RESEARCH
Globalization & Labor Standards
Globalization, with its volatile mix of economic opportunity and social disruption, is redefining the experience of work and challenging national institutions that govern employment. The world of global supply chains links thousands of firms, large and small, extending across cultural and political boundaries. In this world, corporations, unions, NGOs, national governments, and even international labor, trade and financial organizations are all casting about, searching for new strategic directions and/or novel institutional arrangements for governing employment and work. But there is enormous uncertainty about their likely success – in particular, about their success in addressing three basic concerns about employment relations in the global economy: fair compensation, decent and healthy working conditions (including work hours), and rights of association. To get at these questions, I have been conducting a series of studies, all involving MIT graduate students, on labor conditions in different global supply chains. More...
Sustainability
This research seeks to understand the relationship between corporate environmental and social responsibility and profitability/competitiveness. Once viewed in competition, we are now beginning to understand the relationship between these two forces as complementary. Ultimately, businesses that neglect the welfare of the planet they share do so at the risk of eliminating their future customers and own organizational survival. In short, the sustainability of business and the ecological and human conditions of the society are unavoidably intertwined. More...
The Challenge of Sustainability
