McCormick+Schmitz Handbook for value chain research on - PACA

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Labour laws are usually intended to help workers, but as we saw in section 7.1, they can sometimes have a perverse effect. In that example, government was revising its regulations to improve workplace conditions. One of the new requirements was separate toilet facilities <strong>for</strong> male and female workers. If the work<strong>for</strong>ce is mainly male, as it is in many African countries, then such legislation can encourage factory owners to avoid hiring women as regular factory workers and may result in their being used as homeworkers instead. Thus, indirectly the law encourages homeworking. To give another example: some countries still have a law barring women from working the night shift. Employers who want the flexibility of assigning workers to different shifts will, in such cases, prefer to hire male workers. Women who are left out of factory work may then take up homework as their only option. • Which local support organisations exist? How effective are they? If these are important questions <strong>for</strong> your study, you may want to map the relevant institutions. It would probably help here to distinguish between those organisations which are relevant to the various garment <strong>chain</strong>s (e.g. certain sections of the Ministry of Industry, the garment manufacturers association) and those organisations that deal with the specific concerns of home-workers (e.g. a project of UNDP/UNICEF or a local NGO). In many cases, you will simply need to fill in the gaps in what you already know about organisations and agencies in your area. Key in<strong>for</strong>mant interviews are probably the best means of doing this. If you know a good deal about homeworkers, but lack in<strong>for</strong>mation on the factories, you may start with a knowledgeable person in the relevant producers’ association. Sometimes the garment workers’ union can also be a good source of in<strong>for</strong>mation about the factories. Sometimes the same people will also know whether there is a homeworkers’ association, where it is located, and who is the best person to talk to. Often, however, you need to tap different sources <strong>for</strong> these. Since most homeworkers are female, NGOs or even government agencies focussing on women can be helpful. In Kenya, <strong>for</strong> example, most women’s self-help groups are registered through the Ministry of Social Services. This makes this ministry a very 87
useful source of in<strong>for</strong>mation about women’s activities, even those not directly under its jurisdiction. Of course in some countries, e.g., India and Pakistan, there are important NGOs dealing specifically with homeworker issues. If you are working in such countries, you would surely include these among your interviewees. • Is there a local industrial policy <strong>for</strong> fostering the clothing industry? What <strong>for</strong>m does it take? Is it targeting particular <strong>chain</strong>s? These questions are best investigated through open-ended interviews with the relevant local government officials (Secretary of Industry) and Business Associations. If your <strong>research</strong> ultimately aims to contribute to a local industrial strategy, it is worth considering an action-<strong>research</strong> approach developed by Jörg Meyer-Stamer. He calls it PACA – which stands <strong>for</strong> participatory assessment of competitive advantage – and draws in all stakeholders in identifying problems. The idea is to generate local ownership of the analysis and the recommendations and then involve these stake-holders in the implementation. For details see www.meyer-stamer.de/paca.html . • Does national trade policy hold back or enhance the prospects of the local garment industry? Which <strong>chain</strong>s are affected? Are there trade regulations which limit the use of home-work? In some cases, homework may be limited by trade regulations. In Kenya, the Manufacturing Under Bond scheme, which offers benefits such as duty-free inputs to factories that export all of their production, puts strict limitations on the movement of materials or work-in-process outside of the factory. The duty-free materials must remain in a bonded factory, and can only be moved from one place to another under the direct supervision of a customs official. This makes the usual homework delivery and work system impossible <strong>for</strong> such factories. • How does the trade policy of the importing country affect the prospects of local industry? 88
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MANUAL FOR VALUE CHAIN RESEARCH ON
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10.1 Mapping homeworkers 57 10.2 Ma
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List of Boxes Box 1.1: Maria: A hom
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Introduction In developed and devel
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to understand the situation of home
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Part I. Homeworkers in Value Chains
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Box 1.2: Agnes: A homeworker moving
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no contact with the main contractor
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A value ch
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dominate certain value</str
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• Finding leverage points <strong
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Figure 4.1: Triangle manufacturing
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Table 4.1: Types of buyers, quality
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5. The new retailing and its implic
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ut more frequent orders. Manufactur
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which demand limited skills and are
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In this manual, we are dealing main
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Part II. Methodology This third par
Page 37 and 38: 8.2 Initial and final map Mapping a
Page 39 and 40: kinds of connections between the va
Page 41 and 42: • directed network: firms <strong
Page 43 and 44: local hotel these suppliers and buy
Page 45 and 46: the designs in the various stages?
Page 47 and 48: Figure 9.1: Chain map - workers' ho
Page 49 and 50: you prefer, you can double count, t
Page 51 and 52: If a significant percentage of the
Page 53 and 54: garment industry according to the i
Page 55 and 56: Figure 9.3: Chain map - share of fe
Page 57 and 58: Indicators of directed network: Ma
Page 59 and 60: Figure 10.1 : Network of homeworker
Page 61 and 62: for the executive
Page 63 and 64: Figure 10.3 : Producer services <st
Page 65 and 66: Figure 10.4 : Wages and skill short
Page 67 and 68: producers all over the world. This
Page 69 and 70: Long-term, quality growth has alway
Page 71 and 72: Such differences emerge clearly if
Page 73 and 74: it may well be worth recording them
Page 75 and 76: it is useful to present the results
Page 77 and 78: Figure 12.3 : Sub-contractor networ
Page 79 and 80: 13.2 Observing Here are some of the
Page 81 and 82: A good research de
Page 83 and 84: A major concern in the protection o
Page 85 and 86: Buyers’ expectations Producers’
Page 87: 15. Working with public agencies Th
Page 91 and 92: In order to assess the impact of su
Page 93 and 94: The first step is to gather basic i
Page 95 and 96: In step one, the research</
Page 97 and 98: is to examine how such differences
Page 99 and 100: Let us start with the latter, askin
Page 101 and 102: You may want to investigate what ty
Page 103 and 104: Given that home-workers are often c
Page 105 and 106: usiness schools and technology inst
Page 107 and 108: A second reason for</strong
Page 109 and 110: individuals can also be ordinary pe
Page 111 and 112: In answering the first question, th
Page 113 and 114: Obtaining or creating the sampling
Page 115 and 116: selection of a few illustrative cas
Page 117 and 118: The coding of open-ended questions
Page 119 and 120: You will also need to analyse the q
Page 121 and 122: The third step is data collection.
Page 123 and 124: the society. Neilson (1990: 20) cla
Page 125 and 126: Casson, Mark, and Robert Price. 198
Page 127 and 128: Kaplinsky, Raphael. 1998. “Global
Page 129 and 130: Wilson, Fiona. 1991. Sweaters: Gend
Page 131: Business forums de
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