Mickey Mouse, morality and manufacturing: A look at the evolving private regulation of global labour standards

Labour standards maintained by transnational corporations are now an inalienable part of global sourcing business. These standards serve to incentivise better treatment of labour in countries where the majority of basic manufacturing operations occur (usually developing countries and least developed countries). This paper investigates the effects of changes made by large retail corporations in their sourcing guidelines (especially labour standards). The impact of such changes carries far-reaching consequences for manufacturers based in developing countries. The research title was inspired by the recent move by Walt Disney Company to black-list certain countries that were found to be deficient in enforcement of global labour standards. Amongst the issues that have already been explored in academic literature in the area, this paper raises the question of when private labour standards maintained by large retail corporations become a source of normative behaviour and when these new norms clash with the existing (and often entrenched) religious and social norms.