Fashionable Policy : A Critical Discourse Analysis of H&M Group's Labour Policies and Corporate Social Responsibility

The purpose of this study is to show how H&M Group utilizes policy around labour conditions and human rights to position themselves in a more favourable way with their consumers. The research questions are how the visibility of the brand affects the way they write policy on labour conditions on human rights, as well as how they utilize corporate social responsibility in their writing, and how they take or deny responsibility for the working conditions in the supply chain. The study was done using critical discourse analysis according to Fairclough's approach. Theories were corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the post-panoptical regime of visibility. CSR is a set of strategies that corporations use to respond to consumer pressure of ethics. The post-panoptical visibility refers to the ways everyone watches each other in society today. It's no longer just the government, but also corporations and other individuals. The conclusions were that H&M Group are affected by visibility in the way they write their policy, and will often use language that makes them appear as though they value human rights, even though at close examination, these texts often lack substance or use wording that absolves the company from some of the responsibility. However, the policies that apply to business partners only, often have substance and language that indicates force, effectively pushing the responsibility on to them. It was also concluded that although H&M Group doesn't explicitly write about CSR, they do still use the framework itself. Through the policies, they have institutionalised ethics, although there is evidence that these ethical principles aren't always followed. They also use CSR to enact pressure on business partners.