Hello! I study the governance of global value chains, focusing on workers and labor standards. My research asks questions like:
- What interventions improve compliance with labor standards in global value chains?
- Does labor compliance pay-off for exporters?
- Can big clothing companies raise wages in their supplier factories? By how much?
- What working conditions improvements are most valued by workers?
I am an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources and cross-appointed to the Rotman School of Management.
Working Papers
What Jobs Do Workers Want? Worker Preferences in Global Value Chains Amengual, M., Distelhorst, G. and A. Guasti.
Articles
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Cooperation and Punishment in Managing Social Performance: Labor Standards in the Gap Inc Supply Chain. Amengual, M. and G. Distelhorst. 2025. Strategic Management Journal 46 (11): 2663-2689.
Abstract
Corporate social performance depends not only on a firm's behavior but also on the behavior of its suppliers. What management strategies improve the social performance of suppliers? Scholarship on inter-firm relations and regulatory governance debates the efficacy of threatening to penalize suppliers, compared with more cooperative approaches. This study uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effects of typical actions to manage supplier social performance, both with and without threatened penalties. Suppliers improved social performance—increasing their probability of passing labor audits by 22 percentage points—only when regulatory actions included a threatened penalty: to discontinue business. Suppliers improved most in response to threatened penalties when they faced higher levels of supply chain competition or were engaged in longer-term commercial relationships with the buyer. -
Self-Regulation for Reputation-Sensitive Buyers: SA8000 in China. Distelhorst, G., Stroehle, J. and D. Yang. 2024. Management Science 71 (8): 6925-6942.
Abstract
Industries and firms have diverse motives for adopting self-regulatory institutions. This research develops and tests propositions about one motive—exploiting opportunities to do business with reputation-sensitive buyers—as distinct from self-regulation to defend against regulatory or activist threats. To study the adoption and effects of self-regulation for reputation-sensitive buyers, we study the SA8000 socially responsible employment certification among large firms in China in the early 2000s. Using official longitudinal industrial microdata, we test hypotheses generated by this assumed motive for self-regulation and find that (a) despite concerns about the corruptibility of certification bodies, SA8000 adopters in China exhibited higher precertification worker wages than comparable nonadopters, (b) self-regulation led to increased employment and sales to foreign markets, where reputation-sensitive buyers are concentrated, (c) the positive effect on exports was greater than the (insignificant, negatively signed) effect on domestic sales, and (d) there is no evidence that self-regulation increased worker wages beyond the initial high start. Contrasting these findings with prior research on industry self-regulation for other motives, this study highlights how both adoption patterns and downstream effects differ according to the audience for self-regulation. -
Assessing the Social Impact of Corporations: Evidence from Management Control Interventions in the Supply Chain to Increase Worker Wages. Distelhorst, G. and J. Shin. 2023. Journal of Accounting Research 61 (3): 855-890.
- Outstanding Paper Award, American Accounting Association Management Accounting Section (AAA MAS) Midyear Meeting
Abstract
This study examines an initiative by a large multinational garment retailer (H&M Group) to increase wages at its supplier factories by intervening in their wage-related management practices. Difference-in-differences estimates based on eight years of data from over 1,800 factories show that the interventions were associated with an average real wage increase of approximately 5% by the third year of implementation. Our estimates suggest that the intervention-associated wage increase was many times greater than if the retailer's cost for the program was instead paid directly to affected workers. We find that the wage effects were driven by factories with relatively poorer supplier ratings and do not find significantly different wage effects depending on the presence of trade unions. We also examine several nonwage outcomes such as factory orders, supplier price competitiveness, overtime pay, and total employment to probe the mechanisms underlying the wage increases. These findings offer new evidence on corporate social impact in global supply chains. -
Socially irresponsible employment in emerging-market manufacturers. Distelhorst, G. and A. McGahan. 2021. Organization Science 33 (6): 2135-2158.
- People’s Choice Award, Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability
- Best Conference Paper Finalist, Society for Business Ethics
Abstract
Are socially irresponsible employment practices, such as abusive discipline and wage theft, systematically tied to manufacturing outcomes in emerging-market countries? Drawing on a stream of stakeholder theory that emphasizes economic interdependencies and insights from the fields of industrial relations and human resource management, we argue that working conditions within a firm are facets of a systemic approach to value creation and value appropriation. Some manufacturers operate “low road” systems that rest on harmful practices. Others operate “high road” systems in which the need to develop employees’ human capital deters socially irresponsible employment practices. To test the theory, we conduct a large-scale study of labor violations and manufacturing outcomes by analyzing data on over four thousand export-oriented small manufacturers in 48 emerging-market countries. The analysis demonstrates that socially irresponsible employment practices are associated with inferior firm-level manufacturing outcomes even after controlling for the effects of firm size, industry, product mix, production processes, host country, destination markets, and buyer mix. The theory and results suggest an opportunity for multinational corporations to improve corporate social performance in global value chains by encouraging their suppliers to transition to systems of value creation that rely on the development of worker human capital. -
Global Purchasing as Labor Regulation: The Missing Middle. Amengual, M., G. Distelhorst, and D. Tobin. 2020. ILR Review 73 (4): 817-840.
Abstract
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. -
Performing Authoritarian Citizenship: Public Transcripts in China. Distelhorst, G. and D. Fu. 2019. Perspectives on Politics 17 (1): 106-121.
Abstract
How should we study citizenship in authoritarian regimes? We propose studying how citizenship is performed using the “public transcript”—communication between ordinary citizens and political authorities. The stakes of these strategic communications allow us to observe the roles citizens play to elicit assistance from authoritarian elites. We use this technique to study citizenship in contemporary China, analyzing evidence from an original database of over eight thousand appeals to local officials. These public transcripts reveal three ideal-type scripts of citizenship. First, we observe individuals performing subjecthood, positioning themselves as subalterns before benevolent rulers. We also identify an authoritarian legal citizenship that appeals to the formal legal commitments of the state. Finally, we find evidence for a socialist citizenship which appeals to the moral duties of officials to provide collective welfare. This approach eschews a classification scheme based on regime types, instead acknowledging that diverse performances of citizenship can coexist within a single state. -
Does Compliance Pay? Social Standards and Firm-level Trade. Distelhorst, G. and R.M. Locke 2018. American Journal of Political Science 62 (3): 695-711.
- American Political Science Association Dorothy Day Award for Outstanding Labor Research
Abstract
What is the relationship between trade and social institutions in the developing world? The research literature is conflicted: Importing firms may demand that trading partners observe higher labor and environmental standards, or they may penalize higher standards that raise costs. This study uses new data on retailers and manufacturers to analyze how firm-level trade responds to information about social standards. Contrary to the “race to the bottom” hypothesis, it finds that retail importers reward exporters for complying with social standards. In difference-in-differences estimates from over 2,000 manufacturing establishments in 36 countries, achieving compliance is associated with a 4% [1%, 7%] average increase in annual purchasing. The effect is driven largely by the apparel industry—a long-term target of anti-sweatshop social movements—suggesting that activist campaigns can shape patterns of global trade. -
Constituency Service Under Nondemocratic Rule: Evidence from China. Distelhorst, G. and Y. Hou. 2017. The Journal of Politics 79 (3): 1024-1040.
Abstract
Why do nondemocratic regimes provide constituency service? This study develops theory based on a national field audit of China’s “Mayor’s Mailbox,” an institution that allows citizens to contact local political officials. Analyzing government responses to over 1,200 realistic appeals from putative citizens, we find that local service institutions in China are comparably responsive to similar institutions in democracies. Two key predictors of institutional quality are economic modernization and the intensity of local social conflict. We explain these findings by proposing a demand-driven theory of nondemocratic constituency service; in order to sustain the informational benefits of citizen participation, the responsiveness of service institutions must increase with citizen demand. We then offer supplementary evidence for this theory by analyzing the content of real letters from citizens to local officials in China. -
Does Lean Improve Labor Standards? Management and Social Performance in the Nike Supply Chain. Distelhorst, G., J. Hainmueller, and R.M. Locke 2017. Management Science 63 (3): 707-728.
- Distinguished Winner, Responsible Research in Management Award, Top 3 of 106 nominations.
Abstract
This study tests the hypothesis that lean manufacturing improves the social performance of manufacturers in emerging markets. We analyze an intervention by Nike, Inc., to promote the adoption of lean manufacturing in its apparel supply chain across 11 developing countries. Using difference-in-differences estimates from a panel of more than 300 factories, we find that lean adoption was associated with a 15 percentage point reduction in noncompliance with labor standards that primarily reflect factory wage and work hour practices. However, we find a null effect on factory health and safety standards. This pattern is consistent with a causal mechanism that links lean to improved social performance through changes in labor relations, rather than improved management systems. These findings offer evidence that capability-building interventions may reduce social harm in global supply chains. -
Grassroots Participation and Repression Under Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping. Fu, D. and G. Distelhorst. 2017. The China Journal 79: 100-122.
Abstract
This study examines changes in grassroots participation and repression under the Chinese leaders Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping. Under Xi, the Party-state has launched political campaigns against a range of grassroots activists and organizations. This entails a shift in state repression from fragmentation to consolidation, and it has resulted in less room for contentious participation. However, institutionalized political participation—activities by ordinary people aimed at changing government behavior through official channels—has persisted. The Hu administration presided over the development of new institutions of public participation, and there is little evidence for their decay. Despite important breaks from the past under Xi, there are noteworthy continuities in the institutions that enable grassroots participation. -
The Power of Empty Promises: Quasidemocratic Institutions and Activism in China. Distelhorst, G. 2017. Comparative Political Studies 50 (4): 464-498.
Abstract
In authoritarian regimes, seemingly liberal reforms are often poorly implemented in practice. However, this study argues that even weak quasi-democratic institutions can offer resources to political activists. Formal institutions of participation offer politically anodyne frames for activism, allowing activists to distance themselves from political taboos. Weak institutions also allow activists to engineer institutional failures that in turn fuel legal and media-based campaigns. Evidence comes from the effects of China’s 2008 Open Government Information reform. A national field audit finds that local governments satisfy just 14% of citizen requests for basic information. Yet case studies show how Chinese activists exploited the same institution to extract concessions from government agencies and pursue policy change in disparate issue areas. These findings highlight the importance of looking beyond policy implementation to understand the effects of authoritarian institutions on political accountability. -
Production Goes Global, Compliance Stays Local: Private Regulation in Global Electronics. Distelhorst, G., R.M. Locke, T. Pal, and H. Samel. 2015. Regulation & Governance 9 (3): 224-242.
Abstract
Poor working conditions in global supply chains have led to private initiatives that seek to regulate labor practices in developing countries. But how effective are these regulatory programs? We investigate the effects of transnational private regulation by studying Hewlett-Packard's (HP) supplier responsibility program. Using analysis of factory audits, interviews with buyer and supplier management, and field research at production facilities across seven countries, we find that national context – not repeated audits, capability building, or supply chain power – is the key predictor of workplace compliance. Quantitative analysis shows that factories in China are markedly less compliant than those in countries with stronger civil society and regulatory institutions. Comparative field research then illustrates how these local institutions complement transnational private regulation. Although these findings imply limits to private regulation in institutionally poor settings, they also highlight opportunities for productive linkages between transnational actors and local state and society. -
Ingroup Bias in Official Behavior: A National Field Experiment in China. Distelhorst, G. and Y. Hou. 2014. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 9: 203-230.
Abstract
Do ingroup biases distort the behavior of public officials? Recent studies detect large ethnic biases in elite political behavior, but their case selection leaves open the possibility that bias obtains under relatively narrow historical and institutional conditions. We clarify these scope conditions by studying ingroup bias in the radically different political, historical, and ethnic environment of contemporary China. In a national field experiment, local officials were 33% less likely to provide assistance to citizens with ethnic Muslim names than to ethnically-unmarked peers. We find evidence consistent with the ingroup bias interpretation of this finding and detect little role for strategic incentives mediating this effect. This result demonstrates that neither legacies of institutionalized racism nor electoral politics are necessary to produce large ingroup biases in official behavior. It also suggests that ethnically motivated distortions to governance are more prevalent than previously documented.