Introduction
Over the past two decades, stakeholder concerns and ubiquitous public pressures have led to evolving forms of social and environmental disclosure and transparency regulations in different countries. This has attracted a growing body of research on the effect of social and environmental disclosure regulations on corporate disclosure and transparency practices (see, for example, Islam & Van Staden,
2018; Birkey et al.,
2018; Bebbington et al.,
2012; Blacconiere & Patten,
1994; Blacconiere & Northcut,
1997; Chauvey et al.,
2015; Larrinaga et al.,
2002). Prior research mainly analysed disclosures (in annual reports, CSR/sustainability reports and websites) in response to regulation mandating disclosure.
1We extend this body of research by focussing on a new and important piece of regulation, the UK Modern Slavery Act of 2015, and stakeholder narratives on its success or limitations in achieving transparent modern slavery disclosures and attaining normativity (i.e. being regarded as good and desirable). Identifying and documenting critical issues in regulation enacted to address a social problem like modern slavery is important in order to improve future regulatory direction/s to eliminate unethical practices like modern slavery from supply chains and society.
Modern slavery is an unethical practice (ILO and Walk Free Foundation,
2017; Blitz & Simic,
2019) and its pervasive presence in global supply chains has attracted global criticism (Ansett & Hantover,
2013; Arnold & Hewison,
2005; Barrientos & Smith,
2007; Hughes et al.,
2007; Kasperkevic,
2016; Kelly,
2014). Major disasters, such as the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 that killed more than 1100 workers in factories in Bangladesh that produced garments for western retailers, are indicative of weak moral and ethical standards applied by global retailers in their supply chains (Islam et al.,
2021). This has led to new forms of regulation (such as the UK Modern Slavery Act of 2015; the US Dodd-Frank Act’s conflict mineral reporting rules, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, and the Australian Modern Slavery Act of 2018) that attracted significant academic and social activist attention (Roshitsh,
2021; Sobik,
2020; Rogerson et al.,
2020; Hansard,
2019; LeBaron & Rühmkorf,
2019; Blitz & Simic,
2019; Stevenson & Cole,
2018; Christ & Burritt,
2018; Birkey et al.,
2018; Islam & Van Staden,
2018; The Guardian,
2015; New,
2015; Crane,
2013; Gold et al.,
2015). In relation to the UK Modern Slavery Act, while the Act is heralded to create transparency in relation to factory working conditions within global supply chains, there are concerns among academics and anti-slavery activists about the Act’s limitations and resulting effectiveness (The Guardian,
2015; Hansard,
2019; LeBaron & Rühmkorf,
2019; Stevenson & Cole,
2018).
Drawing on notions of supply chain transparency (Egels-Zandén et al.,
2015; Gold & Heikkurinen,
2018) and regulatory normativity (Ewick & Silbey,
2003; Gray & Silbey,
2014) and the literature on counter-accounts/narratives (Islam et al.,
2021; Semeen & Islam,
2021; Neu et al.,
2020; Lehman et al.,
2016; Vinnari and Laine 2017; Gallhofer et al.,
2006), we use interviews and publicly available reports and documents to provide an insight into the limitations of the UK Modern Slavery Act. Previous research examined the normativity of social and environmental disclosure regulations by documenting the extent of corporate disclosure in compliance with the regulations (see, for example, Birkey et al.,
2018; Chauvey et al.,
2015). Our focus differs from the previous research in that we draw on the sociology literature on normativity (Ewick & Silbey,
2003; Gray & Silbey,
2014) to examine the content and quality of the UK Modern Slavery Act rather than focussing on the Act’s impact on corporate disclosures. We do this by obtaining stakeholder views and narratives on the content and quality of the Act to assess the achievement of transparency regarding modern slavery in global supply chains and the attainment of normativity for the Act within the public domain. By focussing on the views of anti-slavery activists and experts, we problematise a particular social transparency and disclosure regulation in the UK, that transcend national boundaries in order to control (modern) slavery in supply chains operating in the developing world. Our focus on anti-slavery activists is very pertinent, since anti-slavery activists not only played an important role in bringing about the UK Modern Slavery Act of 2015, they were also responsible for the inclusion of Section 54 on transparency to the legislation, as we discuss in the next part. They also represent society, which is arguable the most impacted by modern slavery as they can be the victims of this practice. Their views on whether the Act did, in fact, achieve its transparency aim and attained normativity are therefore topical and important.
We find that the interviewees expressed concerns (or reservations) about the Act achieving transparency, for respecting the public interest, and for attaining normativity. Based on the notions of normativity (Ewick & Silbey,
2003; Gray & Silbey,
2014) and supply chain transparency (Egels-Zandén et al.,
2015; Gold & Heikkurinen,
2018), we find that while Act’s minimum disclosure provisions did not lead to the achievement of transparency, this may also hamper the Act’s normativity. Improved transparency and normativity could result from the roles anti-slavery campaign groups can play through the surveillance of corporate compliance with the Act and their ability to trace the source of manufacturing within supply chains. Our study provides new insights into the critical role of anti-slavery activists and NGOs in understanding the limitations of a particular disclosure regulation to create transparency and attain normativity, as well as the roles these activists could play in holding regulators and companies responsible for their modern slavery-related unethical practices in global supply chains. We contribute to the interdisciplinary literature on transparency and regulatory normativity by highlighting anti-slavery activists’ critical evaluations of a new transparency and disclosure regulation with regards to the elimination of modern slavery within global supply chains. We also contribute to the counter-account/narrative literature (see, for example, Semeen & Islam,
2021; Islam et al.,
2018,
2021) that shows that NGOs, activists and social movement organisations are crucial actors in exposing the lack of corporate transparency and accountability, and failures of responsibility to protect workers within the global supply chains.
The UK Modern Slavery Act of 2015 and its Provisions for Global Supply Chains
Historically, slavery meant owning persons as legal property and principles of property law were applied to human beings (Allain,
2017). This meant that people were bought and sold as their owners saw fit and were made to work hard under often inhumane conditions. Although we do not see much of this form of slavery nowadays, different forms of slavery have emerged with globalisation. As a broad term, modern slavery encompasses unethical practices and may take many forms, among them unpaid labour, human trafficking, child or forced labour, and forced marriages. In 2016, it was estimated that over 40.3 million people worldwide were enmeshed in some form of modern slavery, that is, there were 5.4 victims of modern slavery for every 1000 people in the world (ILO and Walk Free Foundation,
2017). In the United Kingdom, on any given day in 2016, 136,000 people lived in modern slavery conditions, that is, 2.1 victims for every 1000 people in the country (The Global Slavery Index,
2018). However, forced labour is the main form of modern slavery within global supply chains and 25 million people are in forced labour worldwide (ILO and Walk Free Foundation,
2017). With regards to global supply chains, there is a ubiquitous public and academic discourse suggesting that the use of forced labour facilitates lower labour costs and boosts the revenues of multinational retailers and suppliers (Chalmers,
2013; FEE,
2017; Oxfam,
2018) and this, in turn, raise problematic issues regarding the ethical standing of both retailers and suppliers (Islam et al.,
2021).
2
Modern slavery issues are gaining significant public and academic attention because high-profile human rights crises are emerging in global supply chains (Christ & Burritt,
2018; Crane,
2013; Gadd & Broad,
2018; Gold et al.,
2015; Islam et al.,
2018,
2021; Landau & Marshall,
2018; Mehra & Shay,
2016; New,
2015; Turner,
2016), for example, the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, and because new forms of modern slavery regulation are evolving to regulate MNCs and their suppliers in the developing world. Transparency and disclosure regulations such as the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 (CTSCA), the US Dodd-Frank Act’s conflict minerals rules, the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, the French Duty of Vigilance Law 2017, The Netherlands Due Diligence on Child Labour Act 2017 and the Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018, have implications for companies operating in the West as well as their suppliers in the developing world. What is new in these regulations is that they require companies to provide transparency statements or disclosures on tackling modern slavery and forced labour arising from their business operations. While research on corporate transparency, in general, is not new (see Bushman et al.,
2004 for financial transparency and Islam & Van Staden,
2018 for social transparency), research investigating the extent to which particular transparency regulations is perceived to create transparency and accountability is sparse. While voluntary disclosure by companies is increasing over time (see, for example, KPMG,
2008,
2017), disclosure practices as part of transparency in response to regulation are weak (Birkey et al.,
2018; Chauvey et al.,
2015). This is echoed in more recent industry research, which shows that initial modern slavery disclosures in response to the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 are low (Steiner-Dicks,
2019). While it is still too early to gain a full understanding of how companies are responding to the UK Modern Slavery Act and whether this will bring long-term social justice, our research contributes to critical work on the limitations of modern slavery transparency regulations.
Section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015
3 requires companies with an annual turnover of £36 million or more to publish a modern slavery statement in relation to its supply chains every year on its website. Companies covered by this section need to disclose the following information (Home Office,
2015, p. 12):
-
Their organisational structure, business, and supply chains;
-
Their policies in relation to slavery and human trafficking;
-
Their due diligence processes in relation to slavery and human trafficking in their business and supply chains;
-
The parts of their business and supply chains where the risk of slavery and/or human trafficking arises, and the steps they have taken to assess and manage the risk;
-
Their effectiveness in ensuring that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in their business or supply chains, measured against such performance indicators as they consider appropriate;
-
The training and capacity-building about slavery and human trafficking made available to their staff.
Section 54 was not originally included in the act. This section was brought in at the amendment stage following civil society campaigns, which led to the ‘last minute’ attention given to supply chain disclosures with minimum compliance requirements (or minimum disclosure requirements) (The Guardian,
2015; LeBaron & Rühmkorf,
2019). The act was not applicable to the public sector. There was an attempt to introduce draft disclosure for public sector supply chains, but that was lost in the legislative processes when the 2017 UK general election was called and has not subsequently been resurrected (Hansard,
2019).
The minimum compliance requirements under Section 54 do not specify what a modern slavery statement must include in terms of disclosures or how it should be structured. It provides a non-exhaustive list of information that may be included (Home Office,
2015). While the Act indicates that organisations should, as a minimum,
describe the main actions they have taken during the financial year to deal with modern slavery risks in their supply chains and their own business (Home Office,
2015), it emphasises that these organisations should present a detailed picture of all the steps they have taken to address and remedy modern slavery, and the effectiveness of all such steps (The Barrister,
2019). The Act’s requirements appear quite broad and setting a minimum disclosure requirement leaves discretion to companies over the interpretation and implementation of the Act. As a result, there are flexibility and opportunities for different approaches to the level of desired disclosure and the degree of coordination within and between organisations. Moreover, while knowledge of how transparency reporting practices are set or regulated is sparse, a critical question relates to the degree to which regulated organisations have digested the Act so far, where the boundaries of implementation may be, and the effectiveness of the Act. At the same time, earlier research has found a limited response and low disclosure (Stevenson & Cole,
2018), and many companies have not published the required statements (Hansard,
2019). While there is the public and academic discourse on the limitations of the Act for protecting the public interest (The Guardian,
2015; Hansard,
2019; LeBaron & Rühmkorf,
2019; Roshitsh,
2021; Sobik,
2020; Stevenson & Cole,
2018), we specifically focus on supply chain transparency and the Act’s ability to become normative (i.e. being regarded as good or desirable or permissible). We argue that anti-slavery campaign groups and civil society organisations are in a better position to provide narratives about the limitations of the act. In other words, in line with the counter-account literature focussing on working conditions within global supply chains (Islam et al.,
2021,
2018; Semeen & Islam,
2021), we problematise the disclosure regulations through counter-narratives by anti-slavery campaign organisations. While the existing literature is rich in terms of exploring counter-narratives/accounts on different social and environmental issues (see, for example, Semeen & Islam,
2021; Neu et al.,
2020; Lehman et al.,
2016), the issues of modern slavery are under-researched.
Regulations are usually introduced in the name of protecting the ‘public interest’ or the welfare of the general public.
4 However, there is a broader concern that the regulators’ purpose of protecting the public interest is sometimes unclear, because it is unclear how the public interest should be defined and how it could be protected in practice. In particular, the broader tension highlighted in the critical regulation literature is that a particular regulation could be thwarted by regulatory capture. Regulatory capture results in regulation that gains support from different constituencies but may in fact not be in the public’s best interest (Baudot et al.,
2017). History provides many examples of regulators prioritising the interest of the regulated who have power and wealth over that of the general public (Wilson et al.,
2018). Accordingly, it can be argued that if certain powerful groups or multinational companies (MNCs) capture the regulatory process or the implementation of the regulation, policies or regulations like the Modern Slavery Act 2015 will probably be that much less effective in changing the way that organisations operate, i.e. the Act may not lead to the required or expected transparency about modern slavery and may not achieve normativity.
Transparency and Normativity
Previous research investigated the impact of regulations on corporate transparency and disclosures with regards to different social and environmental issues, using market theories (such as agency theory, Blacconiere & Northcut,
1997; Blacconiere & Patten,
1994) and non-market theories (i.e. legitimacy perspectives, Islam & McPhail,
2011; Larrinaga et al.,
2002) to explain disclosures. In this paper, we use a non-market theoretical construct, which includes notions of transparency (Egels-Zandén & Hansson,
2016; Egels-Zandén et al.,
2015; Gardner et al.,
2019) and regulatory normativity (Ewick & Silbey,
1998,
2003) to analyse the limitations of transparency required under the UK Modern Slavery Act. Each component of the theoretical framework for this research is discussed below.
The Notion of Supply Chain Transparency
A wide range of social science studies ranging from communication, business and accounting, development studies, ethics, law, political science to public administration have proliferated the concept of transparency (i.e. Islam & Van Staden,
2018; Qian et al.,
2015; Gardner et al.,
2019; Gold & Heikkurinen,
2018; Egels-Zandén et al.,
2015; Berliner,
2014; Fung et al.,
2007; Hollyer et al.,
2011; Meijer,
2009; Bauhr & Nasiritousi,
2012; Finel & Lord,
1999, 2007; Grigorescu,
2003; Rosenfeld & Denice,
2015; Fenster,
2010; Pinto,
2009; Bernstein,
2017; Buell et al.,
2017; Zhu,
2004) and our review of these studies suggest that transparency is a ubiquitous, relational concept. As a relational concept, transparency can relate to financial concerns (see, for example, Qian et al.,
2015; Barth & Schipper,
2008), non-financial and/or social concerns (Islam & Van Staden,
2018; Quaak et al.,
2007), political concerns (Heard-Lauréote,
2007) and so on. In the business literature, transparency studies can be broadly classified into financial and social transparency. While financial transparency, in general, relates to the disclosure of financial and market information by corporations (Barth & Schipper,
2008), social transparency relates to the disclosure of social responsibility information by corporations (Islam & Van Staden,
2018). In this paper, we focus on supply chain transparency—a form of social transparency mostly covered in the general business literature (Egels-Zandén et al.,
2015; Gardner et al.,
2019; Gold & Heikkurinen,
2018; Islam & Van Staden,
2018; Steinfield et al.,
2011). We specifically focus on supply chain-related transparency provisions within the UK Modern Slavery Act.
Previous research that focussed on transparency within global supply chains, refers to corporate transparency as the disclosure of specific information, including the traceability of suppliers by providing the names and factory locations of suppliers involved in producing the organisation’s products and the working conditions associated with these suppliers (Egels-Zandén et al.,
2015; Gardner et al.,
2019). Arguably ‘traceability’ of information is one of the critical ways to define the limits of transparency. That is, to be traceable, a member of the broader community (including consumers) should be able to easily trace where (which factory) and how a particular product was manufactured (this includes production, transport, and processing systems). Traceability of information provides transparency around factory operations and factory disclosures, and this could result in positive changes in the way that organisations manage their supply chain labour practices (Egels-Zandén & Hansson,
2016). However, there is a view that disclosing this information generates risks and expenses for a corporation if its competitors do not disclose similar information (Egels-Zandén & Hansson,
2016). ‘
For that reason, mandatory factory disclosure would be justified as a measure to level the playing field and to help ensure that those corporations who do the least to police their supply chain labor practices are not rewarded by their ability to remain hidden in the shadows’ (Doorey,
2011, p. 601).
By focussing on global supply chains, Gold and Heikkurinen (
2018) argue that while past research has claimed that transparency leads to responsibility and thus drives sustainable changes in business organisations’ practices, this is not the case within global supply chains. They provide a theoretical framework that shows that claims (calls) for corporate transparency, as a means to increase the responsibility of MNCs for their supply chains, have proved inadequate. Gold and Heikkurinen’s (
2018) insights are consistent with prior critical accounting literature that highlighted the difficulty of providing a nuanced contextualised understanding of transparency through corporate disclosures (see, for example, Coslor,
2016; Roberts,
2009). While these authors did not examine transparency regulations, given the emerging trend to regulate for transparency across countries, we are particularly interested in the UK’s call for transparency in supply chains via the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Gold and Heikkurinen’s (
2018) findings could be relevant for a situation where a regulator fails to achieve its regulatory objective of ensuring corporate transparency. We argue that there is a significant research gap, a need to address how regulations such as the UK Modern Slavery Act further the idea of transparency in an attempt to eliminate (modern) slavery from global supply chains. We argue that understanding this kind of social transparency is important, as there are situations or contexts (including regulatory contexts) in which compromising transparency for protecting corporate self-interest can be regarded as unethical and can have critical consequences for vulnerable stakeholders, including workers in global supply chains operating in developing countries.
We take a stakeholder perspective using the narratives (interviews) of anti-slavery activists which can be regarded as counter-narratives and we, therefore, refer to the counter-account literature to inform and motivate our approach. The literature on counter/alternative accounts argues that counter-narratives are the alternative representations or accounts of organisations and regulatory bodies, produced by NGOs and social movement organisations as a part of their actions against social inequality and irresponsibility (Vinnari & Laine, 2017; Gallhofer et al.,
2006; Lehman et al.,
2016; Semeen & Islam,
2021; Islam et al.,
2018,
2021). Counter-accounts are often mobilised to make heard the voices of vulnerable groups by exposing social inequalities perpetuated by the elites (Gallhofer et al.,
2006; Vinnari & Laine, 2017). The counter-account literature that focuses on global supply chains (i.e. Semeen & Islam,
2021; Islam et al.,
2018,
2021) offers the insight that NGOs and activists are crucial actors in exposing problems with corporate transparency and accountability, and the failure to protect workers within global supply chains. Accordingly, we argue that the narratives of anti-slavery activists are very important to expose the problems and issues hindering the achievement of transparency with regards to modern slavery, and these narratives are essential catalysts for future change.
The Notion of the Normativity of Regulation
Drawing on the broader social science literature on the normativity of regulation (Baier,
2016; Chelli et al.,
2018; Ewick & Silbey,
1998,
2003; Jackson,
2018; Schmidt & Rakoczy,
2018), we examine the disclosure provisions of the UK Modern Slavery Act. Normativity describes moral bases or values of regulation and regulatory compliance. Ewick and Silbey (
1998) suggest that normativity provides a dimension of people’s belief about how participants (both professional and laypeople) should act in legal interactions. It also specifies why regulation should, or should not, be invoked, obeyed, or resisted. In short, ‘
references to normativity describe the moral bases of legality’ (Ewick & Silbey,
1998, p.83). When people repeatedly refer to regulation as being impartial and objective, they view this as normative. ‘
Impartiality corresponds to the absence of a historical, biographical and socially located, and thus “interested”, self’ (Ewick & Silbey,
2003, p. 1342). The notion of normativity may be further transformed from a normative claim about how things should be done to a factual description of how the real-world works (Ewick & Silbey,
2003). In other words, the idea of normativity posits that, other than the normative claim, those taking part in legal interactions provide the understanding of how actors mobilise the law and evaluate legal processes and their invocations, and even how they use the law outside formal legal settings. Accordingly, the normativity of regulation is about more than just the core legal phenomena with interest in the effectiveness of law or consequences of regulations (Sarat & Kearns,
1993) but also involves the evaluation of the due processes above and beyond the formal legal setting. Normativity, therefore, suggests that regulation is regarded as good or desirable.
There are different reasons why regulators face a challenge in gaining normative status for regulation. Regulators can themselves be obstacles or barriers to the acceptance of regulations if they lack sufficient expertise to understand the work processes that they are regulating (Gray & Silbey,
2014). This may manifest through a lack of monitoring or expertise in auditing compliance with the regulations or relate to other reasons. The regulators may also face challenges because the regulations lack impartiality (in particular during the implementation of the law). Ewick and Silbey (
2003, p. 1347) describe the antithesis to normativity in the following way:
‘…other accounts described the arbitrariness of legal authority, its unpredictability, and raw power. Here law was simply the power of the powerful. Rather than seeing legal authority as derived from moral principles, objective reasoning, or regulated processes that legitimated its power, these stories reversed the direction of legitimation, describing power as producing the normative grounds upon which legality is exercised. Might, in these stories, makes right’.
This statement illustrates a primary obstacle to the normativity of regulations, arbitrariness, unpredictability, or uncertainty of legal authority. At the same time, another major obstacle to normativity is the abuse of power in the regulatory process. Through the process of regulating, or of gaining legitimation for regulation, powerful groups may gain power by disregarding the moral principles underlying the regulations.
While the notion of the normativity of regulation contains the moral bases for the legality, the moral basis of the UK Modern Slavery Act is in its aim, which is to eliminate modern slavery practices. Nevertheless, there is a risk that power imbalances may erode the Act’s normativity. While the limits of transparency can be assessed by exploring the normativity of the regulation, the issue remains under-researched. While normativity concerns the values underlying regulations, we assess the regulatory value by exploring the views of the broader community, including anti-slavery campaign groups, in responding to the regulations.
Prior research (e.g. Buhmann,
2011; Bebbington et al.,
2012; Manacorda,
2014; Chauvey et al.,
2015; Acerete et al.,
2019; Manacorda,
2014; Birkey et al.,
2018; Senn & Giordano-Spring,
2020; Brusca et al.,
2018; Chelli et al.,
2018—summarised in Table
1), focuses on different regulations ranging from country-level environmental reporting laws and CSR, to public sector accountability and reporting standards, used different methods ranging from content analysis, reviews, discourse analysis to interviews, to investigate the normativity of regulations. What this research reveals is that, in general, social and environmental disclosure regulations have an impact on normativity. Chauvey et al. (
2015) and Chelli et al. (
2018) found that companies in certain countries, over time, disclosed high levels of information complying with the regulatory disclosure requirements resulting in high levels of normativity. Birkey et al. (
2018) argued that during the early stages of disclosure regulation, attainment of normativity by the concerned companies appeared to be low. A few studies (see, for example, Chauvey et al.,
2015) tried to separate the attainment of an act’s normativity from the quality of disclosure and found that while a level of normativity may be attained, disclosure quality is not high and therefore, the act’s goals of increased transparency may remain unmet.
Table 1
Contributions of the prior literature on the normativity of corporate responsibility and disclosure regulations
| The study enhances our understanding of CSR normativity by drawing on the internationalisation of societal norms and law on social responsibility informing the demands on corporations. The study argues that the law need not conflict with the widespread view of CSR as ‘voluntary’ | EU context (CSR) | Industry neutral | Discourse and textual analysis |
| Using a constructivist perspective, this study provides a better understanding of compliance with reporting regulations by showing evidence that the production of normativity not only depends on the enforcement of the law but also depends on less formal rules and the emergence of shared beliefs and internal legitimacy | Spain and UK (Reporting regimes addressing environmental issues) | Electricity industry | Content analysis and Interviews |
| The study broadens our understanding of “normative hybridisation,” for tackling corruption, in which hard and soft laws, public and private initiatives are all merged together in a sole legal instrument | The United Nations (Convention against Corruption (UNCAC)) | Industry neutral | Literature review |
| This paper contributes to the literature by showing that regulations on CSR disclosure generated normativity over time. The study argued that while CSR disclosure has increased in terms of space and breadth, indicating a sense of greater normativity of regulations, the disclosures do not reach a quality level that allows complying with the goal of transparency set up by regulations | France (Regulation of disclosure of social and environmental information) | Publicly traded French companies from various industry sectors | Content analysis and regression analysis |
| With respect to company disclosure response, this study documents relatively high compliance with the legislation, although the disclosure responses appeared to be more symbolic than substantive in nature. The symbolic or limited quality of disclosure suggests that, without additional rules and guidance, the concerned law alone may not lead to meaningful social disclosure | USA (CTSCA) | Retail sector | Content analysis/ Regression model |
| In a comparative study, the authors found that the French parliamentary regime is more successful (in the production of normativity) than the Canadian regulation in generating environmental disclosures and that the external expectations including GRI combined with local regimes prompt the production of normativity | France and Canada (Environmental disclosure regulations) | Companies from various industry sectors | Content analysis and statistical model |
| The study provides an understanding of the use of normativity theory in explaining the normativity process for issuing consolidated reporting standards for local governments in the European context | Italy, Spain, and Sweden (Public sector reporting standards) | Local government | Interviews |
| The study found a low level of environmental information (reported by sample companies) because of the lack of an open process of normativity | Spain (Environmental financial accounting regulation) | Spanish toll sector corporations | Content analysis |
Senn and Giordano-Spring ( 2020) | This study offers a better understanding of how a common regulation may lead to interpretative strategies by different actors and networks of actors, contributing to shaping environmental accounting information | France (Environmental reporting regulation) | Environmental sensitive industries | Content analysis, semi-structured interviews |
While prior disclosure research examined normativity of particular disclosure regulations by documenting the extent of corporate disclosure in compliance with the regulations, in this paper, we examine the attainment of the normativity of a disclosure regulation, the UK Modern Slavery Act, in the public domain, using stakeholder narratives. Our focus on stakeholder narratives is different from prior quantitative studies (see, for example, Chauvey et al.,
2015; Chelli et al.,
2018; Birkey et al.,
2018) on the normativity of social and environmental disclosure regulations and qualitative (interview-based) studies (Bebbington et al.,
2012; Senn & Giordano-Spring,
2020) that documented the views of corporate managers and industry representatives and offered an understanding of internal (managerial) perspectives regarding the normativity of particular social and environmental disclosure regulations.
Research Methods
This study draws on interviews with anti-slavery campaign organisations and experts on corporate compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. Fourteen interviews were conducted between September 2018 and February 2019: three interviews with corporate and industry managers, two interviews with ethical investment firms, seven with anti-slavery campaign organisations (ACOs) (code 1–7), one with a government representative and one with a policy adviser from a professional accounting body in the UK.
5 The overall size and selection of the interviewees for this study is purposive. The overall strategy of interview data collection is often driven by the notion of data saturation—saturation is considered to have occurred when consecutive interviews do not provide the researcher with any new or additional insights (Malsch & Salterio,
2016). In relation to the data collection strategy and the saturation point, Malsch and Salterio (
2016) argue that the central aim/research question of the study is an important driver of the sample size. They also argue that the authors’ expertise in the chosen topic, and research that uses more than one source of data collection (for example, interviews and documents) reduce the number of participants needed. Accordingly, as we mainly focussed on anti-slavery campaign organisations, we interviewed a sufficient number of activists from different anti-slavery campaign organisations, to meet our saturation point. We had three more interviews with people from anti-slavery campaign organisations, but these did not give us any additional insights (this approach is also consistent with Islam et al.,
2018). Our extensive prior experience on the topic, interview methods and document analysis, and our use of multiple document sources in addition to interviews (see below) gives us confidence that our sample size is sufficient for our analysis. Interviews with other people (from government and industry) reflect mainly their official responses, which were already available in government/legal documents, corporate reports and industry documents. The interviewees are listed in the
Appendix, keeping the interviewee identity confidential, in line with the research ethics guidelines.
Interviews were conducted with senior officials at various organisations. Interviewees were knowledgeable about modern slavery at different organisations working to eliminate modern slavery in the UK and its supply chains, and organisations experiencing higher levels of oversight and monitoring of corporate compliance with the Modern Slavery Act. The views of campaigners and experts represent a unique resource within the modern slavery context that has received relatively little research attention. The opinions documented via interviews with anti-slavery activists constitutes a form of counter-narrative, which were helpful to problematise the disclosure provisions of the modern slavery Act. Our selection of activists from anti-slavery campaign organisations as a producer of counter-narratives is purposive and consistent with the approach followed in critical and counter accounting research (Gallhofer et al.,
2006; Semeen & Islam,
2021; Lehman et al.,
2016), that challenges the prevailing official and hegemonic position.
All people approached agreed to participate in telephone interviews and all were recorded with consent. The communication for appointments and consent was done via email. Interviews were transcribed within a week of the interview taking place. The interviews lasted from 30 min to one hour. While an interview guide was used, the questions were open-ended. Before commencing the interviews, the project was explained to each interviewee. As all interviews were conducted on a confidential basis, the observations reflected have not been attributed to a specific person or their organisation.
Across a wide range of research settings, we held informal communications and meetings (during workshops and conferences) with a large group of academics and industry experts on modern slavery, which helped this research to stay focussed on the research questions. While interviews were designed to probe the interpretations experts and activists of the implementation of the UK Modern Slavery Act, informal talks and meetings with a broader group of people helped the researchers to understand how the regulation works, how the work is done and what practitioners find satisfying and frustrating about it. This approach is consistent with sociology research (Gray & Silbey,
2014) and we found this approach helped us gain a broader understanding of the UK Modern Slavery Act.
In particular, through interviews and informal communication, we learned how the participants interpret the governing rules and procedures (Gray & Silbey,
2014). In line with this broader understanding, interviewees were explicitly asked to share their experience of whether the Act was achieving its primary purpose, to interpret the Act’s limitations or boundaries, and to interpret its merits or demerits. While these questions were an indirect way to examine the theoretical constructs – transparency and normativity – we found this one of the best ways to support the research. Without this approach, we would not have been able to fully understand the limitations to the transparency and disclosure provisions within the Modern Slavery Act.
We analysed the data by drawing on Miles and Huberman’s (
1994) approach for conducting qualitative research. We followed the following key steps to process our data:
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All interview transcripts were read and coded in an attempt to interpret the data. All references to, and descriptions of, regulators and regulations by the people we interviewed were also collected and reviewed. The interviews helped us to analyse the implementation, transparency and normativity of the Modern Slavery Act during its early implementation and the associated mechanisms for UK companies sourcing products from overseas.
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We reviewed all available documents (selected from our extensive web-search) including three legal documents, 25 reports by NGOs and anti-slavery campaign organisations (five of these reports were sent to us by our interviewees from anti-slavery campaign organisations) and law firms, 20 news articles in the British news media and five modern slavery statements and corporate reports produced by our corporate interviewee organisations. This helped us to understand and code statements both by regulatory bodies, corporations and anti-slavery activist groups.
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By following a holistic coding system (Miles et al.,
2014), we formed a comprehensive understanding of the overall contents of the interviews and documents. In our analysis, we mostly focussed on the statements and quotes from interviewees and we gave limited emphasis to the contents and statements from secondary documents as these were mostly overlapping with the interviews.
Analysis of the narratives, particularly those of anti-slavery activists, was performed in the light of the adopted theoretical concepts including the notion of transparency and the notion of normativity. Key interview questions and findings are presented in Table
2. Before interviewing people and analysing relevant reports and documents, we have formed a broad understanding of transparency and normativity. During the analysis, we refined and reframed our theoretical constructs to explain our data better. We adopted the theoretical framework discussed in Sect.
3 to analyse the opinions provided by experts and this helped us to uncover the various ways in which the interviewees express and interpret their relationships with the Modern Slavery Act as it seeks to regulate modern slavery in global supply chains.
Table 2
Summary of key findings
Purpose of the act | What do you see as the primary purpose of this legislation? | There are consensus views (except the views of anti-slavery activists) that the overall aim set in the Act is to reduce modern slavery in UK companies’ supply chains | Limited confidence among interviewees in the Act’s purpose of meeting transparency The Act aims to reduce or eliminate concerns over disclosures to create transparency Significant concerns that Act’s goals are more for the reduction of business risk than for reduction of slavery (or reduction of workers’ vulnerability) |
Why do you think the purpose is positive? Why do you see the purpose as critical? | Regulatory actors interviewed echoed corporate actors and see the Act as aiming to create a ‘level playing field’. Anti-slavery activists see its aim as sometimes being misunderstood because corporations may be engaged to reduce business risk only and not the elimination of slavery |
Disclosure provisions | Why do you see the minimum regulation as effective? | Regulatory, corporate actors and industry actors find the minimum disclosure a positive development towards transparency | A few studies on normativity are supportive of minimum disclosure regulations given the presence of minimum regulation and/or guidance Corporate actors in particular always prefer guidance for disclosures The activists are very critical of the minimum disclosure requirement as this does not necessarily result in the elimination of slavery |
Why do you see the minimum regulation as problematic? | The activists see minimum disclosure regulation as problematic because this does not create transparency and managers may use disclosure in an opportunistic manner |
Organisations required to disclose | Whether and how the reporting entities defined under the Act are objective and conducive to eliminate slavery on a large scale? | Anti-slavery activists believe that £36mil cut-off is arbitrary | All organisations should be covered £36mil cut-off is arbitrary Concerns over the exemption of public sector organisations |
Regulatory actors and corporate actors speculate on the inclusion of the public sector in the future. They are less concerned about the cut-off point |
Limits to transparency | What do you see as the limits to the transparency provisions within the act? | The activists feel that the Act and its minimum disclosure provision lacks insights into the traceability and verifiability of modern slavery Regulatory and industry actors agree that disclosure may not reflect the real corporate action | Traceability of information and the location of where products are sourced (suppliers/factories) is needed Issues with minimum disclosures and transparency Limited insights into whether suppliers (mostly from developing nations) abide by the Act Issues with verification and monitoring Workers and the broader community are excluded |
Why do you see the transparency provisions within the Act as critical? | The activists believe that the Act’s transparency regulations are critical because the Act does not have clear provisions to protect workers in the global supply chains operating in the developing world |
Influence of powerful groups on the regulation and the disconnection between disclosure and actions | Did the process and implementation of the regulation lead to dominance by powerful groups? Did the focus on risk lead to a disregard of the effect on workers and victims of slavery? Do you find a disparity between the Act’s transparency regulations and actual actions for eliminating slavery? | The activists are concerned that the Act was a result of the influence of powerful groups like the business community. Also, while corporate and industry actors are happy to see the Act as a risk minimisation tool, the activists sees this as a problem because the Act does not address the risk of vulnerable workers being victims of modern slavery | Powerful business interest limited the extent of regulation Interpretation of risk driven by business interests Concerns over the protection of corporate dominance and hegemony Issues associated with a call for transparency and actual actions for curbing slavery Modern slavery statements may not reflect modern slavery activities |
Normativity and the act | Tell us about the positive aspects of the Act? | The activists feel that the normativity of the Act depends on stakeholder engagement and their own roles to influence companies to be socially responsible. Government and corporate actors see positive sides of the minimum disclosure and ‘no penalty for non-compliance’ provisions as these may hamper companies’ engagement to solve the slavery problem | Issues that reduce normativity (lack of transparency and the influence of powerful interest groups) Raises the awareness of corporate transparency issues Enhance normativity by encouraging greater engagement by activists and foster change in corporate transparency Issues with monitoring and surveillance by anti-slavery groups Minimum disclosure requirement alone and lack of punitive measures are not supportive of normativity |
Tell us the about the negative aspects of the Act? | The activists find that the Act lacks the capacity to protect the public interest and workers’ rights over corporate interests |
Conclusion
This article provides essential insights into the views of anti-slavery activists and experts on the UK modem slavery Act of 2015 and its implications in relation to eliminating modern slavery from global supply chains. Most of the interviewees of this study articulated cautious confidence in the Act and its aims to foster corporate transparency and support for the public interest and in the normativity of the Act. For many interviewees, the Act is a starting point for broader dialogue among stakeholder groups to encourage corporate transparency in relation to modern slavery. There is a consensus view that the disclosure provisions of the Act may not help to eliminate modern slavery in the shorter term but may help to build long-term solutions. Other views see the Act as having been influenced by powerful interest groups whose motivations were business risk management rather than minimising the risk of people falling victim to modern slavery in supply chains, mainly operated in developing nations. For many interviewees, the constructive aspect of the Act will be its normativity (Ewick & Silbey,
2003), which should encourage ‘more’ scrutiny of regulated organisations by civil society groups and human rights activists.
While the interviewees find the transparency provisions of the UK Modern Slavery Act a persuasive concept, most of them are also sceptical about the way the Act operationalise these. The call for transparency in the Act is restricted by the limited disclosure requirements, limits to the range of entities required to publish modern slavery statements and limited means to hold regulated organisations responsible for their supply chain operations in developing nations. While the call for transparency is an important yardstick to measure corporate responsibility and sustainability (Gold & Heikkurinen,
2018), it has been observed that limited transparency requirements in the Act have led to limited corporate liability and responsibility for tackling modern slavery and unethical labour practices within global supply chains. In particular, the traceability of suppliers and their factory locations is a critical aspect of transparency within global supply chains (Egels-Zandén & Hansson,
2016; Gardner et al.,
2019) that is disregarded in the Modern Slavery Act. Anti-slavery activists believe that the Act has been influenced by corporations and some believe that there is little legal scope to hold organisations accountable for slavery practices. There is a view that the regulation has been captured by powerful corporate groups for their own interests (Baudot et al.,
2017; Hantke-Domas,
2003; Hines,
1991; Levine & Forrence,
1990; Paisey & Paisey,
2012), and that modern slavery disclosures, therefore, attempt to reduce business risk and do not address and reduce the risks of those falling victim to modern slavery. The interviewees observed that risk minimisation agendas, among both regulators and corporations, may not automatically reduce the severity of modern slavery practices within global supply chains. Although the normativity of the Act can be achieved (Ewick & Silbey,
2003) through collaboration with, and surveillance activities by, NGOs and anti-slavery activists, the ascendance of corporate self-interest over public interest may hamper normativity. Unlike prior research on normativity (Buhmann,
2011; Chelli et al.,
2018; Manacorda,
2014), we argue that the Act’s creation of normativity is constrained by NGOs and activists’ capacity to mobilise pressures upon companies to be socially accountable. In line with the literature on counter-accounts (Semeen & Islam,
2021; Lehman et al.,
2016; Gallhofer et al.,
2006), we argue that the narratives of anti-slavery activists regarding unethical modern slavery practices, play an important role to mobilise pressures upon corporations to follow the Act.
Through close observation of practices under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we contribute to the current understanding of the limitations of corporate transparency and related regulation. First, we document not only the current limitations of transparency under the Act, but also the issues with relational compliance with the (minimal) disclosure requirements within a supply chain setting. Second, although some researchers provided a theoretical overview of the limits of transparency and accountability (see, for example, Gold & Heikkurinen,
2018), in this study, we have observed the phenomena through interviews with social and institutional actors who are knowledgeable in the area of corporate responsibility in relation to modern slavery. Third, in line with the literature on counter-accounts/narratives (Gallhofer et al.,
2006; Lehman et al.,
2016), we observed how particular civil society groups, this being anti-slavery activists, produce narratives regarding the roles of regulators and corporate actors. Fourth, we also contribute to the understanding of regulatory capture by highlighting how businesses seek to minimise their own risk rather than show concern for victims of modern slavery. Finally, we extend the knowledge about normativity (Chelli et al.,
2018) by providing new insights into how the normativity of the Act largely depend on the activism and campaigns by NGOs and anti-slavery groups.
We acknowledge that while we problematised transparency limitations of the UK Modern Slavery Act, we mostly relied on the narratives of anti-slavery activists. Our approach is consistent with the counter-account literature (Lehman et al.,
2016; Gallhofer et al.,
2006; Semeen & Islam,
2021). Accordingly, we argue that, from a stakeholder/societal point of view, NGOs and social activists are in a better position than profit-driven shareholders or corporate managers to provide views and narratives on the limitations of a particular regulation to create transparency and ethical practices within global supply chains. We also argue that while the expectations of NGOs and social activists may be seen as unrealistic by some corporate managers, these expectations can be emancipatory to the broader community (including the victims of modern slavery within global supply change) and a catalyst for future change in corporate accountability. We encourage further research to investigate the emancipatory roles of different stakeholder groups, including anti-slavery activists, journalists, suppliers and workers, in global supply chains operating in the developing world. Moreover, while existing modern slavery disclosure regimes are new and emerging in nature, calling on corporations to disclose rather than to act and the idea that greater transparency and disclosures about organisations’ activities will foster improvement in working conditions, remains largely under-researched. Along these lines, we also call for more research into new modern slavery disclosure regimes.
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