Ready-made Garment Industry Research Articles

Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Readymade Garment Industry during COVID-19: A Study on Bangladesh Garment Industry

The Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry has performed the concentrated fundamental role for the economic development of Bangladesh. To obtain the finale result, this exertions-in complexity industry wishes to experience after COVID0-19 for sustainable practices with the adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in its Garment production chain. CSR, being a fast-developing phenomenon in industrial arena, is drawing the concern of world-renowned clothing customers working with Bangladesh. To flatten the coronavirus spread curve, the authorities declared kingdom-huge vacations up to twenty-five April 2020 and enterprise and industrial activities have come to a grinding halt except emergency offerings. Many global customers are cancelling or postponing showed procurement orders as their shops are substantially closed in Europe, North America, Asia and some other place. According to Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), worldwide buyers have both cancelled or suspended $3.16 billion really worth of shipments related to 1,142 factories affecting 2.26 million people as of 18 April 2020.7 Millions of workers stare at joblessness as new orders dried up given the disintegrate in international call for apparels. This scenario is being changed after COVID-19 considering that a vast variety of Bangladeshi garment manufacturers have followed CSR practices spending a huge sum of money. This study will find out the current reputation of sustainable financial enchantment through the implementation of CSR practices inside the RMG enterprise after COVID -19 of Bangladesh. Keywords : Corporate Social Responsibility, Ready-Made Garments, COVID-19 DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-5-07 Publication date: March 31 st 2022

Bangladesh's Emergence as a Ready-Made Garment Export Leader: An Examination of the Competitive Advantages of the Garment Industry

Bangladesh is the second-largest ready-made garment (RMG) manufacturer and exporter in the world. The RMG industry of Bangladesh has become one of the fastest-growing industries globally since the 1990s and is the main source of its foreign earnings for the last three decades. To gain an in-depth understanding of the Bangladeshi RMG industry’s competitive advantages, a semi-structured qualitative interview approach was employed with 14 executives currently working in the Bangladeshi RMG industry. Porter’s (1990) diamond model of national competitive advantage was adopted as the study’s conceptual framework. Interpretation of the study data revealed four key competitive advantages for the Bangladeshi RMG industry: (a) price, (b) on-time delivery, (c) quality, and (d) product advantages. This study explores the RMG industry of Bangladesh and identifies the competitive advantages from the executive’s perspective, thereby adding value and originality to the academic literature.

Assessing measures implemented by export-oriented RMG firms in an emerging economy during COVID-19

Manufacturing firms that continued production activities during the COVID-19 have been taking necessary measures to cope with the risks imposed by the pandemic. This study assesses the measures implemented by the Ready-Made Garments (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. With the increase in COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh, following government order, along with firms in other manufacturing sectors, the RMG firms had to shut-down their production between March 26 and April 25, 2020. Soon after the factories reopened, they had to take necessary actions to ensure employee safety, supply of raw materials, and purchase orders from buyers. Using a semi-structured interview approach, we identify 16 measures that have been implemented in the RMG sector in Bangladesh for the employees, suppliers and buyers. Then, we assess the degree of implementation of these measures using the Bayesian Best-Worst method. We find that providing healthcare safety, bringing previously outsourced activities in-house, and ensuring smooth delivery of existing orders were the three most implemented measures for employees, suppliers and buyers, respectively. On a higher level, the RMG industry professionals prioritised buyer-related measures the most, followed by employee and supplier-related. The analysed measures provide a blueprint for supply chain risk management during future waves of COVID-19 transmission and for other potential large-scale natural disasters.

Acknowledging Sustainable Performance from the Global Crisis of COVID-19 in the Context of Bangladesh

Internationally, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a public health extremity due to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus named COVID-19 in January 2020. It has been over a year since the globe was imprisoned by COVID-19, despite discovering numerous vaccines to combat the virus’s innumerable versions. With this aim, this research has organized around three themes to achieve this goal. Firstly, to explain the scenario of the influence of COVID-19 on the sustainable performance (environmental, social, and economic) of Bangladesh’s ready-made garment (RMG) industry. There has been a dramatic increase in the application of sustainable performance over recent decades, but less attention paid to developing countries, especially Bangladesh. Secondly, general online survey research has been conducted from July-August 2021 to empirically evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the RMG industries of Bangladesh. Thirdly, the study has provided recommendations to overcome any pandemic to maintain sustainable business performance. According to the survey results, 55.9% of participants assume there will be a loss in revenue and sales volume, while 44.4 percent are concerned about employee health and an increase in waste (using PPE, gloves, masks, and so on) in the industries during COVID-19 pandemic as well as 52.8% of employees anticipate that, Bangladesh’s loss of position against Vietnam is due to an ineffective sustainable business system. However, this pandemic has proved that business organizations should be more conscious in dealing with uncertain environments while sustainable performance can be a strategic solution.

Scholarly Revisit the Role of Worker Participation Committee: Evidence from the Ready-Made Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Purpose– The prime objective of this article is to revisit the role of Workers Participation Committee (WPC) and discover how and where WPC has been playing an active role in the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) Industry in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach– This study has extensively reviewed the journal articles, documents prepared by international organizations and thesis works of researchers that have been published in the reputed journals and online sources. Findings– This study finds that WPC has active roles to play in the issues related to labor standards and the issues related to labor rights. Moreover, WPC has the ability to establish mutual trust and harmonious relationship between the workers and employers by resolving industrial dispute. Research limitations- This is a conceptual paper which suffers to observe the reality from the ground. This study will invoke many scholars to conduct empirical studies in the future to evaluate the reality of the functions that WPC can play independently at the organizational level in Bangladesh. Practical implications– This study contributes significantly to the existing literature of WPC, especially in the RMG industry. This study also has implication as the future reference to conduct empirical assessment in terms of WPC’s roles and legislative reformation. Originality/value– As far as originality is concerned, very few research effort has been made before to revisit the role of WPC in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

Scholarly Revisit the Role of Worker Participation Committee: Evidence from the Ready-Made Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Purpose– The prime objective of this article is to revisit the role of Workers Participation Committee (WPC) and discover how and where WPC has been playing an active role in the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) Industry in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach– This study has extensively reviewed the journal articles, documents prepared by international organizations and thesis works of researchers that have been published in the reputed journals and online sources. Findings– This study finds that WPC has active roles to play in the issues related to labor standards and the issues related to labor rights. Moreover, WPC has the ability to establish mutual trust and harmonious relationship between the workers and employers by resolving industrial dispute. Research limitations- This is a conceptual paper which suffers to observe the reality from the ground. This study will invoke many scholars to conduct empirical studies in the future to evaluate the reality of the functions that WPC can play independently at the organizational level in Bangladesh. Practical implications– This study contributes significantly to the existing literature of WPC, especially in the RMG industry. This study also has implication as the future reference to conduct empirical assessment in terms of WPC’s roles and legislative reformation. Originality/value– As far as originality is concerned, very few research effort has been made before to revisit the role of WPC in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

A qualitative study of the working conditions in the readymade garment industry and the impact on workers’ health and wellbeing

Objectives: There has been debate regarding the working conditions for employees of the Bangladesh readymade garment (RMG) industry since the 1980s. Little is known how the existing working conditions of the Bangladesh RMG sector impact workers’ health and overall wellbeing, which remains the key aim of this study. Methods: The study adopted a qualitative descriptive design. Twenty-seven RMG workers (female: 21, male: 6) were purposively recruited for focus groups (FGs) from both the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) and non-EPZ factories located in Dhaka and Chattogram, the two largest cities in Bangladesh. FGs were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Inductive thematic analysis was performed to review the transcribed data and to identify themes. Results: The study identified that the existing working conditions impacted workers’ health and wellbeing severely. These conditions mainly comprise of inadequate workplace facilities (lack of pure drinking water, unavailability of qualified doctors, and fabricated signage of childcare facilities) and poor working environments (lack of hygienic practices, unavailability of safety equipment, sexual harassment, mandatory nights shifts, inappropriate sitting arrangements, and workplaces as death traps). All the female workers reported experience of verbal or sexual harassment at least once inside the factories also noted anxiety and feeling unsafe while working during night shifts. These conditions are presented within the socioeconomic conditions of Bangladesh. Conclusions: This study contributes to understanding the nexus between factory owners’ profit maximization mindset and workplace conditions in relation to workers’ health and wellbeing status. Strict monitoring of the workplace conditions of Bangladesh RMG factories is warranted.

Evaluation of Causes and Effects of Fire and Other Safety Incidents in Readymade Garment Industry of Bangladesh

The readymade garment industry in Bangladesh is one of the foremost significant export-oriented industries, but it faces issues in ensuring worker safety. Industrial accidents threaten workplace safety, which is additionally amongst the foremost critical challenges in the world's industries. The objectives of this paper are to explore the numerous lethal incidents in the industry in Bangladesh and also explore the causes for these lethal incidents with the effect of those incidents. This paper aims to present a case study of the working conditions of readymade garment industries in Bangladesh and the case study presented past and running unsafe working conditions in the industry of violations of human rights and the high prevalence of injuries on duty by the workers. Differing kinds of causation in the recent decade have made the Bangladeshi garment industry ambiguous. Among 4,560 garment industries, 237 lethal incidents happened and that ratio was 5.2% during the last 31 years (1990-2020). Almost 237 lethal incidents, 94.09% incidents occurred by fire and only 1.27% incidents were caused by building collapse and 3.38% incidents were caused by boiler burst and another 1.27% by other different incidents. The total number of harmed people was 6,870 of which 1,689 people were injured and 5,181 people died, also the highest incident happened from 2011 to 2015 when 3,800 people were injured and 1,287 people died. This paper will investigate around for the causes of the various incidents and can expose the precautionary measure for those problems in the fashion industry which affected their sustainability and profitability.

Effects of leadership styles and motivational factors on worker engagement: an empirical study on the ready-made garments industry in Bangladesh

This study inspects the effects of motivational factors (intrinsic and extrinsic) and leadership styles (transformational and transactional) on worker engagement in the ready-made garments industry of Bangladesh. The paper is based on Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory. The study adopted a quantitative technique and used SPSS to analyse the data assembled from a valid sample of 387 workers in Bangladesh's ready-made garments industry. The findings show that extrinsic motivational factors positively correlate with worker engagement more than intrinsic motivational factors. Consequently, transformational leadership is positively associated with worker engagement more than transactional leadership among the workers in the ready-made garments industry of Bangladesh. In conclusion, it is suggested that the industry should focus more on the transformational leadership style compared to the transactional leadership style and workers have to be motivated to increase productivity in this specific industry.

Scope of Injury Minimization in Garments Industry: An Analysis

Injury and accidents have a lot of negative impacts in an organization, especially in a manufacturing industry. Injury is a hindrance to productivity as it harms the lead time of the production. Additionally, reputation and development of an industry get destroyed as it directly related to manpower and product or service. Previously in garments industry of Bangladesh, a lot of injury happened almost every year due to infrastructural problem as well as various hazards in the production floor. The number of these accidents has been reduced to a great extent at present. The injury must be minimized to provide safe working environment, to ensure compliance issues and to retain the orders in Readymade Garments (RMG) industry. In our paper, it was attempted to minimize the injury in some selective sections of a garments industry. The total number of injuries occurred in those sections for a specific month was collected. After analyzing the collected data, the major causes of accidents and injuries faced by the workers in those sections were pointed out. The possible causes were then solved by taking proper actions and the data against same criteria was analyzed for the consecutive month. Finally, after achieving positive results, related preventive recommendations were framed out and given to the industry for injury minimization in future.

Providing Antenatal Care Facility is the Most Effective Way to Improve Nutritional Knowledge of Mothers Working in the Ready-Made Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Providing Antenatal Care Facility is the Most Effective Way to Improve Nutritional Knowledge of Mothers Working in the Ready-Made Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Impact of Supply Chain Management Tools on Customer Satisfaction: A Study on Readymade Garments Industry of Bangladesh

Impact of Supply Chain Management Tools on Customer Satisfaction: A Study on Readymade Garments Industry of Bangladesh

Worker Satisfaction in Health, Hygiene and Safety Measures Undertaken by the Readymade Garments Industry of Bangladesh: A Case Study on Gazipur

Purpose: The main purpose of the study is to explore the effects of health, hygiene and safety measures on worker satisfaction in readymade garments sector in Gazipur district of Bangladesh. Methodology: Based on review of literatures and collection of 260 usable responses the study is conducted by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method using Smart PLS 3.0. Findings: The findings of the study have revealed that health and hygiene measures significantly influence workers’ satisfaction towards readymade garments sector in Bangladesh. However, the study results show that safety measures insignificantly influence the workers" satisfaction towards garment Sector in Bangladesh. Practical implications: The study might be useful for garment industry operators in formulating strategies of improving health and Hygiene measures, and safety measures to improve workers' satisfaction in garment sector in Bangladesh. Originality: The study has uniquely presented a case comprising the factors helping devising a strategy for industry professionals through measuring the integrated effects of health, hygiene and safety measures on workers’ satisfaction of readymade garment sector in Bangladesh.

Challenging Patriarchy: The Changing Definition of Women’s Empowerment

Traditionally, prevailing patriarchal norms and social values have confined Bangladeshi women to the private sphere and placed them in a position of disempowerment vis-à-vis men. Since the 1970s the emergence of the readymade garment (RMG) industry has provided women with opportunities for waged work into the public sphere and linked them into the global economy. By using Naila Kabeer’s conceptualisation of empowerment and Walby’s theory of patriarchy as theoretical lenses of analysis, this paper examines what happens when women are empowered in the economic sphere and whether that transfers over into the domestic sphere in terms of changes in patriarchal relations. Evidence from semi-structured interviews with 40 female garment workers, the paper analyses their lives outside the workplace. It argues that experience of paid work can offer female RMG workers a degree of empowerment within home and society, but the level of this varied for women. For “Independent” and “Progressive” women the state of gender relations was changing to an extent as a result of paid employment, whereas “Traditional” women’s entry into the workplace had not brought about any change in the private form of patriarchy. Overall, women’s participation in paid employment such as their role as a wage earner, their increased freedom of movement and autonomy, self-confidence, a greater degree of awareness regarding their life decisions presents a radical challenge to the myth of the male breadwinner model of the family in Bangladesh and the notion of patriarchy.
 Social Science Review, Vol. 37(2), Dec 2020 Page 239-265

The effect of employing Radiesthesia to improve the performance of the sewing workers in readymade garments industry

The aim of the research is to use bio-energy sciences, including the science of "Radisthesia", to improve the performance of sewing workers in ready-made garment factories through the application of some of the methods of this science, and the application of research tools, which consisted of an open questionnaire to determine the problems and risks of the work of knitting workers in the (operating) hall

Compliance issue of ready-made garments industry in Bangladesh: A case study

The aim of this research is to look into the current situation and difficulties that the compliance department faces in ensuring compliance in Bangladesh's Ready Made Garments industry. Data are gathered using a formal questionnaire from the compliance department of the garments industry, which is in charge of addressing compliance concerns in the workplace. According to the report, the garments industry faces the least difficulty in removing child labor in the workplace, followed by welfare services, workplace protection, workplace conditions, health care, and so on. The garments industry has found that freedom of association, workplace health and safety training, violence and bullying, and extended working hours are the most difficult issues to deal with inside factory premises. It also shows that the most significant obstacle for top management in implementing enforcement is a lack of top-level funding, which is accompanied by a lack of worker knowledge of their rights, a lack of government involvement, and inadequate worker literacy. The results suggest that the garment owners need to change their mindset from pure benefit to a long-term enterprise focused on justice and quality. Governments, non-governmental organizations, and labor unions all have a role to play in informing employers of their interests. Via preparation, dialogue, and fair and periodic inspections, the government should show a firm commitment to enforcing the laws.

Implications of Green Management Practices in the RMG Industries of Bangladesh- An Environmental Sustainability Perspective

As of today, the whole world is riddled with a major dilemma whether it goes with gigantic industrialization or ensuring environmental sustainability. At the cost of a green environment, infrastructural development means no dependable future. Therefore, this study aims to examine the implications of green management practices in the readymade garments industries of Bangladesh. The perspective of the study entails environmental sustainability in such a way that depicts the perception of employees towards green management practices. In order to conduct this study, 100 respondents have been selected and all of them are employees in a similar type of RMG industry. For the analytical purpose, Henry Garret’s table rating scale has been utilized because it not only provides clear responses from the selected respondents but also subjective judgment. The study explored four important impact factors that play a vital role in the context of environmental sustainability such as the development of green management practices, motivating employees towards green management practices, enabling participation in green opportunities, and last but not least continuous maintenance of green attitude. After substantial analysis, the study concluded that the investment in green management system development, recording and publicly disclosing green job performance, participatory involvement in green discussions, and having a specific code of conduct for green management are the most important ones arising from implications of green management practices.

Supply chain recovery challenges in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of global supply chains arising from raw material scarcity, production and transportation disruption, and social distancing. Firms need to carefully anticipate the difficulties during recovery and formulate appropriate strategies to ensure the survival of their businesses and supply chains. To enhance awareness of the issues, this research aims to identify and model recovery challenges in the context of the Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry. A Delphi-based grey decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) methodology was used to analyze the data. While the Delphi method helped identify the major supply chain recovery challenges from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the grey DEMATEL approach helped categorize the causal relationships among these challenges. Of the 23 recovery challenges finalized, 12 are causal challenges. The study’s findings can assist decision-makers in developing strategic policies to overcome the recovery challenges in the post-COVID-19 era.

Global North and Global South Evaluations of Post-Rana Plaza Safety Initiatives

This paper contributes to the literature on international supply chain governance through a comparative analysis of Global North and Global South media evaluations of supply chain initiatives in the Bangladesh ready-made garment industry, 2013 – 2019. It presents an analysis of media coverage of the initiatives over three periods (inception, operationalization, transition). It focuses on three main forms of evaluation: the relative amount of coverage given to the initiatives over the three periods (prominence); the normative assessment of the initiatives, whether positive, negative, neutral, or mixed (valence); and the focal issues of evaluation (themes). It finds significant variation in coverage. Global North media focused on coverage in the initiatives’ inception phase with reference to the themes of responsibility, liability and ownership. In contrast, Global South media focused on the operationalization of the initiatives with reference to themes of remediation and compliance. We argue that these findings powerfully reflect imbalances in the de-sign of supply chain governance systems.

Sustainability Implementation Analysis in Three Integrated Apparel Companies: Triple Bottom Line Application and Business Sustainability Typology

Ready-made garment industry in Indonesia faces many challenges related to sustainability issue. Betterwork Indonesia found many social issues in their sustainability audits in 127 manufacturers of export-oriented ready-made garments. Moreover, from the environmental aspect, several environmental cases due to the activity of ready-made garment manufacturers have gained the attention of many stakeholders. Considering this background, the objectives of this study are: (1) analyzing the direction of sustainability policy from 3 export-oriented ready-made garment manufacturers (2) analyzing the sustainability level from these manufacturers according to the standards of their international buyers and external assessors (3) analyzing their performances on their sustainability implementation based on the framework of Triple Bottom Line dan Business Sustainability Typology. This study employed the descriptive and quantitative method with guided group discussion, in-depth interviews and using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The interviews were conducted on 3 representatives from each of the manufacturers and 3 external representatives from different institutions These three manufacturers already have several sustainability policies related to environmental and social aspects. In total, the policies here are found to be more focused towards economic aspects, followed by environmental and lastly social aspects. However, according to the external parties, these three manufacturers differs in their level of sustainability with Manufacturer A being the leader, followed by Manufacturer B and then Manufacturer C. For the Business Sustainability Typology, the three companies are at the BST 1.0 level and still have to balance the TBL dimensions to achieve True Sustainability. The three companies must take various actions so that there is no variant on each BST 3.0 indicator. Keywords: AHP, Sustainability, Ready-made garments, TBL, Business Sustainability Typology