Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 79:113120
DOI 10.1007/s10551-007-9393-5
The Ethics of Global Supply Chains
in China Convergences of East and West
ABSTRACT. This paper addresses ethical issues sur-
rounding global supply chains of multinational companies
in developing countries. In particular, it considers the
development and application of industry-wide ethical
standards and codes of conduct for multinational supply
chains in China. We describe and analyze the ethical
norms and compliance components of such industry-wide
regimes in the toy, textile, and consumer electronics
industries. We argue that this development represents an
positive attempt to institutionalize emergent international
ethical standards and practices into this component of the
Chinese economy.
KEY WORDS: global supply chains, business ethics in
China, business ethics and globalization, international
business ethics
Introduction1
Treatment of workers has always been an important
ethical issue in western business. This paper will address
ethical issues relating to the treatment of workers
within the development of global supply chains by
international firms in China. We focus on China be-
cause it constitutes by far the largest single regional area
in which international firms recently have expanded
A paper for the World Business Ethics Forum: Does East Meet
West? Nov 13, 2006, Hong Kong and Macao, Hong
Kong Baptist University and the University of Macao.
David Krueger holds the Charles E. Spahr Chair in Managerial
and Corporate Ethics at Baldwin-Wallace College. The
Spahr Chair is the second oldest endowed chair in business
ethics in the U.S.A. He received his Ph.D. from the Uni-
versity of Chicago (divinity school) and is a published author
in the field of business ethics and in religious ethics and
business.
Springer 2007
David A. Krueger
their supply chains. As an illustration of this explosive
supply chain growth, it is said that more than one-third
of the retail products on Wal-Mart shelves are made in
China. We also focus on China because it offers an
interesting case study in the evolution of global business
ethics. More concretely, it offers a way to test the
proposition that the globalization of economic activity
may be generating convergences of ethical values and
norms for business practice between east and west.
Capitalism has always had its critics, east and west.
In the wake of Karl Marx, entire societies were built
on the premise that capitalism was the source of
imperialism, exploitation, and mass poverty. Indeed,
the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) was founded
on Mao Zedongs belief that China would prosper
only when fully purged of western capitalisms
imperialist values and institutions. In spite of the
tragic flaws and tyrannies that pervaded the practice
of these now defunct Marxist and Maoist societies,
they arose, at least in part, from the moral conviction
that workers and peasants should be liberated from
oppressive workplace relations and be provided with
economic conditions for human fulfillment.
Within western market-based societies, capitalism
has always had its own internal critics. With the
evolutionary reform of capitalist institutions
largely provided through democratic governments
throughout the 20th century, many criticisms faded
away. Indeed, the strong moral case for capitalism is
that it reformed itself to permit the mass of workers
to share in the prosperity generated by explosive
capitalist wealth creation. In the west, capitalist
nations truly became developed. Worker rights
and protections were institutionalized by law,
democratic political accountability, unions, non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), and education.
In this process, public expectations of the ethical
behavior of corporations were heightened, resulting
in reasonably good treatment of workers generally.2
114 David A. Krueger
As western corporations globalized their scope,
shifting production and employment abroad, espe-
cially to less developed countries (LDCs), public
attention once again turned to be the ethics of their
practices. Production shifted from workers in
developed countries with high levels of compensa-
tion and protection of worker rights, to countries
with neither. For at least a generation now, debate
has been waged by defenders and critics (both
friendly and unfriendly) alike as to what ethical
expectations corporations should be held account-
able for in a global economy and how well or poorly
they fare in terms of their own practices. This debate
is too large and complex to summarize here. It will
likely continue unabated. To simplify complexity,
though, defenders of globalization argue that the
overarching weight of evidence supports the con-
clusion that global corporations can be engines for
global poverty alleviation while critics seek to argue
that such interactions will perpetuate poverty and
exacerbate divisions between rich and poor nations.
At the same time, the ethical discourse has become
increasingly sophisticated with respect to a myriad of
issues and concerns about global business.3 As one
response to this challenge, one saw in the 80s and 90s
the rapid proliferation of corporate codes of conduct
for their global operations. In the absence of strong
countervailing institutions to establish appropriate
ethical norms of conduct (e.g., strong and well-
enforced government laws and regulations, effective
labor unions to advocate on behalf of workers, well-
developed NGOs and independent media that make
problems transparent and advocate remedies, high
levels of citizen education), corporations took it
upon themselves to try to implement their own
standards of conduct. More recently, in the last
decade, governments, corporations, and civil society
NGOs have collaborated in the quest for common
global standards and norms for corporate behavior.
Ethical practices in global supply chains
This paper will examine one component of that
conversation about the ethical expectations of cor-
porations in a global economy the ethics of global
supply chains, using China as an illustration of the
evolution of those ethical standards and practices.
Many critics of global capitalism have criticized the
global supply chain practices of western corporations
in China and other LDCs as being exploitive.
Corporations have shifted their supply chains to
countries such as China for various business reasons.
Most significant is to lower their labor costs, toward
the end of achieving competitive advantage in a
global marketplace. Other strategic reasons can also
motivate such a shift, for example the long-term
strategic goal to develop new domestic markets in a
country such as China that has explosive domestic
growth potential.
I argue that the practice of seeking lower labor
costs in it seems accepted in principle by most in the
global economy today. It stems from the morally
legitimate motivation in a capitalist system to suc-
cessfully compete for customers so that shareholder
assets can be protected and even advanced. This is a
fundamental ethical assumption of a competitive
market-based system. The ethical question in such a
process is raised in terms of how low a firm might
go in reducing those costs at the expense of other
stakeholders, most notably its workers. Thus, the
quest for reducing costs comes into tension with
other moral demands and values about treatment of
workers. For instance, many would argue that there
is at least a moral minimum below which a firm
ought not to go, wherein it wrongly compromises
the status and human dignity of its workers.4 Thus,
an inherent tension lies at the heart of debates about
the moral character of corporate behavior and
practice. Corporations must juggle the interests
and moral demands of its various stakeholders
capital, workers, local communities, governments,
consumers, NGOs, and now even the natural
environment.5
Critics of global supply chains often extend their
complaints far beyond the mere fact of lower wages.
Those complaints have included such practices as
long work weeks, unsafe working conditions, child
labor, forced labor, low levels of worker participa-
tion, ignoring of labor complaints, harassment, dis-
crimination, and other violations of human rights.
The anti sweat-shop movement is a notable
example of such criticism.6 Clearly, the moral
expectation of many citizens of western nations is
that corporations ought to be held accountable to
the same types of ethical standards in LDC host
countries as in developed home countries. When
their practices diverge from high home country
 The Ethics of Global Supply Chains in China
standards, corporations are often severely criticized,
with negative media attention, and potential damage
to corporate reputation, which can punish a com-
panys stock price. The implicit underlying premise
for some, it would seem, is one based on human
rights or human dignity, rather than on moral rela-
tivism. All people in the world share some basic
characteristics of human dignity that ought never to
be violated, regardless of social context (e.g., whe-
ther they live in a rich or poor society) and thus
whether they have an abundance of employment
choices or nearly none, and whether they have
adequate institutional mechanisms to protect their
interests or not. The unstated assumption as well is
that corporations ought not merely to do in Rome
as Romans do. A moral relativism that relies only
on the particularities of local customs or practices are
not at work here. Larger and thicker moral norms
are at play that seem to have some universal appli-
cation.
In light of such larger public expectations, and in
an effort to practice standards of behavior typical to
developed nations, countless international firms have
focused attention on their corporate culture, and
management and labor practices, with the creation
of codes of conduct and a tightening of labor prac-
tices, coupled with public relations campaigns to
publicize such changes. Those efforts seem especially
pronounced with firms that have a strong retail
focus, whose products and services are sold directly
to mass consumers. Unfortunately, though, corpo-
rate compliance to high ethical standards usually is
more difficult and complex with global supply
chains. Ethical compliance (and indeed compliance
with all sorts of other standards, such as quality and
the environment) is no longer the more simple task
of direct regulation of their own corporate work-
force. Rather, corporations contract with other firms
in their global supply chains. As a result, interna-
tional firms typically have taken the next tactical step
in trying to insure ethical behavior by demanding
compliance to codes of conduct by their supply
chain partners. In China, these tend to be Chinese
firms. Pun Ngai characterizes this trend aptly:
In contrast to the race to the bottom strategy that
works adversely against labour rights globally, we see
an increasingly concerted attempt by transnational
capital to initiate and shape new globalized factory regimes
115
by imposing international labour standards and regu-
lations on rapidly changing labour relations in China.
From the mid 1990s onward, there has been a race by
TNCs [transnational corporations] to aggressively
introduce a series of company codes into China. Most
of them set up human rights departments or sub-
divisions responsible for implementing codes of con-
duct for their production suppliers or trade partners in
China, and hence significantly influenced the whole
production process (Ngai, 2004, p. 3).This evolution
in the internationalization of corporate ethical stan-
dards has been aided by the emergent development of
international standards, typically sponsored and created
under the auspices of international NGOs and multi-
lateral institutions such as the UN, the ILO, the
OECD, and the ICC.7 Usually created with broad-
based multi-sector participation including corpora-
tions, governments, and NGOs, these collaborative
efforts aim to provide common, generic, best practice
standards that can be endorsed and institutionalized by
corporations across many industries, eliminating the
need for each company to create its own standards ex
nihilo.
While Chinese firms may formally agree to such
ethical practices as a condition for continued busi-
ness, this may not insure compliance. Such Chinese
firms may have little inherent interest in complying
with such labor practices. They may conclude that
they entail inordinate financial cost, or may be dif-
ficult to implement culturally. Or they may con-
clude that a weak compliance and auditing system
makes enforcement weak or non-existent. Further-
more, Chinese suppliers can be faced with different
labor standards for different corporate clients, cre-
ating confusion and high cost of compliance. At the
same time, though, there is broad-based evidence to
suggest that this external pressure to comply with
new globalized norms of corporate behavior is cre-
ating real change in the practices of those LDC
supply chain companies. Suppliers in China and
other parts of the developing world may conclude
that they have no choice but to participate in these
new compliance regimes, albeit often reluctantly and
incompletely, as a condition for business.
At the same time, international firms are still
vulnerable to criticism back home and in the eyes
of the international media and international NGOs
who may fairly accuse the compliance regime of
having insufficient oversight and auditing. And if
116 David A. Krueger
codes of conduct for supply chain partners are made
public but not uniformly enforced and audited,
corporations run the risk of even higher levels of
public criticism. They can be criticized as being
hypocritical, or not walking their talk, or hiding
unethical practices behind a shroud of disingenuous
public relations white-washing. Better, sometimes,
to be silent than go on record as espousing values that
are not adequately practiced. In sum, the attempts by
global corporations to ensure ethical treatment of
workers in their global supply chains can be costly,
cumbersome, only haphazardly embraced by supply
chain partners, and inadequately monitored and en-
forced. Intentions may be sound; results can be
mixed; public criticism can continue.
The development of industry-wide codes
of conduct in China
As a result of this type of situation, some international
firms have shifted their tactical focus trying to create
and support country-specific, industry-wide ethical
standards, and compliance regimes. This involves
negotiation among primary firms in an industry and
often with an industry association representing local
suppliers to create a single set of labor standards that
can then be used and employed universally by all
suppliers with whom international firms do business.
It typically also includes the establishment of a system
of independent, third party auditing to better insure
compliance. This evolutionary process has made
strides within a number of industries heavily invested
in Chinese supply chains, including textiles, toys, and
electronics-related industries.
The remainder of this paper will examine those
industries to describe and analyze their experiences
and practices. It will conclude that this tactical
response to address labor practices considered
unethical by many in developed countries offers a
promising model for a seemingly successful ethical
convergence of east and west in what is becoming
an increasingly seamless integrated global economy.
The textile industry
The Chinese textile industry provides one notable
example of multi-partner collaboration resulting in
an industry wide code of conduct China Social
Compliance 9000 for the Textile and Apparel
Industry (CSC9000T) supported by global cor-
porations, Chinese suppliers, the Chinese govern-
ment, and large global retailers. Written in 2005,
CSC9000T was spearheaded by the China National
Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC), the non-
profit industry association for Chinese textile com-
panies.8 A voluntary code, Chinese suppliers and
international firms opt into its adoption.
The code requires signatories to embrace both a
set of principles and also management system policies
and internal review processes. It enables a business
enterprise to establish and implement its own social
responsibility management system based on Chinas
laws and regulations, international conventions and
standards (CSC9000T, 2005). Aspirational in nat-
ure, it tries to make the case such that voluntary
compliance will meet the enterprises [sic] social
responsibility and financial objectives, reduce oper-
ational risks, and achieve continual improvement
(CSC9000T, 2005). Seemingly driven by common
areas of worker rights found in basic international
documents, this codes principles include the fol-
lowing: creation of a social responsibility manage-
ment system, use of written employment contracts
with all workers, prohibition of forced labor,
adherence to laws and regulations on working hours,
provision of wages and benefits not below minimum
legal requirements, acknowledgement of the right of
employees to form and join trade unions and bargain
collectively, non-discrimination, non-harassment
and abuse, and respect for occupational health and
safety. Second, various requirements involve the
establishment of a social responsibility management
system that includes a code; social responsibility
objectives and targets; adequate human and financial
resources for its monitoring; training, employee
awareness, and communication; operational con-
trols, monitoring, adequate documentation, mecha-
nisms for corrective action; and auditing
(CSC9000T, 2005).
George Heller, president and CEO of Hudsons
Bay Company, a large global clothing retailer
endorsing this code, cites the following three
objectives that it accomplishes:
1. A common vendor code of conduct that
draws heavily from the ILO and United
Nations Global Compact principles;
 The Ethics of Global Supply Chains in China
2. A standardized factory audit process for ensur-
ing the common standards are measurable;
3. Ultimately, a sharing of the data on factory
audits versus individual efforts that overlap or
dont exist.9
In sum, this code embodies several components
typical of the emergent genre: appeal to minimal
adherence to host country laws; appeal to larger,
more aspirational international norms espoused by
prominent international NGOs such as the UN and
the ILO; implementation of a voluntary internal
management system; and the creation of a factory
audit system to measure compliance.
The toy industry
As with many other consumer products, most toys
produced globally are now manufactured in China.
The ethical challenges faced by this global industry
were similar to those faced by global clothing com-
panies a proliferation of competing ethical standards
imposed by global toy companies and retailers on
their Chinese suppliers, with mixed results in
implementation and auditing, and with higher levels
of financial cost that could be obtained from a single
set of standards and a single compliance and auditing
process. Strategy XXI, a global consulting firm that
assisted in the creation of the eventual industry code,
described the ethical challenge as follows:
[T]oy manufacturers in China were faced with a
bewildering array of labor codes and monitoring
protocols developed by individual toy brands, retailers
and licensorsall meant to ensure the fair treatment of
workers, but all differing to some degree. This led to
the considerable confusion among suppliers to the
toy industry as well as cost inefficiencies resulting
from multiple audits (http://www.strategy-xxi.com/
toyindustry.html).Working with the International
Council of Toy Industries (ICTI),10 their clients, toy
companies, and Chinese government officials, together
they created a new, industry-wide code of business,
Code of Business Practices (CBP) and a seven-step
ICTI CARE Process that provides independent implementation by all member companies. In 2004,
certification of the requirements of the code. Like the
textile industry code, CBP endorses support for basic
workplace norms such as adherence to law for work
weeks, wages and overtime pay practices; no child la-
bor; no forced labor; rights of employee representation
117
as provided by local law; and safe working conditions,
provision of medical assistance, safety equipment,
and sanitation. The compliance component of the
code requires that all member companies inspect
their own facilities and those of their suppliers, offer
annual statements of compliance, and mechanisms for
failures and corrective actions, which could warrant
termination of contracts (http://www.toy-icti.org/
info/code.htm).
The second component of this ethics program is
their CARE (Caring, Awareness, Responsible,
Ethical) Process, which consists of a seven step
certification process of compliance for toy factories.
ICTIs goal is for all member companies of its 18
national associations to commit to do business by a
certain date only with Chinese suppliers that are
enrolled in the CARE process. The seven step fac-
tory certification process is as follows: (1) a factory
received an application package from an ICTI office,
(2) it contacts one of six accredited ICTI audit
companies to enter the certification process and
request a factory audit (with payment of a fee), (3)
the cost of the audit is negotiated between applicant
company and audit firm, (4) the audit is conducted
and, if necessary, corrective action plans and re-
auditing will occur, (5) if successful, the audit is
reported to ICTI, which reviews and approves the
factory, (6) ICTI issues a seal of compliance (upon
receipt of another fee), and (7) audit compliance is
conducted annually for renewal (http://www.toy-
icti.org/info/care_process.pdf).
ICTI anticipates that they will move fairly expe-
ditiously toward full compliance of the ethical
standards in their code of conduct. With over 70% of
toys globally manufactured in China and with most
global toy firms as members of groups belonging to
ICTI, they are optimistic about success.
Electronics industry
As in the previous two industries, the electronics
industry created a single code of conduct for
through collaboration of representatives of large
global electronics firms, an implementation group
created the Electronics Industry Code of Conduct
(EICC). Since such a huge portion of member firms
supply chains are located in China, the focus on this
118 David A. Krueger
code, in effect, has been on China. Revised in 2005,
the code is voluntary and self-enforced.11 Although
it recommends that member companies seek
enforcement of the code throughout their entire
supply chains, they urge that it be required at least
for first tier suppliers (http://www.eicc.info/
EICCversion2.0-Oct.10,2005.pdf).
At a minimum, the code mandates that a member
firm operate in full compliance with the laws, rules
and regulations of the countries in which it operates
while encouraging it to go beyond legal compliance,
drawing upon internationally recognized standards, in
order to advance social and environmental responsi-
bility (http://www.eicc.info/EICCversion2.0-
Oct.10,2005.pdf). Its five sections encompass a full
range of social and environmental standards.
Regarding labor standards, it recognizes common
commitments and prohibitions: only freely chosen
employment, no child labor, restrictions on work
weeks, compliance with wage laws, non-discrimina-
tion, and freedom of association. Regarding health
and safety, topics include protection from safety
hazards, emergency preparedness, and hygiene.
Environmental standards include support for
ISO14001; pollution prevention, resource, and waste
reduction; proper treatment of hazardous substances;
and adherence to all local environmental laws. A
management system must be established to ensure
compliance to the code, as well as laws; concern for
risk assessment and management; that promotes
training and communication; that seeks worker
feedback, and that documents, records, and corrective
actions. Finally, additional ethical requirements in-
clude concerns for such values as integrity, openness
and transparency, fair business dealings, and good
relations with stakeholders (http://www.eicc.info/
EICCversion2.0-Oct.10,2005.pdf).
With regard to this code, one notes that not only
it does seem to have been generated under the
auspices of an established industry trade association,
but also seem to include requirements for external,
third-party auditing of performance. Perhaps its
newness will suggest such features in the future.
Conclusion
In sum, these three examples show the similar
development of industry-wide codes of conduct that
global corporations, primarily from developed
countries, intend to apply to their growing Chinese
supply chains. In terms of content, their workplace
norms are virtually identical, in terms of prohibitions
of certain practices and in terms of the affirmation of
common aspirational norms. Surely, the global
companies in these industries are motivated by the
same types of reasons for promoting and trying to
institutionalize similar international ethical standards
upon their Chinese supply chain operations and
partners. Those reasons can include heightened
public moral pressure and expectations; protection of
long-term corporate reputation; desire to manage
financial costs through standardization of policies,
procedures, and compliance monitoring; and even a
genuine commitment to the long-term social and
economic development of the host countries in
which they do business. Even corporations can have
strong commitments to human rights and social
well-being. Again, one notes that the companies
represented in these three examples tend to be retail
firms, whose products and services are sold to mass
markets. As such, they surely become more highly
subject to public scrutiny by the media and by
NGOs than would business-to-business firms that do
not sell primarily to the general public. Thus, their
high reputational motivations may be stronger than
in other industries.
The promise of such industry-wide systems of
ethical norms and compliance systems is that they
might be more effective than company-specific
efforts of the past. Not only might they reduce the
costs and complexity of compliance for their supply
chain partners, but also they might help to foster a
critical mass of industry support and participation
that makes non-participation more difficult. Indeed,
the long-term benefits to developing countries such
as China could be significant, through the permanent
transformation of workplace conditions for millions
of Chinese workers. As such, this trend toward im-
proved workplace conditions driven by the interna-
tionalization of workplace standards of conduct may
provide evidence of a convergence of east and west.
One notes potentially significant differences
among some of these industry initiatives. For instance,
it may be significant to eventual success that the textile
industry code of conduct was spearheaded by the local
Chinese industry association, and seemingly with
much collaboration and communication among all
 The Ethics of Global Supply Chains in China
relevant parties, including global corporations, local
Chinese firms, and government officials. The elec-
tronics industry initiative seems to lack this broad,
cross-sectoral collaboration at this stage in its recent
development. The toy industry initiative seems strong
in its standardized, mandatory, third-party compli-
ance certification system, and also in its claim that the
vast majority of global toy firms will support and
participate in the compliance regime. In all cases, as
studies have shown, challenges will surely be expe-
rienced on the ground in terms of actual compli- Notes
ance, interpretations of standards, and commitment
levels of management of Chinese factories.12
Such efforts might nevertheless be criticized by
some as symptomatic of yet another instance of an
unhealthy paternalistic relationship with Chinese
workers. Lacking adequate institutional mechanisms
for worker participation and representation (e.g., no
effective labor unions, weak legal protections in the
judicial system, highly enculturated paternalistic
power relationships), Chinese workers yet again find
themselves in a position of relative powerlessness.
Workplace requirements are created and enforced
with pressure from an external force, and not due to
worker involvement itself.13 Paternalistic socialism,
allegedly, has been replaced by paternalistic capitalism.
This absence of worker participation reveals a
huge difference between east and west that may not
be closed in the future. I would argue that
empowering worker and citizen participation is a
moral endeavor, the success of which requires
appropriate institutional conditions for the creation
of moral free space. One wonders whether the cal initiative by global corporations to respond to larger
current single party system in China would ever
permit the development of such institutional con-
ditions. Indeed, its continued unilateral hegemony,
in the absence of democratically based authority,
would seem to require that such possibilities be
permanently thwarted. The Chinese governments
utter inability to confront the moral character of its
past and to permit the moral free space that is tary codes of conduct have developed over the past decade,
essential to the full flourishing of a developed society
results in the current vacuum in everyday morality
[that] hampers everything (Pomfret, 2006).
Thus, one can conclude that global firms face
severe constraints in their full capacity to enhance the
dignity and character of workplace conditions in
China. Nevertheless, one critical outcome of such
codes of conduct and their compliance systems is to
119
strengthen the rights, dignity, and position of Chinese
workers in the absence of effectively enforced Chinese
government regulations, government protection of
human rights, or cultural patterns that encourage
such types of power relationships. Metaphorically,
this train left the station long ago and seems inca-
pable of being derailed. The question is how many
passengers it will pick up along the way.
1
The idea for this paper originated at the November
2005 annual meeting of Business for Social Responsibil-
ity (www.bsr.org) wherein representatives from various
global corporations and NGOs reported on efforts to
develop standardized codes of conduct for entire indus-
try groups doing business with Chinese supply chain
partners. I am grateful to Fred Bird and Ding Bocheng,
who offered comments and suggestions on previous
versions of this essay.
2
Having argued that western capitalist societies
found ways to distribute wealth and opportunity widely,
we still acknowledge the obvious fact that tensions and
dilemmas nevertheless remain in terms of the persistence
of large pockets of poverty, especially in nations such as
the U.S., where government redistributive mechanisms
are less prevalent than in some other western nations.
3
Those include transparency, bribery and corrup-
tion; cross-cultural convergences and clashes of values;
sustainability and environmental protection; poverty
alleviation; and worker representation, health and safety.
4
Cf. Simon et al. (1986) and also DeGeorge (1993).
5
The quest for sustainability is but the latest ethi-
stakeholder interests, in this case the need to reduce
environmental footprints for long-term ecological and
social sustainability. Cf. Hart, 2005.
6
Cf. the work of the Clean Clothes Campaign
which offers some history of the anti-sweat shop move-
ment (http://www.cleanclothes.org/cccs.htm).
7
A growing array of international protocols and volun-
including the UNs Global Compact, the OECDs Guide-
lines for Multinational Corporations, the ICCs Business
Charter for Sustainable Development, the Global Sullivan
Principles of Corporate Social Responsibility, the CERES
principles, and the Clean Clothes Campaigns Model Code
(http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI
/WBIPROGRAMS/CGCSRLP/0,,contentMDK:207195
68pagePK:64156158piPK:64152884theSitePK:4608
61,00.html)
120 David A. Krueger
8
CNTAC, the national federation of all textile-re-
lated industries in China, provides services to modernize
Chinas textile industry. (http://www.apparelandfoot-
wear.org/AboutAAFA/ChinaBusinessResources.asp).
9.
George Heller, presentation at the National Con-
ference on Textiles Development, Shanghai, China,
October 24, 2004, (http://www.retailcouncil.org/crart/
georgeheller_speakingnoteschina102404.pdf).
10
www.toy-icti.org
11
Member companies include large highly visible glo-
bal electronics firms, including Adobe, Cisco Systems,
Dell, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Sony.
12
Cf. Ngais summary of two field studies of two
companies in the Pearl River Delta and in the Yangtze
River region evaluating their on-the-ground experi-
ences in complying with new supply chain codes of
conduct imposed by their international corporate clients
(http://www.cwwn.org/download/GlobalizedFactory
RegimesandRe-organizedMoralism.doc).
13
I am again indebted to Pun Ngai for making this
observation so clearly, with considerable appeal to
otherscholars who have made the same argument
(http://www.cwwn.org/download/GlobalizedFactory
RegimesandRe-organizedMoralism.doc).
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Division of Business Administration,
Baldwin-Wallace College,
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E-mail: dkrueger@bw.edu
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