The Ties That Link Us: Uncovering the Socio-Technic Connections of Labor Trafficking Networks

Recent attention to labor trafficking as an underaddressed part of human trafficking has added urgency to the need to improve corporate supply chain actions and policies. Through a cross-case analysis of data from the agricultural sector in the United States, this paper seeks to understand labor trafficking operations through a socio-technic systems theory lens and contributes to prior literature on labor trafficking in three important ways. First, we utilize a cross-case approach to explore labor trafficking operations through a network lens and derive insights into the interconnectivity and key players in each labor trafficking operation. Second, we outline the socio-technic practices of those labor trafficking networks that maintained ties to corporate supply chains. Hence, the scope of operations management socio-technic theory is widened to also include exploitative and harmful practices. Third, we elucidate the connections between corporate and labor trafficking systems to demonstrate that corporate responsibility does not exist in a vacuum and that the interplay between legal and illicit organizations is of critical importance in combating human trafficking. Altogether, this article provides an interdisciplinary perspective using insights from operations management theory, criminology, and network design. In doing so, the assessment of socio-technic dynamics between actors broadens the operations and supply chain frame of reference beyond corporate socio-technic systems to include the illicit systems they are connected to.