Despite the increased attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and regulatory changes in recent years, little is known about how apparel companies are implementing and communicating CSR practices to their stakeholders. To fill the gap, this study investigated the range and strategies of leading apparel specialty retailers’ CSR practices as communicated on their websites over a longitudinal period of 1 year. In total, 17 apparel specialty retailers were included in the analysis. The companies’ websites were content-analyzed in-depth (...) using the coding criteria focusing on labor and environmental issues developed for this study. The initial data were collected in November 2011 and the study was replicated in December 2012 to examine any changes in the CSR practices. As of 2011 only nine companies addressed CSR issues on their websites at different degrees despite their leadership positions in the industry. Environmental issues were addressed by only five companies, with different ranges of practices. In 2012, all 17 companies addressed labor issues on their websites with varying degrees of specificity. In terms of environmental issues, six companies (an increase of one company from 2011) addressed environmental initiatives on their websites with wider ranges of practices. Discussed are problems and opportunities, as well as the role of the government and stakeholders, for the effective communications of CSR policies and initiatives for the apparel industry. (shrink)

China apparel customization brands have been recently growing in massive quantities despite being in their infancy stages of brand value building. Although scholars have proven brand value’s importance in sustainable brand growth, studies on the specific context of CACBs are still limited. This research proposes a conceptual framework of CACBs’ brand value measured dimension based on previous studies and divides brand value into both general and specific dimensions. Accordingly, qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted from the perspectives of practitioners (...) and consumers. Ultimately, a scale of 30 items with nine dimensions was generated. Results reveal that brand association in the general dimensions and brand service in the special dimensions were the largest promoters of CACB brand value. Hence, practitioners should pay more attention to dimensions of cognitive conflicts. Practical suggestions for apparel customization marketers are proposed to build and enhance brand value. (shrink)

Local supplier corporate social responsibility in developing countries represents a powerful tool to improve labour conditions. This paper pursues an inter-organizational network approach to the global value chain literature to understand the influence of suppliers’ collective behaviour on their CSR engagement. This exploratory study of 30 export-oriented and first-tier apparel suppliers in Bangladesh, a developing country, makes three relevant contributions to GVC scholarship. First, we show that suppliers are interlinked in a horizontal network that restricts unilateral CSR engagement. This (...) is justified in that unilateral CSR engagement is a source of heterogeneity in labour practices; consequently, it triggers worker unrest. Second, we present and discuss an exploratory framework based on four scenarios of how suppliers currently engage in CSR given their network’s pressure toward collective behaviour: unofficial CSR engagement, geographic isolation, size and competitive differentiation, and external pressure. Finally, we show the need to spread CSR homogeneously among suppliers and to reconceptualize the meaning of CSR in developing countries, encouraging more scrutiny toward horizontal dynamics. (shrink)

Systems of private regulation based on certification have recently emerged to address environmental issues in the forest products industry and labor issues in the apparel industry. To explain why the same regulatory form has emerged across these fields, the author uses a historical and comparative case study approach, closely examining early moments and paying attention to “roads not taken.” Two types of factors led to the initial emergence of private certification: social movement campaigns targeting companies and a neo-liberal institutional (...) context. The analysis shows specific ways in which these factors led states, nongovernmental organizations, and companies to build or support certification associations. (shrink)

This paper explores how women workers in Bangladeshi garment factories are misrecognised and not represented in the apparel industry through focussing on two enacted collective compliance measure agreements adopted by global brands to improve safety and working conditions. Our paper draws on Amartya Sen’s rights-based approach to capabilities as a means of explaining the narratives of women trade union leaders and the experiences of women factory workers’ status in their workplace and in the industry. Specifically, we examine how a (...) strategy of misrepresentation and nonrecognition of the women factory workers is being played out in the multi-stakeholder initiatives of compliance codes which leads to a lack of consideration for the basic human rights of the women workers. Our paper contributes to the discussion regarding how the politics of ethical procurement becomes visible through an exclusionary approach in managing the apparel global production network despite the favourable consensus regarding the compliance codes. (shrink)

Amongst a backdrop of debate regarding Codes of Conduct and their raison d’etre this paper provides a detailed summary of the management systems used by multinational enterprises in the Code implementation process. It puts forth a framework for analysis based on the elements of – the creation of a vision, the development of understanding and ability, integration into operations and feedback, improvement and remediation – and then applies it across the sports footwear, apparel and retail sectors in order to (...) firstly, demonstrate the complexities of the Code implementation process and secondly, to provide useful examples and lessons-learned to companies, policy-makers and others interested in implementing their own Code of Conduct or who are actively involved in this field. (shrink)

Monitoring systems have recently arisen to verify compliance with corporate codes of conduct for labor. This article places codes in the context of broader debates on global governance and argues for an empowered participatory approach to international labor standards focusing on enabling rights. Based on ethnographic research in Mexico and Guatemala on the implementation of codes in the apparel sector and their use in cross-border organizing campaigns, it explores the effect of monitoring on worker empowerment and working conditions in (...) global factories. The analysis highlights institutional designs and political strategies capable of contributing to the protection of international labor rights. (shrink)

In the past decade, Ethiopia has demonstrated a strong ideological convention to the East-Asian model of ‘developmental state’, which stands for state-led industrialisation as its underlying industrial policy premise. Nevertheless, the labour rights externalities of this industrial policymaking have been overlooked in the existing academic and practical policy debates. Hence, using qualitative empirical data, the article attempts to address the research gap by analysing why and how Ethiopia’s state-led industrialisation and the corporate behaviours of apparel-exporting firms, as well as (...) their respective global brand buyers, have contributed to the existing poverty wages and repressive practices against the associational rights of local industrial workers at those selected apparel-exporting industrial parks of the country. The maxim of industrialisation with a human face has increasingly become a promising alternative to the neoclassical intellectual view of labour relations following its fundamentals towards achieving a more sustainable industrial development in a given state. In light of this human right imperative, the finding revealed Ethiopia’s stateled industrialisation has firmly embraced strong business-state alliances, thereby curbing the power of local industrial workers. The Ethiopian government employs diverse de facto or de jure labour control mechanisms across those selected apparel-exporting industrial parks of the country. This is manifested through poverty wages and repressive measures todeny the associational rights of workers. Further, the flawed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of employing firms and their respective global brands have contributed to the ongoing labour abuses across those selected apparel-exporting firms. Hence, Ethiopia’s industrial policy is expected to navigate a reasonable balance between facilitating industrial catch-up and ensuring labour standards for more viable and sustainable labour relations. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of sumptuary legislation in sixteenth century England. It argues that the aims of sumptuary legislation were threefold: that legislators sought to maintain the stability of the common weal through social regulation, moral regulation through the moralization of luxury goods, and to regulate England’s economy, by prohibiting foreign trade in luxury goods, in order to stimulate the home economy and the burgeoning wool and stocking trade.

The cheongsam, the typical national apparel of the internal and external harmonious unity, is known as the representative of the Chinese clothing culture. It has expressed the virtuous, elegant, and gentle temperament of the Chinese women through flowing melody, rakish picturesque conception, and strong poetic emotion. The paper studies several aspects of the origin, evolution, techniques and communication to let China and the world know better about cheongsam, the national apparel of China.

I study the diffusion of codes of conduct in the German textile and apparel industry between 1997 and 2010. Using a longitudinal case study design, I aim to understand how the diffusion of this practice was affected by the way important “infomediaries”—a trade journal and a professional association—shaped its understanding within the industry. My results show that time-consuming processes of meaning reconstruction by these infomediaries temporarily hampered but finally facilitated the broader material diffusion of codes of conduct within the (...) industry. These findings detail existing conceptualizations of code diffusion as they demonstrate how infomediaries—through creation, use, and reconstruction of explanatory accounts as well as frames of reference—participate in defining the relevance and meaning of CSR practices. I move beyond prior empirical work as I explicitly assess not only processes of meaning construction evolving around a CSR practice but also how these processes over time coincide with quantitative patterns of its material diffusion. Implications of my findings for existing research on the diffusion of codes of conduct specifically and CSR practices in general as well as for conceptualizations of diffusion from institutional theory are discussed. (shrink)

This article address the issue of employee safety and the social responsibility of multinational apparel retailers who contract with Bangladesh manufacturers in their global supply chain. Both the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh have been identified as the two primary facilitators for global apparel industry efforts to actively address this serious human rights issue; thus, they have the potential to help drive the success of the industry's corporate citizenship (...) efforts to successfully manage the issue of fire and building safety in Bangladesh. The article further explores these relationships within the context of the “global corporate citizenship” concept, and develops a rationale for the limits of a socially responsible supply chain. In the context of global corporate citizenship, the article describes the existing state of these two industry organizations remediation efforts to ensure a stable supply chain in Bangladesh, and offers an analysis of existing industry nonmarket strategy approaches to improving contractor's factory fire and building safety environments for their employees. Lastly, a comprehensive set of nonmarket strategies for multinational apparel retailers is recommended when addressing their global corporate citizenship commitments to a safe working environment for Bangladesh garment manufacturing employees. (shrink)

How do activist groups instigate institutional change within an organizational field? Studying the global sports and apparel industry, we explore how activist groups applied different tactics over time, including conflict and collaboration, and how the accumulation of these tactics led to the build-up of pressure on firms within the industry to change their policies and activities on labor issues in their supply chains. Building on interorganizational conflict literature, we show how an industry-level approach is helpful to understand the sequential (...) patterning of tactical choices in evoking institutional change. These findings contribute to the growing literature of activists’ influence strategies. (shrink)

Through the use of rhetoric linking private economic transactions and international labor and human rights standards, the movement has successfully challenged corporate practices that were previously considered unremarkable.

In the mid-1990s, global labour standards emerged as a new and important are of concern for socially responsible investors, especially with respect to investments in the "problematic" footwear, apparel, and toy industries. In this paper, I elucidate the primary areas of concern for investors and discuss a framework for evaluating firms'' labor standards performance. In addition, I argue that today''s sweatshop debates follow closely those of centuries ago, with the standard economic defense of low wage manufacturing on the one (...) hand, and the activists'' protests against poor conditions and wages on the other. An examination of this historical context reveals a promising middle ground in this ongoing debate. (shrink)

Drawing on constructionist theory, this study examines how the media portrayed five public reporting events initiated by the Fair Labor Association (FLA), considering whether the coverage encourages or discourages companies from undertaking a reporting initiative as part of their ethical management. Media coverage was limited but generally favorable across all five events. Coverage frequently included claims made by FLA spokespersons and provided basic facts about the organization and its activities. Extensive detail about labor violations found by monitors was often included. (...) Additional media coverage centered around themes of public reporting and transparency, an assessment of the FLA’s work, brand accountability and responsibility of corporations with regard to working conditions and labor standards, and specifics about the factory monitoring and partnering with factories and NGOs that is necessary to achieve change. Counter-claims brought question to the FLA’s efforts. Explanations about why the social condition exists were fairly limited, and thus, provided little insight into how the problems might be resolved. We discuss managerial implications regarding public reporting initiatives and media coverage, particularly regarding the countering effects of positive coverage and diminishing news stories. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that the prime mover of contemporary consumerism is aesthetics. However, today's consumer aesthetics often leads to decisions and actions that have negative environmental consequences. By taking apparel industry, represented by fast fashion, as a quintessential example of this problem, I argue that aesthetics can no longer claim immunity from environmental considerations—there needs to be a paradigm shift for consumer aesthetics. A proposed new environmentally minded consumer aesthetics promotes a paradoxical role for material ephemerality in enhancing (...) an object's longevity, and it places importance on the personal connection with an object's story, as well as our engagement with the material world more generally. (shrink)

This article explores the extent to which consumers consider ethics in luxury goods consumption. In particular, it explores whether there is a significant difference between consumers’ propensity to consider ethics in luxury versus commodity purchase and whether consumers are ready to purchase ethical-luxury. Prior research in ethical consumption focuses on low value, commoditized product categories such as food, cosmetics and high street apparel. It is debatable if consumers follow similar ethical consumption patterns in luxury purchases. Findings indicate that consumers’ (...) propensity to consider ethics is significantly lower in luxury purchases when compared to commoditized purchases and explores some of the potential reasons for this reduced propensity to identify or act upon ethical issues in luxury consumption. (shrink)

Private, voluntary compliance programs, promoted by global corporations and nongovernmental organizations alike, have produced only modest and uneven improvements in working conditions and labor rights in most global supply chains. Through a detailed study of a major global apparel company and its suppliers, this article argues that this compliance model rests on misguided theoretical and empirical assumptions concerning the power of multinational corporations in global supply chains, the role information plays in shaping the behavior of key actors in these (...) production networks, and the appropriate incentives required to change behavior and promote improvements in labor standards in these emergent centers of global production. The authors argue that it is precisely these faulty assumptions and the way they have come to shape various labor compliance initiatives throughout the world—even more than a lack of commitment, resources, or transparency by global brands and their suppliers to these programs—that explain why this compliance-focused model of private voluntary regulation has not succeeded. In contrast, this article documents that a more commitment-oriented approach to improving labor standards coexists and, in many of the same factories, complements the traditional compliance model. This commitment-oriented approach, based on joint problem solving, information exchange, and the diffusion of best practices, is often obscured by the debates over traditional compliance programs but exists in myriad factories throughout the world and has led to sustained improvements in working conditions and labor rights at these workplaces. (shrink)

During the last years competition in the textile sector has increased, putting financial returns under considerable pressure. As a result, production has shifted to low wage countries in the third world. This has raised the relevance of ethical procedures. This paper analyses how C&A, as one of the largest Western apparel companies, organises its sourcing ethics, notwithstanding the financial pressure in the market. Based on interviews with Asian suppliers of C&A during the second half of 2000, we review the (...) opinions of external stakeholders about the sourcing ethics of C&A. Finally, we evaluate C&A’s sourcing ethics from a theoretical perspective. (shrink)

During the last years competition in the textile sector has increased, putting financial returns under considerable pressure. As a result, production has shifted to low wage countries in the third world. This has raised the relevance of ethical procedures. This paper analyses how C&A, as one of the largest Western apparel companies, organises its sourcing ethics, notwithstanding the financial pressure in the market. Based on interviews with Asian suppliers of C&A during the second half of 2000, we review the (...) opinions of external stakeholders about the sourcing ethics of C&A. Finally, we evaluate C&A’s sourcing ethics from a theoretical perspective. (shrink)

The implementation of socially sustainable practices in suppliers situated in challenging institutional contexts is examined using institutional theory, both in terms of how institutional pressures affect implementation and what explains the decoupling of practices from the day-to-day reality. A multi-case study approach is employed based on seven apparel industry suppliers in Bangladesh. Cross-case analysis highlights the coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures on suppliers to implement socially sustainable practices. A key pressure identified that has not previously been highlighted in the (...) literature is horizontal collaboration between buyers, which intensifies coercive pressure on suppliers and increases the consequences of non-compliance. The factors that contribute to decoupling are categorized into firm-, supply chain-, and environment-related factors. Further, six propositions are developed on how specific forms of institutional pressure can tackle particular decoupling factors to support implementation. The paper responds to recent calls for greater scrutiny of why and how firms decouple ethical practices and supports the development of the literature specifically on social sustainability, which lags behind that on environmental sustainability and has been largely focused on the Western buyer perspective. The findings have implications for the diffusion of ethical practices into supply chains, especially distant suppliers in very different and challenging institutional contexts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Men Becoming Gods in "Style"Gioia and Girard on Divinized DesireJoshua Hren (bio)In our secular age we hear seekers of the sacred and religious devotees alike decry the soul-deadening, spirit-dumbing consequences of materialism. René Girard contends that—on the contrary—in the "leveled," horizontal world of a purportedly materialistic modernity this transcendent authority is deviated and distorted but it does not disappear. In his first major work, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, (...) he argues that "the passion that drives men to seize or gain more possessions is not materialistic; it is the triumph of the mediator, the god with the human face."1 In a materialistic age, the gods are "pulled down from the heaven, the sacred flows over the earth" and men become "gods for each other."2Dana Gioia, former businessman and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is no stranger to the economy of divinized desire. The stakes of our passions—whether we are wrecked by dubious wants or able to shed our infernal imitations—pierce his poetry. Gioia cites Girard as a significant influence alongside St. Augustine and Kierkegaard, though he does not indicate whether his own poetic investigations of mimesis are a direct yield of [End Page 149] his encounter with Girard or the independent discovery of attentive artistic intuition.3The refuge of lies so central to Girard is particularly palpable in Gioia's long narrative poem "Style."4 Charlie, the self-deprecating narrator, divinizes his college friend Tom, a business mogul who "prospered like one chosen by the gods."5 Tom uses his easy money to purchase gaudy metamorphoses, hosting magnificent events with his "flawless" wife Eden. An antihero of the unremarkable variety, Charlie attends all Tom's parties until he stops receiving invitations. When he discovers his deity's disappearance is tied to a terminal illness, he descends into the infernal "slums" of Tom's new hideout, and he finds his former hero hell-bent, ready to commit an arson that will erase his own existence in style. Charlie is confronted with a difficult decision that any coward would waver before. He has the chance to become an atheist—at least with respect to his dying god. After painting a portrait of man-made gods, the poem probes the question of whether and how we can cut short our penchant for great deceits.Charlie opens this narrative poem with an invective directed against himself.Just look at me. Isn't it obvious?I have no style. I'm just a human blur.On me expensive clothes look second-hand.They droop or sag. The color's never right.I wear the wrong apparel to the party.I pick the dullest item on the menu.Each haircut brings some new humiliation.6Crucially, we never receive an audit of this dour self-consciousness. By poem's end, no one has corrected or confirmed Charlie's condemnations. He may be right; his might be the antinomy of Midas's modus operandi. His hyperbolic portrait of Tom's greatness suggests that he is less than just to himself. His preoccupation with something as small as a menu item betrays a brutal obsessiveness. He employs the ascetical word "humiliation" in conjunction with a "haircut"—further revealing his unforgiving inner harshness. Charlie "always loved to visit Tom" precisely because he himself is Pathetic, Inc.7Were René Girard Charlie's older brother, he might sit the sad sap down on a comfortable couch and spell out the difficult truth as follows: The anti-hero "dreams of absorbing and assimilating his mediator's being."8 This highfalutin description of "the Other implies an insuperable revulsion for one's own substance."9 We ought not to take seriously the excuses these types give for their [End Page 150] failings and their fawning, for they "hate themselves on a more essential level than that of 'qualities.'"10 When Charlie disparages his badly cut bangs or his mismatched outfits, he's really incriminating his very being."The desire," Girard argues, "is aimed at the mediator's being."11 Charlie evinces this dynamic when he insists that Tom's "success was existential: / It wasn't what... (shrink)

School badges, though an integral part of education’s “aesthetic order,” of its signage and apparel, have not been the subjects of much of analysis. In addressing this oversight, the following paper examines the badges of New South Wales government schools and argues that like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, they draw on heraldic models and are constructs of colors, names, motifs, and mottoes that in various ways have local cogency and significance. For example, many badges draw on Australia’s (...) flora and fauna or refer to aspects of its colonial history and thereby induct pupils into the nation’s identity. Some schools, under the pressure to be more business-oriented, have turned their back on the traditional badge in favor of logos and slogans that, arguably, are more commensurate with their times. (shrink)

Pashmina is one of the most luxurious and finest fibres in the world. It is a special kind of wool obtained from Cashmere goats. Counterfeiting Pashmina is becoming a prevalent malpractice because of limited supply, expensive pricing and high demand in western markets. Presently, there is a lack of a low-cost and easily available approach for distinguishing authentic Pashmina apparels from other similar-looking products. Because of technological advances and cost reductions in digital image processing, we have been able to implement (...) a variety of image recognition systems on a practical level. In this study, we propose a deep learning model PashmNet for identification of Pashmina fabric using transfer learning. The technique proposed herein classifies Pashmina and non-Pashmina images accurately with classification accuracy of 97.4%. (shrink)

The globalization of production and trade has contributed to the rise in complex global value chains where the reach of state regulation is limited. As an alternative, private regulation, developed and administered by companies, industry associations, and nongovernmental organizations, has emerged to safeguard economic, environmental, and social sustainability in producer countries and along the value chain. The academic literature on private regulation in global value chains has grown over the last decade, but currently few major reviews of the research have (...) been undertaken. This paper examines peer-reviewed research in the relevant disciplines published in academic journals up to December 2011. Our goal is to identify and classify the topics and theories in the global value chain literature. We conclude that the number of articles explicitly examining private regulation, in a global value chain context, is relatively small when considering the importance and growth of these chains in the world’s economy. We also conclude that agriculture, forestry, and apparel manufacturing are the most often studied economic sectors; in contrast, other sectors, such as the information, communication and technology, with their complex global value chains, and often problematic environmental and social conditions, are understudied. (shrink)

Imagine a telephone conversation between a presidential aide and a wealthy supporter, shortly after news breaks that the president plans to veto a bill that the supporter strongly favors. The nervous aide opens with “I'm calling to let you know that the president regrets his, uh, his decision…” The supporter's hopes rise at the intimation that the president changed his mind. But when the aide continues: “… did not meet with your apparel, I mean, your approval,” the crestfallen (and, (...) perhaps, former) supporter realizes that the president is sorry merely about the impact of his decision, not the decision itself. The aide's utterance seems to mean one thing at first, but something entirely different in the end. Unintentional verbal about‐faces of this kind are common in everyday language use – the outspoken owner of an American baseball team recently said that she regretted her remarks offended many people – yet listeners rarely notice the miscues, the wealthy supporter notwithstanding. This is one of the chief motivations behind the psycholinguistic study of language use. (shrink)

The earliest Chinese handscroll extant painting is the ‘Nushi zhen’ by Gu Kaizhi housed in the British Museum, which is now often considered to be a Tang Dynasty copy of the original. This article shows the study of the representation of garment and accessories of the figure illustrations all-sided in the painting. And by comparing with correlated literature and images, it opens out the typical skills and style in which the ancient Chinese figure painters of Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420) depicting (...) the apparels in the handscroll painting. (shrink)

The year 2017 marks fifteen years for me as a fashion educator in Australia and the United States, nine of those in a full-time capacity. My research has focused on various facets of fashion and sustainability for almost as long. In that time many positive developments have occurred, among them, the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate action and the formation of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition in 2010, to name two. Yet an immense amount of urgent work remains. Wallace-Wells presents (...) an apocalyptic near-future caused by anthropogenic global warming;1 within two weeks the online version of the article became New York Magazine's most read in history. It is worth reading in tandem with Rockström et al.,2 as the latter... (shrink)

Previous studies found similarities in adults’ disgust responses to benign (e.g. obesity) and actual disease signs (e.g. influenza). However, limited research has compared visual (i.e. benign and actual) to cognitive (i.e. disease label) disease cues in different age groups. The current study investigated disgust responses across middle childhood (7–9 years), late childhood (10–12 years), adolescence (13–17 years), and adulthood (18+ years). Participants viewed individuals representing a benign visual disease (obese), sick-looking (staphylococcus), sick-label (cold/flu), and healthy condition. Disgust-related outcomes were: (1) (...) avoidance, or contact level with apparel the individual was said to have worn, (2) disgust facial reactions, and (3) a combination of (1) and (2). Avoidance was greater for the sick-looking and sick-label than the healthy and obese conditions. For facial reaction and combination outcomes, middle childhood participants responded with greater disgust to the sick-looking than the healthy condition, while late childhood participants expressed stronger disgust towards the sick-looking and obese conditions than the healthy condition. Adolescents and adults exhibited stronger disgust towards sick-label and sick-looking than obese and healthy conditions. Results suggest visual cues are central to children’s disgust responses whereas adolescents and adult responses considered cognitive cues. (shrink)

In recent years the mushrooming power, functionality and ubiquity of computers and the Internet have outstripped early forecasts about technology's rate of advancement and usefulness in everyday life. Alert pundits now foresee a world saturated with powerful computer chips, which will increasingly insinuate themselves into our gadgets, dwellings, apparel and even our bodies.

This research was designed to develop an inventory of vendor-related problems experienced by buyers for small retail apparel stores during the merchandise buying process, determine how frequently each difficulty occurs, and identify the experiences perceived to be unethical. Among the 22 vendor-related difficulties examined minimum order requirements, 6 month advance purchase, incomplete orders, late shipments, and shipping overcharges were identified most frequently. Analysis of results suggested that one factor, misleading vendor practices, and eight background variables (annual sales, price line, (...) full- and part-time employees, retail and buying experience, and shopping large or small markets) were associated with unethical experiences. Ethically troublesome experiences mentioned most frequently were padded orders, selling competitor same merchandise, withholding return authorization and credit, shipping overcharges, and dealing with vendor's factor. (shrink)

This study investigated how decision-makers differ in processing their organizational environment, depending on the levels of their idealism and relativism. Focusing on socially responsible buying/sourcing issues, responses from buying/sourcing professionals from U.S. apparel and shoe companies were analyzed, using a series of regression analyses. The results generally supported the proposition that the degrees of idealism and relativism determine involvement levels that, in turn, result in varying levels of reactions to the organizational environment and corresponding amounts of information processing. Highly (...) idealistic individuals were influenced by only idealistic signals of organizational environment. Further analysis showed highly idealistic and relativistic individuals were more likely to evaluate the organizational environment in terms of its business merit. The results suggest that organizations need to carefully plan how to communicate underlying meanings of organizational initiatives with their employees, knowing that individuals who have strong ethical opinions will only react to what they believe and elaborate its value for business. Further theoretical and practical implications and suggestions are discussed. (shrink)

With complex buyer-driven global production networks and a labour-intensive manufacturing process, the fashion industry has become a focal point for debates on the social responsibility of business. Utilising an interview methodology with influential actors from seven export garment manufacturers in Sri Lanka, we explore the situated knowledge at one nodal point of the production network. We conceptualise factory management perspectives on the implementation of corporate social responsibility in terms of the strategic balancing of ethical considerations against the commercial pressures of (...) cost and lead time. Factory managers framed CSR in terms of compliance, rather than going above and beyond regulatory requirements; seeing it as a strategic competitive imperative and less a developmental mechanism. Sri Lankan manufacturers maintain that they have benefitted from a unique combination of factors, including strict national labour laws, an educated workforce, the characteristics of the garments produced, industrial upgrading, and long-term non-adversarial buyer–supplier relationships, which they argue has supported the establishment and maintenance of CSR practices. The paper thus provides managerial implications that relate CSR activities to CSR outcomes which include both reputational and production benefits. Such insights will be of strategic relevance for lead retail buyers as well as apparel producers keen to invest in CSR to partly mitigate against increasing price-based competition. (shrink)

This study investigates the strategies employed in the representation of masculinity in a sample of 50 advertising campaigns launched between 1999 and 2020. The chosen posters advertise products targeted at men that fit into five categories: beverages, food, daily care products, male fragrances, and clothing. Among the brands advertised are American Apparel, Clinique, Coca-Cola, Dove, Givenchy, McDonald's, and Nike. The analysis of discursive strategies is complemented by an analysis of the Corpus of Contemporary American English that investigates the most (...) salient collocates of real man/men in US English; this search was conducted due to the frequent mention of the term real men in the slogans under investigation. The corpus analysis supports the key findings of the study by showing that language and advertising operate in a circular structure and mutually impact one another. The five major strategies identified as recurrent in the representation of masculinity include gentleman's look, gender equality and fatherhood, sex appeal, sex and dominance, and strength. The findings reveal the prevalence of stereotypical representations of masculinity that foreground sex appeal, strength, and dominance over women, and to a lesser extent, the image of the classic gentleman. The Dove Men Care Collection promotes the idea of fatherhood and gender equality, which might be considered a slight departure from the usual representations of masculinity in advertising, though it is still embedded within the dominant framework of hegemonic masculinity. (shrink)

This project investigates salient stakeholder forces of socially responsible supply chain orientation (SRSCO) in the apparel and footwear sector focusing on fair labor management issues. SRSCO was conceptualized as a composite of internal organizational direction and external partnership for a creation and continuation of fair labor conditions throughout the supply chain. Primary stakeholders identified were consumers, regulation, industry, and media. A total of 209 mail survey responses from sourcing managers of U.S. apparel and footwear companies were analyzed. Two (...) dimensions of SRSCO were confirmed: internal direction and external partnership. Consumer and industry peer pressures were found significantly related to internal direction, while industry peers and media were significantly related to the external partnership. Regulation was not significantly related to either internal direction or external partnerships. Lack of regulation forces to govern labor issues and roles of consumers, industry peers, and media in promoting fair labor management are discussed in this article. (shrink)

Resulting from the perspectivist view, acoording to which the remote apeearances are minified and the close ones magnified, is the author's view of the angels as various personified "-isms" , and of "-isms" as the subjectivized forms of angels. That means that the relation between an angel and an "-ism" is the same as the relation between a contracted form seen from a distance and a microscopic and pluralized form close to our eyes. Since "-isms" are usually connected with various (...) ideologies, the angelology is understood by the author as a science concerning sets of ideas, i. e. ideologies and "-isms". Every "-ism" creates an ideological body, a cultural collective, which is the incarnation of the spirit of the given angel. Thus angels are ideological incarnations with their own ideological rationalities, feelings and wills, which they pursue by help of their adherents. The angels thus dwell in their adherents, which in turn are clothed in angel's ideological apparel. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MONADOLOGY OF 7HE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Michael Wreen THE WORLD AND THOUGHT of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov are not easily entered into. There is something, some barrier, which seems to hinder, if not prevent, a feeling of belonging, a feeling of ease, citizenship, and camaraderie. What is it diat holds die reader back, what makes him feel particularly Ul-at-ease in the world of The Brothers Karamazov, and especially in (...) die presence of the Karamazovs? The answer is that the world of the novel resembles the world of Leibniz's Monadology, a world so different from the world of our everyday conceptions, and so different from the world of most novels, that the reader is left "freefloating," so to speak, until he, as a spirit, has been accommodated and then assimilated by it. To begin with, there is the matter of setting. There are practically no landscapes in The Brothers Karamazov and no extended descriptions of nature. Secondly, buildings, both their interiors and exteriors, are barely sketched, and when described at all, it is usually the psychological state that the human design excites ("It was an odd arrangement ofrooms") that is important, and not the design or structure itself. Objects existing in their own right and "pure surfaces" are not to be found. The one building (with grounds) that is described at length is the monastery, but even here description is used symbolically, as a reflection ofthe spiritual states ofthe monks and The Elder. Similarly, clothing exists only as a clue to the psychological or spiritual state of its wearer. Dmitri's rag with the 1,500 roubles is the analogue of his condition, just as Smerdyakov's hoped-for foppish apparel is of his. 318 Michael Wreen319 Still more unusual is the infrequent mention of two of the biological necessities of life, food and sleep. Food seems to be something that the characters can take or leave, but more often than not, simply forget about; the stomach does not seem to exist for any except one of them. Once or twice the characters do eat, but eating seems to be an accidental side-effect of spending time with, a spiritual infection caught from, the thoroughly carnal Fyodor. The monks, it must be admitted, are concerned with food — though it would be more accurate to say diat they are concerned with die lack of it, or even more strongly, widi maintaining the lack of it. As for sleep, collapse from complete exhaustion (from sustained physical exertion and/or emotional excitement, or from orgiastic debauchery), sickness, and brain fever seem to be preferred to normal sleep. Days are long— so long, in fact, that night is more like an extension of day dian night. Another descriptive element which warrants notice is the physical appearances and personal histories of die dramatic personae. The truth, as far as physical appearances are concerned, is clear and simple: everyone, with the exception ofIvan, is described once and briefly. In the first thirtyfive pages or so, most of the major personages are introduced, "outfitted" with noses, eyes, ears, bearings, statures, mannerisms, traits, etc., and — here we come to the second aspect noted above — then given summary histories. After that, diey are set in dramatic motion. The opening chapters are descriptive and expository, a report of what was and is the case as far as mise en scene and physical equipage are concerned; and except for brief moments when the never-named narrator indulges in short "sermons" about man or God, the mode of narration never returns to descriptive exposition, but remains dramatic and focused on the interplay and clash of personality. Characters do act and think for themselves, and we see diem directly in the acting out of dieir lives. A bit of background information having been provided, we don't have to be told anydiing more; we can observe for ourselves, from the inside. The catalogue offacts is discarded, and in its place is put the experience of events and feelings. The objective, external perspective yields to the internal, subjective perspective, and the reader crosses over from the familiar and cozy world of Dickensian externality to the strange and disconcerting world ofDostoyevskian intemality... (shrink)

Some recent state formations are offshoots of religious societies where the elite clothed the state with religious apparel. Diverse communities and their beliefs compel many modern nations to adopt a secular state ideology in order to avoid religious domination of time. Constitutionally, Islam is the official religion in Malaysia, while the state has maintained peaceful co-existence among its religious groups with an emphasis on religious tolerance and improved wealth distribution. Conversely, Nigeria, constitutionally a secular state with shared populations of (...) mainly Christians and Muslims, is embroiled in yearly religious conflicts. This article aims to show how Nigeria’s secular state status is engulfed in religious bigotry due to institutional inadequacies. This is unlike Malaysia’s state-centered influence on religion, yet its wealth distribution policy makes room for peaceful co-existence in its polity as against more severe challenges of corruption in Nigeria. The paper argues that leadership and institutional failures have exacerbated religious conflicts in Nigeria and hence the state totters in the face of tension. A theoretical debate unveils our proposition on religious practices in both countries. We rely on secondary data and empirical evidence in unveiling issues and conclude with modest recommendations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 87-92 [Access article in PDF] Christian Prayer Seen from the Eye of a Buddhist Kenneth K. Tanaka Musashino Women's University, Tokyo When I think about Christian prayer, the image I get is that of a young girl of about eight years old with long brown hair. Wearing a nightgown, she is kneeling next to her bed with her hands clasped and her head bowed. I (...) have often queried myself about the source of this image. This is an interesting question in itself. I personally don't know of anyone who fits that description or who has actually witnessed someone like her in prayer. Nevertheless, it is interesting how a Buddhist raised in a predominately Christian society comes to form his image of Christian prayer.Working further with this image, I see this little girl—let's call her Megan—doing two things in her evening prayer. One is that she is giving thanks to God for the benefits she has received. She thanks him for her food, clothing, friends, and family. Then, she also makes a request. In this petitionary element of her prayer, she is asking God to make her sick father get well soon. As she does so, her expression turns more serious, and she clasps her hands more firmly and brings them closer to her chest. She then looks up toward the ceiling, expressing her heartfelt wish for her father's early recovery. What is noteworthy is that Megan's prayers are spoken aloud as in a human conversation.I realize that this image does not do justice to a topic as enormous as "Christian prayer," but I believe that it provides a glimpse into how one Buddhist imagines the topic. I have a number of questions about Megan's prayer, particularly as I try to understand what may be going on inside of her. I wonder first and foremost, what God looks like to her. Is God a male or a female, or neither? I would think that even for her (in this gender-sensitive age), God is still a male. If so, does she see him as an elderly man with a long white beard, holding a cane and sitting in a throne? Next, where does God reside? If he is in heaven, what is heaven like to her? I wonder if heaven is located somewhere amidst the lofty, puffy clouds. In regards to her father's illness, how does she think God can make her father get well? What is the mechanism by which a personified God can heal? Perhaps I am being too analytical and overly rigorous with my questions about a spiritual act, and that of an eight-year-old at that.Perhaps I should, instead, turn the questions toward me, asking how I would [End Page 87] answer the same questions about a Buddhist girl "praying" before the Buddha or a bodhisattva for the same kind of wish? The image that immediately crops up in my mind is of a girl of about twelve and her mother whom I saw at a pagoda in Rangoon, Burma, a number of years ago. The girl is wearing a large, red fresh flower in her hair and has on traditional apparel. She sits with her mother on a marble floor of a spacious area in front of Buddha images that are several meters in height. She holds a bouquet of flowers held upright between the palms of hands in a gesture of reverence. She sits with her legs folded but thrown out to her side, a style common in her country as well as in Thailand. Her eyes appear closed, and her head is slightly bowed down toward the Buddha images. She stays in that posture for what seems like several minutes; her mother does the same. I don't know, of course, what is going on inside, but she is certainly not meditating.I believe this is an important point to make here, for Buddhists are stereotypically seen to only meditate. However, the vast majority of lay Buddhists... (shrink)