The recent collapse of a Bangladesh clothing factory complex that killed more than 1,100 has brought new attention to supply chain risks associated with Western companies outsourcing production to low-wage countries, including risks to their brand reputations.

Reputational risks eventually may be the force that drives U.S. and European retail firms to push for improved workplace conditions and safety with their suppliers in Bangladesh and elsewhere, experts say.

“There's no doubt that there's the element of reputational risk that's coming to the fore now around supply chains,” said Tom Teixeira, partner in Willis Group Holdings P.L.C.'s Willis Group Solutions consulting unit in London.

“We're seeing that there is that recognition that supply chain affects your reputation,” said Linda Conrad, director of strategic business risk at Zurich Financial Services Ltd. in New York. “We think there's going to be a bit of a movement in the health and safety area,” she said. “A lot of companies are starting to develop suppliers' codes of conduct.”

Following the April disaster, several companies took that step by signing the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a five-year binding agreement. A statement last week from IndustriALL Global Union, one party pushing the agreement, said 37 major firms had committed to the factory and worker safety improvement pact. Most major European retailers signed it, but many U.S. retailers decided not to join.

Among those not signing on was Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which last week announced its own safety plan to inspect all of its suppliers in Bangladesh. While it believes its plan meets or exceeds the IndustriALL plan, Wal-Mart said in a statement that it “looks forward to continuing to participate in the continued discussion” about the accord. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said if its concerns about issues such as governance and dispute resolution could be addressed in the worker safety pact, it would join the effort.

Ms. Conrad said she also expects to see major purchasers band together to force improvements in offshore supplier working conditions. She cited the example of U.S. universities that have signed on to the Designated Suppliers Program, under which university licensees are required to source most university logo apparel from suppliers determined to comply with specified labor standards.

Companies' increased attention to workplace conditions — and resulting improvements — seem to occur country by country as criticisms over the factory conditions at low-cost suppliers emerge. For example, in China Apple Inc.'s big supplier Foxconn was criticized widely last year for its working conditions.

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“I think we're going to see — and we're are seeing already — some trends toward making improvements to the factories in some of these low-cost countries,” said Eric J. Wieczorek, associate director in the supply chain risk analysis practice at Navigant Consulting Inc. in Lawrenceville, N.J. “Just like Apple did with its supply base.”

Tom Varney, Chicago-based head of risk consulting for Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, said he thinks consumer-driven industries like retail are responding quicker.

“Almost on a country-by-country basis as these types of issues surface, eventually everybody really addresses it,” said Gary S. Lynch, managing director and global leader of risk intelligence and supply chain resiliency at Marsh Inc.'s risk consulting practice in New York.

Despite the risk to their reputations, Mr. Lynch said he doesn't expect apparel companies to move away from Bangladesh suppliers.

“At the end of the day, this is seen as a margin issue,” Mr. Lynch said. With margins slim in the apparel industry and wages a primary cost, “I think you'll see most of them stay put.”

However, he said he does expect to see an aggressive push for more corporate supply chain responsibility, Mr. Lynch said.

“What's most troubling about supply chain risk is that the customer-facing company bears the lion's share of the risk for an operational failure while having a limited amount of operational control,” said Nir Kossovsky, CEO and director of Steel City Re in Pittsburgh, a broker/adviser specializing in corporate reputation measurement and risk transfer. That mismatch between the exposure and control is a source of the reputational risk companies face in their supply chains, he said.

Addressing that risk is “an interesting mix of expectation management and operational controls,” Mr. Kossovsky said. To reduce their risks, companies must acknowledge that there will be a crisis at some point because of their limited control over suppliers, while signaling to stakeholders they are authentically committed to managing ethics, innovation, quality, safety, sustainability and security along that supply chain, he said.

“There are solutions now that are being developed from an insurance point of view that could provide coverage for a falloff in sales as a result of a reputational event in the supply chain,” Willis' Mr. Teixeira said.

“If (buyers) can show they've done as much as they can and they've got a good risk management approach, including regular audits,” they should be able to buy such coverage, he said.