Is It Any of Our Business? Canadian Perspectives on Transnational Corporate Accountability

Abstract

This study explores conceptualizations of transnational corporate accountability in the responses of Canadian organizations to a crisis in global capitalism. Empirically this study focuses on discussion and debate concerning the involvement of Canadian retail companies in the Rana Plaza disaster, which killed over 1,100 Bangladeshi garment workers on 24 April 2013. Information was drawn from Canadian Parliamentary Committee sessions, documents published by Canadian retail companies, governmental departments and civil society organizations, and nine semi-structured interviews with individuals possessing professional knowledge about corporate governance in global supply chains. A critical discourse analysis method, theoretically informed by the corporate crime literature, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and Foucault’s notion of knowledge and power, examined the economic, political, and legal assumptions that characterized discussions about transnational corporate crime and accountability. Overall, dominant voices reinforced neoliberal beliefs about the effectiveness of allowing corporations to develop and implement their own means of transnational regulation. Claims describing the social benefits of free markets and flexible regulatory regimes overshadowed concerns about the dangerous and exploitive practices inherent in the production of private capital, which effectively reproduced the (de)regulation of multinational corporations.