape the conduct of targeted populations.
These include techniques of• self-help, self-improvement and
empowerment to instil habits of selfmanagement.
• Technologies of agency operate in schemes as diverse as
• human rights education, economic development and poverty reduction.
• Technologies of capacitation – capacity building – targeting the poor as agents of ‘decision and choice’ (Isin 2005) – an assemblage of people and institutions to form entrepreneurial communities – it partners people with markets in new ways and imbue their relationship with new meanings of rights and responsibilities – to participate in clusters, production, the markets and global trade - best practices, training, builders of ‘social capital’ and ‘catalyzers’ of entrepreneurship
