Journal article
Transnational capitalism after postcolonialism: researching the interfaces in global supply chains
- Abstract:
- Management and organisation studies (MOS) increasingly recognises the interconnected and globalised nature of business dynamics, yet nuanced power disparities concerning stakeholders from the Global South often remain under-examined. Such power differentials can have ethical implications for researchers studying transnational business relations including the potential for epistemic violence within research endeavours. We argue for a more nuanced understanding of power in ‘transnational interfaces’: spaces where Global North and Global South actors meet and negotiate capitalist relationships. Drawing on Chibber’s (2013) landmark revisiting of postcolonial theory, we interrogate how simplistic binaries such as ‘oppressed’ vs. ‘empowered’ or ‘insider’ vs. ‘outsider’ obscure ethical and structural complexities of transnational capitalism. Through a case study of the Bangladesh Accord, established in response to the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, the article follows Chibber in asking what a Marxian analysis of the relationships of those negotiating the Accord reveals regarding power dynamics. In calling for analysis of the class, labour and capitalist relationships embedded in this instance of transnational capitalism, and not just taking postcolonial theory as a discursive or cultural corrective that risks flattening into identity politics, we also address an ethical tension inherent in MOS research, wherein scholars must navigate their own embeddedness within the capitalist system while critically examining its power dynamics. By arguing for Marxian analysis alongside postcolonial theory, the article contributes to ongoing discourse in MOS about how scholars can explore ethical questions of representation, justice and responsibility when researching capitalist dynamics involving relationships between Global South and Global North actors.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 743.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s10551-025-05985-z
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Journal of Business Ethics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 202
- Issue:
- 2
- Pages:
- 243–261
- Publication date:
- 2025-04-02
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-03-08
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1573-0697
- ISSN:
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0167-4544
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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2108964
- Local pid:
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pubs:2108964
- Source identifiers:
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W4409165753
- Deposit date:
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2025-04-29
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Kustin et al
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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