IBS Departmental Research Seminar - THE EXPRESSION AND SUPPRESSION OF UPSTREAM WORKERS’ VOICE IN CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS

You are cordially invited to attend an International Business and Strategy Departmental Research Meeting, during which there will be a presentation by Khadija van der Straaten, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. A reminder that attendance for IBS (full time, research oriented) staff and full-time students is compulsory, and where possible, must be in person. Individuals unable to attend in person, due to legitimate reasons will be provided a Teams link on request. Non-IBS staff are welcome to attend, but must register prior to the event. If you have not received the email invite please email Angie Clark

Please join us in Room 108, Henley Business School, if you would like to attend, please register using the link below:

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Please make sure you let me know in advance if you intend to attend in person so that the correct amount of catering is booked.

Date: Wednesday 22nd October 2025, HBS Room 108

Time: 13.00 - 14.15pm

Abstract:

Labor conflicts, historically institutionalised around the labour movement in the Global North, have altered due to the rise of global value chains (GVCs). Consequently, we reconceptualize the traditional employer-worker relationship into one of multi-layered antagonism between multinational enterprises (MNEs), their suppliers, and workers, which recreates and exploits power asymmetries across the Global North-South divide. Drawing on an in-depth qualitative case study of the Kenyan business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, we explore how upstream GVC workers express, and organise for, voice. Our findings show that labour conflict in contemporary GVCs involves a dynamic interplay between bottom-up activities that express and amplify worker voice by readdressing power asymmetries across the GVC and the locking out of workers, and suppressing top-down activities by MNEs, specifically the locking in of workers and muffling of their voice. We contribute to research on workers’ labour rights in GVCs by showing how these not only play a role in MNEs’ decisions on where to locate their GVCs but are intentionally shaped and curtailed by how MNEs subsequently manage their GVCs. Furthermore, our study challenges commonly held assumptions on the lack of understanding and agency of workers in GVCs.

Keywords: global value chains, industrial democracy, labour rights, multinational enterprises, worker voice