Lampert Poster Final Draft
- 1. Anan Hossain, ‘17 2015 Summer Fellow Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs Can Managers be Trusted? Looking at the Bangladesh Ready Made Garments Industry • The Ready Made Garments (RMG) Industry is one of the largest industries in Bangladesh, • Accounts for over 80% of its total exports and employing about 25% of its labor force. • The main driver of Bangladesh economic growth over the last 20 years. • Concerns about the industry’s growth slowing down due to multiple internal and external factors. • Managers of RMG factories were interviewed to determine the main issues faced by the industry. • The claims made by the interviewees through these dialogues not only identified key factors that affected the industry, but • When compared against the existing literature, they raised concerns about their reliability as a source of information. Why is this significant? Conclusions Objectives and Methods The objective of this research was to: 1. determine whether RMG managers can be trusted as a reliable source of information 2. determine whether the reliability of interview data is consistent across all issues that affect the RMG industry Methods: 1. Interviewee claims were categorized into major issues that affect the RMG industry 2. Claims from individual interviewees were collated to identify whether these claims and responses followed certain patters 3. These collated claims were compared to corresponding secondary data in the form of literature and trade data 4. The claims were analyzed to see if they confirmed or contradicted this secondary data Results A total of 20 factory managers were asked questions about the RMG industry in semi-structured interviews. The following table highlights the topics that were identified by interviewees to be the key to the RMG industry 1. The secondary literature generally agrees that these are the most important issues facing the RMG industry. 2. Within these topics, the reliability of the interview data can be placed across a spectrum 3. The extent to which the secondary literature confirmed the interviewees claims varied among the individual topics, i.e. interview data was more reliable for some topics than others Issues Compliance Political Instability Wage Determination Labor Productivity and Technology Management and Organization Infrastructure International Markets confirmcontradict • The research tries to determine whether RMG managers can be trusted as a reliable source of information. • The results suggest that interview data can be trusted as a reliable source of information only when looking at specific topic areas concerning the RMG owners. • The variation in the data makes sweeping generalizations oversimplified. • It is important to note that many reports and articles use survey data from management to make their claims and analysis. • The reliability of reports such as the Global Competitiveness Report and other such secondary data is put into question Nahian, Jaber. “Dhaka Savar Building Collapse." 13 May 2013. Online image. Flickr. 10 Aug 2015. Acknowledgments USAID . “ A female beneficiary under one of USAID's Global Climate Change (GCC) programs sewing clothes at a training center, as a part of Income Generation Activity." 7 Oct 2013. Online image. USAID Bangladesh. 10 Aug 2015. I would like to thank Professor Jay Mandle for providing guidance and advice throughout this research process. Funding was provided by the Lampert Institute of Civic and Global Affairs, Colgate University