Do purchasing practices support or undermine the regulation of labor standards in global supply chains? This study offers the first analysis of the full range of supply chain regulatory efforts, integrating records of factory labor audits with purchase order microdata. Studying an apparel and equipment retailer with a strong reputation for addressing labor conditions in its suppliers, the authors show that the retailer persuaded factories to improve and terminated factories with poor labor compliance. However, the authors also find that purchase orders did not increase when labor standards improved. If anything, factories whose standards worsened tended to see their orders increase. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this “missing middle” in incentives for compliance appears unrelated to any cost advantage of noncompliant factories. Instead, lack of flexibility in supplier relationships created obstacles to reallocating orders in response to compliance findings.

中文翻译：

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全球采购作为劳工法规：中间缺失

采购实践是否支持或破坏了全球供应链中劳工标准的监管？这项研究首次分析了整个供应链监管工作，将工厂劳动审核记录与采购订单微数据相结合。作者研究了一家服装和设备零售商，因其解决供应商的劳动条件而享有盛誉，作者表明，该零售商说服工厂改善和终止了劳动依从性差的工厂。但是，作者还发现，随着劳工标准的提高，采购订单并未增加。如果有的话，标准恶化的工厂往往会看到订单增加。与传统观点相反，这种合规激励措施的“缺失中点”似乎与不合规工厂的任何成本优势无关。代替，