The Effect of Reputation Concerns on Labor Law Compliance

Your reputation matters. This is especially true for politicians, celebrities, educational institutions and governments. Far removed from these spheres of scrutiny and popular attention are the garment factories in less developed countries. This thesis investigates the impact of reputation sensitive buyers and public disclosure on labor law compliance in apparel factories. The Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) program, run by the International Labor Organization (ILO), facilitates a specific case study of the apparel industry in Cambodia. By observing compliance patterns in factories with different characteristics, with labor laws possessing different traits, we seek to understand a firm’s decision-making calculus regarding the management of their human resources.

Debra Ang obtained her Master of Finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management in 2011, and her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Quantitative Economics from Tufts University in 2010.