Toward Improving Factory Working Conditions in Developing Countries: An Empirical Analysis of Bangladesh Ready-Made Garment Factories

With supply chains now extending into developing countries, time and again, working conditions in supplier factories have been found to be unsafe. In this study, we focus on factories in the Bangladesh ready-made garment industry that supplies North American and European retailers. These retailers have adopted an innovative approach toward improving the working conditions of supplier factories by forming consortiums. The consortium of North American retailers is the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety (“Alliance”). The consortium of European retailers is the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (“Accord”). The central question addressed in this study is the following: How do working conditions in a supplier factory impact the supplier’s trustworthiness from a retailer’s perspective? We characterize supplier factory working conditions in terms of three types of risks, namely, structural risk, fire risk, and electrical risk. Next, we examine the implications of each type of risk for supplier t...