ABSTRACT
This chapter locates the rise of global retail and sourcing chains, such as Wal-Mart, in the context of the enhanced neoliberalism. According to Fortune 500, Wal-Mart was the world's second largest private company, amassing revenues of US$406 billion in 2009. The chains' expansion on a global scale has been challenged by labour unions and movement-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs) campaigning against labour and environmental excesses. Worried about the ‘reputational risk’ that these challenges created, the chains have responded by adopting self-regulating corporate codes and practices designed to address both local and global criticisms. This response is captured in terms of the shift from government to governance and from hard to soft law. Given this background, this chapter has four parts. Part one examines the making of Wal-Mart's bargain-based accumulation strategies, which are partly related to its formation of ‘glocal’ (global-local) partnerships and to its use of micromanagement techniques, such as ‘category management’ and ‘scorecards’. The resulting asymmetries of power between global retailers and suppliers/labour are captured by the concept of ‘Wal-Martization’. Part two investigates Wal-Mart's corporate social responsibility (CSR) regime and the challenges and limits of corporate codes, especially in regard to its reliance upon auditing. Part three examines critically Wal-Mart's recent attempts to reinvent the CSR regime (for example, the creation of the Global Social Compliance Program (GSCP) Reference Code and the ‘beyond auditing’ scheme). Part four concludes with the discussion of ‘new ethicalism’ and the importance of understanding the cultural political economy of CSR through examining both the micropower of knowledge production and the macropower of struggles, negotiation and contestation.
