Conceiving and addressing modern slavery in the events sector. A narrative analysis of corporate reporting

Emerging literature explores Modern Slavery (MS) implications for businesses, yet corporate actors’ understanding of MS risks and their role in risk mitigation remains under-studied. This paper explores how event sector stakeholders perceive and address MS risks, including human trafficking, labour and sexual exploitation, by analysing the conception of problems and solutions in relation to MS. Using narrative analysis, the paper explores event companies’ reporting under the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) to gain a better understanding of how reporting can drive change in business practice, especially given the regulatory framework’s limitations of defining precise reporting requirements. Findings show that risk management and mitigation generally translate into staff training, whistleblowing, (internal) auditing, and often a zero-tolerance approach. The paper enables a deeper understanding of businesses’ process of reporting standards and performance measurement. It theorises corporate transparency and responsibility and outlines the practical implications of the limits of transparency and responsibility attribution.