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In the aftermath of the Rana Plaza building collapse, a group of international retailers and labor unions partnered to create a proposal for more...
On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,100 people were killed in the worst...
- March–April 2021
- Article
Manage the Suppliers That Could Harm Your Brand: Know When to Avoid, Engage, or Drop Them
By: Jodi L Short and Michael W. Toffel
The pandemic has placed a new spotlight on working conditions in factories that supply global companies. To avert problems, firms often impose codes of conduct on their suppliers and perform audits to assess compliance. Do these measures help identify unethical...
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Keywords:
Auditing;
Agency Cost;
Quality And Safety;
Quality Management System;
Quality Management;
Unions;
Environmental Management;
Globalization;
Goods and Commodities;
Governance;
Labor;
Labor Unions;
Wages;
Working Conditions;
Operations;
Supply Chain;
Safety;
Quality;
China;
Bangladesh;
Asia;
Pakistan
- 2021
- Working Paper
Auditor Independence and Outsourcing: Aligning Incentives to Mitigate Shilling and Shirking
By: Ashley Palmarozzo, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Multinational corporations (MNCs) hire auditors to assess their business partners’ compliance with quality, working conditions, and environmental standards. Independent third-party auditors are widely assumed to outperform second-party auditors employed and thus...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Cross-Contextual Spillovers in Behavior Change
By: Reshmaan Hussam and Dayea Oh
We study the process of behavior change across contexts in the setting of hand hygiene in rural Bangladesh. We randomize an education intervention across classrooms to trace school-to-home spillovers in handwashing and randomize the proportion of students who receive...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Translating Information into Action: A Public Health Experiment in Bangladesh
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Kailash Pandey, Abu Shonchoy and Chikako Yamauchi
Standard models of technology adoption posit learning as the basis of adoption. However, hygiene campaigns centered around information provision have been overwhelmingly unsuccessful in changing behavior and improving child health across the developing world. We design...
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- November 2020
- Case
BRAC in 2020
By: Tarun Khanna and Shreya Ramachandran
In 2020, the largest non-governmental organization in the world, BRAC, headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has some big problems to tackle. Its founder, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, has left behind a challenge: take the 1981-founded organization from Bangladesh to every...
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- April 2019 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
The Rohingya Refugee: Past, Genocide, Future
In August 2017, the Myanmar military commenced a brutal pogrom of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State, Myanmar. The genocidal campaign marked the most recent and decisive of a series of ethnic cleansing efforts fueled by contention around race, religion, and...
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- 2019
- Working Paper
Throwing the Baby Out with the Drinking Water: Unintended Consequences of Arsenic Mitigation Efforts in Bangladesh
By: Nina Buchmann, Erica Field, Rachel Glennerster and Reshmaan Hussam
The 1994 discovery of arsenic in ground water in Bangladesh prompted a massive public health effort to test all tubewells in the country and convince nearly one-quarter of the population to switch to arsenic-free drinking water sources. According to numerous sources,...
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- February 2019
- Teaching Note
BRAC in 2014
By: Tarun Khanna
Teaching Note for HBS No. 715-414.
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Keywords:
Bangladesh
- March 2018
- Teaching Note
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (A), (B), (C), and (D)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh
Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps students...
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- September 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Supplement
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (D)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Saloni Chaturvedi
This supplements the (A) case by summarizing key developments in the Bangladesh ready-made garment industry after the fire at Tazreen Fashions factory, including formation of the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Accord (“Accord”) and the Alliance for Bangladesh...
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- March 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Saloni Chaturvedi
Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and an area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps...
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- 2019
- Working Paper
Improving Working Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Institutional Environments and Monitoring Program Design
By: Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill
Activism seeking to improve labor conditions in global supply chains has led transnational corporations to adopt codes of conduct and monitor suppliers for compliance, but it is unclear whether these formal organizational structures raise labor standards. Drawing on...
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Keywords:
Monitoring;
Supplier Relationship;
Sustainability;
Sustainability Management;
Sustainable Operations;
Sustainable Supply Chains;
NGO;
Globalization;
Corporate Accountability;
Operations;
Supply Chain;
Supply Chain Management;
Labor;
Working Conditions;
Business Processes;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Performance Evaluation;
Safety;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Electronics Industry;
China;
Indonesia;
India;
Bangladesh
- November 2014
- Case
BRAC in 2014
By: Tarun Khanna, Rachna Tahilyani, Reeti Roy and Aldo Sesia
In the early 1970s BRAC was a startup nongovernmental organization (NGO) working in Bangladesh. By 2014, it was the world's largest NGO. It had a strong presence in Bangladesh and had begun to deliver social development programs in nine other countries. Its founder and...
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- 17 Jul 2014
- Panel Discussion
Monitoring the Monitors: How Social Factors Influence Supply Chain Auditors
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Keywords:
CSR;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Social Responsibility;
Outsourced Production;
Outsourcing;
Sustainability;
Sustainability Management;
Auditing;
Audit Quality;
Gender;
Conflicts Of Interest;
Bias;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Electronics Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
China;
India;
Pakistan;
Bangladesh;
Mexico;
Brazil;
Viet Nam;
Indonesia;
Philippines;
Sri Lanka;
Taiwan;
South Korea
- January 2014 (Revised February 2014)
- Teaching Note
Rana Plaza: Workplace Safety In Bangladesh (A) and (B)
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,100 people were killed in the worst industrial accident since the Union Carbide plant gas leak in Bhopal, India. Most of the victims worked for garment factories,...
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- September 2013 (Revised June 2014)
- Case
Rana Plaza: Workplace Safety In Bangladesh (A)
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,100 people were killed in the worst industrial accident since the Union Carbide plant gas leak in Bhopal, India. Most of the victims worked for garment factories,...
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- September 2013 (Revised June 2014)
- Supplement
Rana Plaza: Workplace Safety in Bangladesh (B)
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
In the aftermath of the Rana Plaza building collapse, a group of international retailers and labor unions partnered to create a proposal for more stringent inspections and enforcement of safety standards in Bangladesh garment factories. The proposal was met by...
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- May–June 2013
- Article
Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly.
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Keywords:
Regulation;
Auditing;
Labor Relations;
Occupational Safety;
Environmental Operations;
Environmental Regulation;
Employees;
Labor;
Labor and Management Relations;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Manufacturing Industry;
China;
Bangladesh;
India;
Honduras;
Nicaragua;
Pakistan;
Guatemala;
Malaysia;
Viet Nam
- September 2010 (Revised January 2016)
- Case
Grameen Danone Foods Ltd., a Social Business
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee
Grameen Danone is a joint venture between the Grameen Group (a sister company of Grameen Bank) and Groupe Danone, a $2 billion (revenues) French food company. The company's goal was to provide nutritional yogurt (brand name Shoktidoi) for the nearly 50 million...
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- June 1990
- Teaching Note
Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh (Abridged), Teaching Note
By: James E. Austin and Tomas Otto Kohn