Conceiving and Addressing Modern Slavery in the Events Sector: A Narrative Analysis of Corporate Reporting

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Emerging literature explores modern slavery (MS) implications for businesses, yet corporate actors’ understanding of MS risks and their role in risk mitigation remains understudied. This article explores how event sector stakeholders perceive and address MS risks, including human trafficking, labor, and sexual exploitation, by analyzing the conception of problems and solutions in relation to MS. Using narrative analysis, the article explores event companies’ reporting under the 2015 UK Modern Slavery Act to gain a better understanding of how reporting can drive change in business practice, especially given the regulatory framework’s limitations of defining precise reporting requirements. Findings show that risk management and mitigation generally translate into staff training, whistleblowing, (internal) auditing, and often a zero-tolerance approach. The article enables a deeper understanding of businesses’ process of reporting standards and performance measurement. It theorizes corporate transparency and responsibility and outlines the practical implications of the limits of transparency and responsibility attribution.