Toward Ethical Commitment: Avoiding MNC Entanglement in Modern Slavery

Abstract

Multinational corporations are at risk of being connected to modern slavery because of their strategic choices related to outsourcing. The slave labor supply is affected by myriad, localized structural injustices in which weak, ineffective, or corrupt but also well-functioning governments fail to provide for either protection of their constituents against exploitation or for a decent standard of living that would alleviate the human desperation associated with modern slavery. In this article, we highlight three types of responsibility-related reactions to entanglement in modern slavery (implausible deniability, plausible deniability, and ethical commitment) that function as a differentiator between business leaders and laggards.