Fashion brand management: fashioning value through CSR

This chapter considers the potential of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to address concerns that garment-worker exploitation was involved in fashion production. It looks back to the success of philanthropy from the Victorian era in alleviating poverty and empowering employees. The chapter also considers evidence from the Hawthorne Studies to support implementing CSR for the benefit of employees and business, backed up with more recent examples from Sri Lanka. This is followed by exploring two fashion organisations for which CSR activities are central to their operations and finally, the chapter draws to a close by presenting excerpts from consumer interviews as they evaluate fashion garment labels that address the workers involved in producing fashion.