University community’s perception of sweatshops: a mixed method data collection Sanjukta Pookulangara 1 , Arlesa Shephard 2 and Jaime Mestres 3 1 University of North Texas – School of Merchandizing and Hospitality Management, Denton, Texas, United States 2 Texas A&M University – Department of Human Sciences, Kingsville, Texas, United States 3 University of Missouri – Textile and Apparel Management, Columbia, Missouri, United States Keywords: Sweatshops, social responsibility, licensing, consumer perception. Correspondence: Arlesa Shephard, Department of Human Sciences, Texas A&M University – Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas, USA. E-mail: kuajs003@tamuk.edu doi: 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2010.00950.x Introduction Sweatshops are a sensitive and important issue that affects the textile and apparel industries worldwide and has stimulated consumer action. The term sweatshop evokes strong emotions (Zwolinski, 2006). Arnold and Hartman (2005) define sweatshops as ‘any workplace in which workers are typically subject to two or more of the following conditions: income for a 48 h workweek less than the overall poverty rate for that country; systematic forced overtime; systematic health and safety risks due to negligence or the willful disregard of employee welfare; coercion; systematic decep- tion that places workers at risk; and underpayment of earnings.’ It is difficult to determine the number of existing sweatshops because most do not report business activity to the government (Rosen, 2002). Businesses seeking production in low-wage devel- oping countries often inadvertently support the creation of sweat- shops (Dickerson, 1991). Using contractors and subcontractors for production makes monitoring factory working conditions even more difficult, since opening a small factory requires relatively little capital and low skilled labour. The competition among con- tractors intensifies as retailers and manufacturers seek the lowest- wage country for production (Appelbaum and Dreier, 1999), resulting in downward spiral to the lowest paid workers. Sweatshop production came out of hibernation in the US in the late 1960s with a combination of factors that contributed to their reappearance: changes in the retail industry, a growing global economy, increased reliance on contracting and a large pool of immigrant labour in the US (Liebhold and Rubenstein, 1998). The recent resurgence of interest in the sweatshop move- ment happened mainly due to the infamous connection of Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing line with sweatshops in Honduras in 1996 (Featherstone, 2000). Retailers became the focus of anti- sweatshop protests, which impacted some national brands (e.g. Nike, Gap). Consequently, consumers’ expectations of corporate social responsibility increased, along with concerns over produc- tion conditions (Adams, 2002). Nine of every ten Americans favour inserting labour standard clauses in trade agreements and three of every four believe that using products made by workers outside the US carries a moral imperative to ensure those workers are not required to work under unsafe or harsh condi- tions. Young adults such as university students are more likely than other age groups to support ethical purchasing policies (Kull et al., 2004). University students were among the consumers responsible for engineering an anti-sweatshop movement resulting in the forma- tion of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) in 1998. The purpose of USAS was to ‘insist apparel manufacturers disclose the locations of factories producing goods bearing the schools’ insig- nias’ (Houghteling, 1999). Further, on-campus student activists pressured local college administrators by demanding that mer- chandise with the school’s insignia be produced only in factories implementing fair trade practices (Featherstone, 2000). Sale of licensed clothing is a source of revenue for cash strapped universities. As of 2005, collegiate licensing was a $2.8 billion industry, comprising 2% of the American clothing busi- ness and has been growing 20% per year since 2003 (Werf, 2001; Sosnowski, 2005; Demos, 2006). Universities are unique retailers for two important reasons. First, these institutions pur- chase in volume and therefore have a great deal of leverage. Second, student activism forces universities to be pro-active in investigating the conditions under which apparel is produced (Gourevitch, 2001). This study focused on the sweatshop issue in the university community in terms of licensed apparel products using the mixed method data collection strategy. This data col- lection technique maximizes the ability to test causal hypotheses and provide new insights into social cause and consequence (Book Reviews, 2008). The research objectives were to examine: (1) University community members’ perspectives on sweatshops with special emphasis on university licensed apparel and (2) the impact of concern about sweatshops (concern), knowledge about sweatshops (knowledge), and beliefs about the foreign industry and the impact of support of socially responsible business International Journal of Consumer Studies ISSN 1470-6423 International Journal of Consumer Studies 35 (2011) 476–483 © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 476