Creating a local managerial regime in global context: The case of the Bangladesh ready-made garment sector

Abstract

This article analyses the strategic construction of a factory management regime as an instrument of local value extraction, set against an intensely competitive global value chain in the apparel sector. The article focuses on Bangladesh where, as elsewhere, work in ready-made garment factories is characterised by long hours, poor pay, hostility to freedom of association and the suppression of independent collective bargaining. This article presents a long-term study of the ways that managers who preside over such environments are identified, recruited and deployed. In the context of the global value chain in garments, this article shines a light on managerial regimes which squeeze labour and perpetuate inequality as part of extracting value at workplace level, in the context of a broader, internationally dispersed, industrial regime of exploitation.