CBDS research seminar with Florence Palpacuer

CBDS has the pleasure of inviting you to a research seminar:

A Global Value Chain (GVC) approach for studying CSR and new social movements: the rise of the anti-sweatshop movement in global clothing chains in Europe, the US and Canada

With Florence Palpacuer, University of Montpellier

Discussant: Stefano Ponte (DIIS)

Chaired by: Lotte Thomsen (CBDS)

The seminar will take place on November 23 (14:00-16:00) and will be followed by a small reception.

Abstract:

A GVC approach for studying CSR and new social movements: the rise of the anti-sweatshop movement in global clothing chains in Europe, the US and Canada.

Florence Palpacuer will offer an overview of recent developments in the Global Value Chain (GVC) approach incorporating institutional and neo-gramscian perspectives to promote a sociopolitical view of GVCs, along Levy’s seminal paper in 2008. She will use such an approach to present a comparative analysis of the rise of the anti-sweatshop movement in the global clothing chains of Europe, Canada and the United States since the early 1990s. While similarities and connections can be observed between these movements across regions, the empirical research reveals that their strategies and patterns of interactions with corporations remain strongly shaped by the history of labor relations in each region or country, highlighting the complex forms of interactions between local and global dynamics that continue to shape GVCs not only in their economic, but also in their sociopolitical dimensions.

Florence Palpacuer is a prominent researcher on GVCs and has published widely on changes in the organization and dynamics of GVCs in various industries under the influence of financialization and globalization strategies of major lead firms. She is a professor at the University of Montpellier and is currently working on the rise of transnational activist NGO networks in the clothing value chain.

CBDS is a research centre at CBS which focuses on business strategies in developing countries. This seminar is the first in the Centre’s new seminar series 'Business in Developing Countries'.