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“Bluewashing” the Firm? Voluntary Regulations, Program Design, and Member Compliance with the United Nations Global Compact
Abstract
Voluntary programs have emerged as important instruments of public policy. We explore whether programs lacking monitoring and enforcement mechanisms can curb participants’ shirking with program obligations. Incentive-based approaches to policy see monitoring and enforcement as essential to curb shirking, while norm-based approaches view social mechanisms such as norms and learning as sufficient to serve this purpose. The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), a prominent international voluntary program, encourages firms to adopt socially responsible policies. Its program design, however, relies primarily on norms and learning to mitigate shirking. Using a panel of roughly 3,000 U.S. firms from 2000 to 2010, and multiple approaches to address endogeneity and selection issues, we examine the effects of Compact membership on members’ human rights and environmental performance. We find that members fare worse than nonmembers on costly and fundamental performance dimensions, while showing improvements only in more superficial dimensions. Exploiting the lack of monitoring and enforcement, UNGC members are able to shirk: enjoying goodwill benefits of program membership without making costly changes to their human rights and environmental practices.
... For a full list of different types of greenwashing, we refer to existing literature reviews (de Freitas Netto et al., 2020;Lyon and Montgomery, 2015;Yang et al., 2020). As greenwashing research has evolved, several new concepts have also been introduced to address specific issues, including blue washing (Berliner and Prakash, 2015), SDG washing (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2022), CSR-washing (Boiral et al., 2017), sport washing (Skey, 2022), lean washing (Karnani et al., 2014), and machine washing (Seele and Schultz, 2022). Greenwashing cuts across academic disciplines, where several theories and concepts address talk-action inconsistencies between public commitments to sustainability and actual accomplishments (Lyon and Montgomery, 2015;Pedersen and Andersen, 2023;Seele and Schultz, 2022). ...
... Greenwashing cuts across academic disciplines, where several theories and concepts address talk-action inconsistencies between public commitments to sustainability and actual accomplishments (Lyon and Montgomery, 2015;Pedersen and Andersen, 2023;Seele and Schultz, 2022). For instance, scholars have drawn on legitimacy theory and signalling theory to understand greenwashing, as misleading green communication is a means to improve stakeholders' perception of the organisation (Berliner and Prakash, 2015;Seele and Gatti, 2017;Walker and Wan, 2012). Greenwashing enables the organisation to comply with societal norms and be perceived by stakeholders as a legitimate actor, without having to invest in costly and time-consuming social and environmental improvements (Berliner and Prakash, 2015). ...
... For instance, scholars have drawn on legitimacy theory and signalling theory to understand greenwashing, as misleading green communication is a means to improve stakeholders' perception of the organisation (Berliner and Prakash, 2015;Seele and Gatti, 2017;Walker and Wan, 2012). Greenwashing enables the organisation to comply with societal norms and be perceived by stakeholders as a legitimate actor, without having to invest in costly and time-consuming social and environmental improvements (Berliner and Prakash, 2015). Moreover, greenwashing research has also been inspired by the rich literature on decoupling, which includes different types of talk-action disconnects (de Freitas Netto et al., 2020;Lyon and Montgomery, 2013;Siano et al., 2017). ...
... The past few decades have witnessed the emergence of voluntary initiatives as instruments of public policy (King & King, 2000;Berliner & Prakash, 2015;Albareda et al., 2008). International organisations and development agencies have also developed an interest in CSR. ...
... Karnani (2010) argues that despite talking a great deal about CSR, many companies do nothing about it. The terms "corporate green-washing" and "corporate blue-washing" have become popular descriptions of corporate posturing, where companies adopt symbolic voluntary initiatives to camouflage their "business as usual" attitudes (Utting, 2003;Benn and Bolton, 2011; Cohen, 2010;Berliner & Prakash, 2015). King and King (2000) argue that voluntary initiatives are susceptible to opportunistic behaviour. ...
... King and King (2000) argue that voluntary initiatives are susceptible to opportunistic behaviour. The profit imperative inherent in any business activity limits the extent to which business corporations can act in the public interest (Maphosa, 1998a(Maphosa, , 1998b(Maphosa, , 2009Karnani, 2010;Berliner & Prakash, 2015). Wettstein and Waddock (2005) argue that voluntary initiatives are increasingly becoming problematic with the growing emphasis on human rights. ...
... Research by Yin and colleagues demonstrates that although standardized management systems may appear similar on the surface, their implementation can vary significantly across different organizations, leading to varied environmental outcomes [99]. The UNGC, an international voluntary initiative, aims to encourage businesses to adopt CSR policies [100]. The program requires its members to submit an ESG report annually, through which investors can exert pressure on UNGC corporate participants, encouraging them to adhere more closely to the compact's requirements and align their actions with their words [101]. ...
... For example, a study by Mallidis in 2024 highlighted that international standards like ISO and the UNGC negatively impact the regulation of the relationship between female directors and ESG [102]. Moreover, criticisms of the UNGC mainly focus on its voluntary nature and the absence of effective external monitoring and enforcement mechanisms [100,101]. These findings suggest that academic discussions about EMSs, self-regulation, and VEPs are becoming more diverse, rational, and dialectical. ...
Against the backdrop of the global energy crisis and climate change, corporate environmental compliance has emerged as a key aspect of environmental regulation and a focal point of academic interest. It plays a crucial role in alleviating regulatory pressure, enabling green innovations, enhancing performance, and fostering sustainable development. Despite extensive research in the field, comprehensive reviews and bibliometric analyses remain scarce. To address this gap, this study meticulously analyzed 851 papers indexed in the WoS’s SSCI and SCI from 2004 to 2024. Using visualization tools like VOSviewer and CiteSpace, it conducted a multidimensional bibliometric analysis and systematic review, identifying core authors such as Aseem, Ntim, and Zeng, high-productivity countries including China, the USA, and the UK, and key journals like the Journal of Cleaner Production and Sustainability. Keyword co-occurrence and cluster analysis revealed central research themes of environmental information disclosure, innovation, and environmental management systems. Burst analysis highlighted emerging hot topics, notably ecological and green innovation, and the interplay between Total Factor Productivity and environmental regulations. Additionally, we identified several critical gaps in the field. For instance, research on corporate environmental governance mechanisms in the context of digital transformation remains insufficient. Furthermore, the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder collaborative governance frameworks requires ongoing investigation. Therefore, we encourage future researchers to focus on the following topics: digitization and environmental compliance, multi-stakeholder participation mechanisms, cost–benefit analysis of corporate environmental compliance, and the impact of political and regulatory environments on corporate environmental compliance.
... Whereas extant literature has also been skeptical on the green effect of voluntary regulations because of adverse selection, moral hazard, and free-riding (e.g. King and Lenox 2000;Potoski and Prakash 2013;Berliner and Prakash 2015;Testa et al. 2018), this claim has also been supported by empirical evidence. For example, Aragon-Correa et al. (2016) found that firms with a better record of voluntary environmental information disclosure actually show worse environmental progress than others. ...
... Some research pointed out that with the strengthening of MERs, some enterprises' substantive environmental management behavior may change to symbolic environmental management behavior (Short and Toffel 2010;He et al. 2018;Iatridis and Kesidou 2018). For example, enterprises choose to "greenwash" in order to deal with the pressure of legitimacy in the short term (Berliner and Prakash 2015). However, the symbolic environmental management behavior goes against the enterprises' long-term green innovation behavior. ...
... A question that has been raised in the previous literature is whether climate networks also help members reduce emissions or whether they are just regarded as arenas for discussion or used by actors for the purpose of greenwashing (cf. Berliner and Prakash, 2015). Another question is the effects they may have on other societal actors. ...
This book examines how, and under what conditions, states – in collaboration with non-state actors – can govern a societal transformation toward large-scale decarbonization in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. It advances an innovative analytical framework on how the state governs through collaborative climate governance to foster cooperation, deliberation, and consensus between state and non-state actors. The book focuses on Sweden, which aims to become a fossil-free state. The chapters analyze Sweden's progress toward net-zero emissions, its role in international climate governance, and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected climate networks. Providing valuable policy insights for other countries endeavoring to decarbonize, this book is a useful reference for graduate students and researchers in climate governance, political science, and international relations. It is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
... The role of political stability is key to achieving green development of the country and achieving SDGs as argued by Chen et al. (2023), Dai et al. (2023) and Schnabl (2023). Conversely, weak governance as identified by the present study can lead to non-compliance with voluntary regulations, which can undermine the effectiveness of green policies and directives as argued by Berliner and Prakash (2015). Weak governance and institutional capacities can lead to policy failures leading to ineffective implementation of green policies and directives (Howlett, 2023). ...
This article examines the political and security factors that affect the implementation of European Union (EU) green policies and directives in Kosovo. As the EU aims to promote sustainable development and combat climate change, understanding these factors is crucial, especially in politically sensitive regions. The study utilises an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from political science, security studies, environmental science and international law to analyse the challenges and opportunities in implementing these policies in Kosovo. It critically reviews existing literature, highlighting key findings from international scholars on the role of political and security considerations. The article identifies critical factors influencing the success of EU green initiatives in Kosovo and suggests areas for future research. Through exploring research questions on the challenges, impacts and the role of international organisations and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), the article seeks to provide insights into enhancing collaboration between the EU and local stakeholders. Ultimately, the study aims to contribute to discussions on how green policies can promote stability, security and sustainable development in Kosovo, offering strategies to overcome implementation challenges. Keywords: EU Green Policies; Directives; Kosovo; Political and Security Challenges.
... Likewise, its disclosure may influence the decisions made by investors and produce a positive impact on the reputation of organizations (Cox et al., 2004). Macellari et al. (2021) point out that, through the dissemination of information on sustainability, entities seek to achieve social legitimacy, which in turn carries the risk of incurring in bluewashing practices (Berliner, 2015). In this context, "paper compliance" should be avoided, that is, one that is adopted with the purpose of making an organization appear formally compliant, in circumstances that it lacks an effectively implemented program. ...
Purpose
The objective of this study is to generate new fiscal transparency indicators based on fiscal sustainability reports voluntarily disclosed by Chilean companies, leaders in Latin America in the issuance of green, social and sustainability corporate bonds (OECD, 2023a; OECD, 2018).
Design/methodology/approach
The sample included the analysis of sustainability reports of 30 Chilean companies with the highest market capitalization published in the period 2021. A correlation was carried out for each of the companies in the sample with the intention of detecting differences between several groups of paired dichotomous variables. For this, Cochran's Q test was used; the McNemar test; the Friedman test; the Wilcoxon test; the Levene test and the Kruskal−Wallis test were also used.
Findings
In the case of the companies in the sample, for the 2021 period there was an increase in disclosures of tax strategies compared to the study carried out by Faúndez-Ugalde et al. (2022) for the period 2020. However, there is still a lower degree of compliance in reporting fiscal risks and “country by country” information.
Practical implications
The commitment of companies to assume tax transparency standards improves their behavior in compliance with their tax obligations and provides greater certainty to develop actions to mitigate their tax risks.
Social implications
The results demonstrate practical implications, where fiscal sustainability reports can enhance the work of tax administrations by defining indicators of good fiscal practices.
Originality/value
This study expands the research on the fiscal sustainability standards of Chilean companies, thus providing a deeper understanding of their performance regarding fiscal transparency.
... Interestingly, the labelling of a corporate strategy as 'washing', be it green, blue, pink, rainbow, or woke, taints that strategy, indicating its failure to pay anything bit lip service to the evoked social, economic, and/or environmental cause(s) (Berliner & Prakash, 2015;Bernardino, 2021;Sobande, 2019;Szabo & Webster, 2021;Vredenburg et al., 2020). Beyond the critique of corporate engagement with progressive causes, however, some organisation and management scholars have explored the ethical potentials of corporate activism Gond & Nyberg, 2017;Gulbrandsen et al., 2022). ...
Based on a qualitative study of Copenhagen 2021 WorldPride, this article explores collaboration between the local organiser and its corporate partners, focusing on the tensions involved in this collaboration, which emerge from and uphold relations between the extremes of unethical pinkwashing, on the one hand, and ethical purity, on the other. Here, pinkwashing is understood as a looming risk, and purity as an unrealizable ideal. As such, corporate sponsorships of Pride are conceptualized as inherently impure—and productive because of their very impurity rather than despite it. Analytically, we identify and explore three productive tensions where the first involves emergent normativities for what constitutes good, right, or proper corporate engagement in Pride, the second revolves around queer(ed) practices and products that open normativities, and the third centres on the role of internal LGBTI+ employee-driven networks whose activism pushes organisations to become further involved in Pride, developing aspirational solidarity. Reading across literatures on corporate activism and queer organisation, we introduce Alexis Shotwell’s notion of constitutive impurity to suggest that the potential for ethical corporate Pride partnerships arises when accepting the risk of pinkwashing rather than seeking to overcome it.
... Yet, much policy change that takes place within states is actually driven by the actions of global actors, including transnational structures that are constituted of multiple states and non-state actors, and therefore can have considerable influence. There is, for example, a rich literature on international institutions such as the United Nations or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and transnational initiatives such as the Kimberley Process and the United Nations Global Compact, that explores the design of international institutions and the behavior that those designs foster among member governments (e.g., Finnemore, 1993;Haufler, 2009;Berliner and Prakash, 2015;Grohs and Rasch, 2021). Seen in this way, the question about the success of reforms primes quite a different set of answers that links changes set in motion by the process of membership to relationships based on partnership and the activities that take place through the partnership. ...
... While the central involvement of powerful actors is not necessarily detrimental to a network's potential to drive innovation (Pel, 2016), case study research does suggest that powerful actors' central presence in multistakeholder partnerships contributes to their being less likely to lead to transformative food system change (Berliner & Prakash, 2014;Herens et al., 2022;Osei-Amponsah et al., 2018). In part, this is because a concentrated, uniform network may be limited in its potential to incorporate new developments, insights or perspectives (Klein Woolthuis et al., 2005). ...
There is growing recognition that global food system transformation requires a fundamental shift in norms, perspectives and structural inclusion and exclusion of different actors in decision-making spaces. As multistakeholder governance approaches become increasingly common, significant concerns have been raised about their ability to deliver such change. Such concerns are based on case study findings repeatedly highlighting their susceptibility to corporate capture. This study goes beyond individual case studies, examining global multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) whose stated aim is to drive a healthier and more sustainable food system. It identified and categorised actors within these MSIs, drawing on social network analysis to provide insights into actor centrality, power structures, and how this might impact MSIs’ potential to drive transformative change. Thirty global MSIs were included in our sample, including a total of 813 actors. Most actors were based in high-income countries (HIC) (n = 548, 67%). The private sector (n = 365, 45%) was the most represented actor category, comprising transnational corporations (TNCs) (n = 127) and numerous others representing their interests. NGOs, affected communities and low- and middle-income country actors remain underrepresented. The central involvement of TNCs which rely on the production and sale of unhealthy and unsustainable commodities represents a clear conflict of interest to the stated objectives of the MSIs. These findings lend weight to concerns that MSIs may reflect rather than challenge existing power structures, thus serving to maintain the status quo. This indicates a need to critically examine the use of multistakeholder governance approaches and their ability to drive global food system transformation.
... Analysis of the MI founding member data along with several leading business association and UPF corporation reports (Nestlé 2023a;Unilever 2020), shows that many MIs, UPF corporations, and powerful business associations are using in conjunction, the UN (Manahan and Kumar 2021), the SDGs (Corporate Accountability 2023), particularly SDG17 on 'partnerships' which calls for 'strengthening implementation and revitalizing the global partnerships for sustainable development' (United Nations 2015), and other Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives and Environmental, Social and Governance indicators to entrench themselves as 'part of the solution' (McKeon 2017; Lacy-Nichols and Williams 2021). When these direct connections are with the UN, and or the UN Global Compact institution, and the corporation doesn't take any meaningful environmental or human rights actions or making any real business activity changes (Berliner and Prakash 2015), this trend is referred to within the literature as 'blue washing' (Bruno and Karliner 2000). Blue washing specifically refers to corporations projecting corporate values, governance practices, and a socially responsible image through their association with the UN (Zammit and Utting 2006). ...
The rise of multi-stakeholder institutions (MIs) involving the ultra-processed food (UPF) industry has raised concerns among food and public health scholars, especially with regards to enhancing the legitimacy and influence of transnational food corporations in global food governance (GFG) spaces. However, few studies have investigated the governance composition and characteristics of MIs involving the UPF industry, nor considered the implications for organizing global responses to UPFs and other major food systems challenges. We address this gap by conducting a network analysis to map global MIs involving the UPF industry, drawing data from web sources, company reports, business and market research databases, and academic and grey literature. We identified 45 such global food system MIs. Of these, executives from the UPF industry or affiliated interest groups held almost half (n = 263, or 43.8%) of the total 601 board seat positions. Executives from a small number of corporations, especially Unilever (n = 20), Nestlé (n = 17), PepsiCo Inc (n = 14), and The Coca-Cola Company (n = 13) held the most board seat positions, indicating centrality to the network. Board seats of these MIs are dominated by executives from transnational corporations (n = 431, or 71.7%), high-income countries (n = 495, or 82.4%), and four countries (United States, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) (n = 350, or 58.2%) in particular. This study shows that MIs involving the UPF industry privilege the interests of corporations located near exclusively in the Global North, draw legitimacy through affiliations with multi-lateral agencies, civil society groups and research institutions, and represent diverse corporate interests involved in UPF supply chains. Corporate-anchored multi-stakeholderism, as a form of GFG governance, raises challenges for achieving food systems transformation, including the control and reduction of UPFs in human diets.
... This relatively recent phenomenon poses research challenges due to the absence of standardized terminology and blurred boundaries (Sailer, Wilfing, Straus, 2022). Blue washing specifically involves misleading marketing efforts that exaggerate a company's commitment to socially responsible practices, emphasizing economic and community factors (Berliner, Prakash, 2015). ...
... El greenwashing es un comportamiento oportunista en las declaraciones de sostenibilidad de las empresas (Delmas y Burbano, 2011). Por otra parte, el bluewashing se refiere a las acciones de las empresas que intentan mostrar apoyo a los derechos humanos declarados por las Naciones Unidas, pero que en realidad no defienden los derechos humanos (Berliner y Prakash, 2015). De Freitas Netto et al. (2020) diferencian entre greenwashing, como un problema ambiental, y bluewashing, que afecta los problemas sociales. ...
Este trabajo analiza cómo las prácticas empresariales responsables pueden contribuir a la resiliencia social en entornos de guerra. La literatura previa ha estudiado el papel de las empresas en el alivio de las consecuencias de diferentes shocks. Sin embargo, la importante brecha de la contribución de las acciones responsables para asegurar la resiliencia social en tiempo de guerra permanece sin explorar. Además, estudios previos no han analizado las respuestas de las empresas durante un periodo prolongado después de un shock. Analizamos las 100 empresas más grandes que operan en Ucrania e identificamos 476 acciones responsables durante el primer año de la guerra que comenzó en 2022. Clasificamos y categorizamos las diferentes acciones y evaluamos las estrategias de las empresas que contribuyen a generar resiliencia social. En suma, aquellas empresas que han mostrado un mayor potencial para construir resiliencia social son aquellas que articulan una respuesta que incluye acciones tempranas abiertas a una amplia gama de grupos de interés y que establecen una variedad de acciones durante un periodo extenso.
... Adapted from Aubin et al. [8]. must also deliver sustainability improvements or risk being labeled as forms of bluewashing that prioritize company image and the business case for sustainability over sustainability outcomes [11,40]. ...
Aquaculture eco-certification is especially relevant in salmon farming where it has emerged as a popular corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, providing global standards that can be applied to a globally traded commodity. However, eco-certification is just one of many CSR strategies used to address seafood sustainability at the corporate level. CSR is important for company image, but it is not clear whether or how these strategies contribute to sustainability outcomes. This paper applies an ecosystem services framework to an analysis of sustainability reporting from top salmon farming companies to identify links between eco-certification, other CSR strategies, and the delivery of ecosystem services. Although eco-certification was used to indicate commitment to sustainability practices across all companies, other CSR strategies, especially practices, power, and partnership, were more frequently and explicitly connected to the delivery of ecosystem services. Results show that individual CSR strategies including eco-certification are not isolated but interact and work in concert to manage the supply of ecosystem services.
... The adherence to the UNGC principles in company management has also been associated with the adoption of green strategies. Some studies report a positive impact of adopting these principles on pollution prevention, recycling, and clean energy use (Berliner and Prakash, 2015;Ortas et al., 2015), while others question their effectiveness, raising concerns for potential "bluewashing" (e.g., Jastram and Klingenberg, 2018). Likewise, some studies support that providing economic incentives to top management can play a role in aligning executives' interests with corporate sustainability. ...
... It might also explain why educators working in the field of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship have been perceived as providing a 'cretin's education', acting as a Trojan Horse for Business Model Ideology, and spreading opportunism and survival of the fittest (c.f Riot in Loi et al, 2022). We discussed the idea of Blue Washing (Berliner and Prakash, 2015), where the deployment and wide promotion of Sustainable Development Goals in Business School environments (c.f. Azmat et al, 2023;Garcia-Feijoo et al, 2020) provides the appearance of sustainably-oriented purpose and strategy whilst there is little change on the ground. ...
Educators at all levels are being challenged to ensure that students know the truth about climate change and are empowered to be agents of change, able to resist despair and propose radical innovation in the face of sustainability challenges (Department for Education, 2022). For Enterprise Educators, this demand is potentially problematic, implicated as we are (through economic preparation activities), in contributing to take-and-consume cultures that relate to the unsustainability of development (Frederick, 2018; Hallonsten, 2023), and where limited empirical examples of transformed and sustainable practice exist (Klapper and Fayolle, 2023; Dodd et al, 2022). A question therefore becomes – how do we re-orient ourselves and our practice away from unsustainability? One possibility is to connect with the substantial materials and resources proposing regenerative business design, offered through the Doughnut framework (Raworth, 2017), and the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL, 2023). To explore this possibility, in this paper we adopt the stance of self-study, an approach used in teaching and teacher education where educators purposefully study themselves in order to bring about change in thinking and practice (Bullough and Pinnegar, 2001).
... Il y a en effet un écart entre le discours et les actes dans de nombreuses entreprises, ce qui constitue une hypocrisie organisationnelle (Brunsson, 1989). On peut même observer des effets contraires aux objectifs recherchés par la formation à la RSE, comme dans le cas du greenwashing et du bluewashing (Berliner et Prakash, 2015), lorsque des managers bien formés à la RSE utilisent les limites des modèles de labellisation RSE et de développement durable pour mettre en avant quelques réalisations positives afin de masquer des défaillances importantes, comme cela a été le cas pour la gestion de la sous-traitance de Nike. ...
L’éducation à la RSE dans les écoles de management passe à la fois par des messages implicites et explicites. La formation explicite à la RSE a des limites, voire des effets contre-productifs lorsque les écoles ne sont pas exemplaires de façon implicite. Toutefois, l’éducation implicite à la RSE devrait être bien articulée avec une formation explicite, comme le montre le cas de programmes de formation en alternance au management responsable de type socio-économique.
... It occurs, for example, when corporate codes of conduct claim social concerns that do not correspond to the company's practice. "Bluewashing" is another term which is typically used to encompass both the environmental and the social dimensions by reference to the blue UN flag, in which companies figuratively drape themselves to better their image in relation to environmental and human rights records [41]. ...
Sustainability aims to integrate environmental and social considerations into decision-making, alongside purely economic factors, in a balanced manner. Here, a concise critical review of policy instruments concerning the definition and implementation of this concept is presented. The sources were selected as the most relevant to capturing the origins and evolution of the idea of sustainability from the 1960s to the present day. The analysis narrows down to the construction sector within the European Union (EU), of which the perspective guides the work. As it emerges, the historical path led to the materialization of the sustainability concept into the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite interpretative discussions around the concept, these SDGs became the relevant sustainability model for sectors like construction. Its application to practice, however, faces three major challenges that must be acknowledged and addressed to allow defining robust and genuinely sustainable decision-making strategies: greenwashing, commodification, and “cherry picking”.
... Over the years, more specific types of greenwashing have emerged, such as CSR-washing (Pope and Waeraas, 2016), blue washing (misuse of United Nations Global Compact; Berliner and Prakash, 2015), and SDG washing (misuse of SDGs; Heras- Saizarbitoria et al., 2022). Furthermore, overlapping concepts like window-dressing and smoke-screening are sometimes used as synonyms for greenwashing to describe selective disclosure of favourable environmental information that fails to provide an accurate account of a product' s or company' s actual environmental performance (Pedersen, 2006). ...
Is greenwashing a business model? The paper is a conceptual effort to advance the discussions of greenwashing though the lenses of business model thinking. We argue that the business model literature can offer a useful supplement to the existing conceptualisations of greenwashing by linking talk-action disconnects to the broader business architecture. Essentially, greenwashing is considered as a broken business model, which characterizes organisations that deliberately disconnect the promises to the stakeholders (i.e. value proposition) from the underlying business architecture. We also argue that the concept of greenwashing can contribute to the business model literature by drawing attention to organisations with imperfect business architectures, which fail to deliver on the value proposition communicated to their stakeholders. Fundamentally, greenwashing calls attention to the multitude of organisations with limited integration between the individual building blocks of a business model.
... 94% of the companies indicated that they had implemented the UNGC's anti-corruption principles in their code of ethics, and half of them have additionally implemented other international standards or specific procedures (internal auditing, hotline, additional training). However, the study concludes, along the lines of criticism of the UNGC (Berliner and Prakash, 2015), that companies' inconsistent approach to complying with UNGC requirements leads to a disconnect from reality and merely improves the public image. ...
Purpose
The lack of transparency contributes to the growing corruption problem in various spheres of society. This paper aims to analyse the sustainability report disclosures published by Czech companies in 2021 and registered by the Association of Social Sustainability of the Czech Republic.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on three hypotheses, the relationships between the level of disclosed anti-corruption information and selected variables related to the corporate environment are tested using content analysis and the Mann–Whitney test.
Findings
This paper reveals that Czech firms provide more information if they operate in a higher-risk environment (energy, materials and financial services) or are state-owned (or with a state ownership stake). It also reveals that companies participating in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives (UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative) increase their credibility and social responsibility with more disclosed information.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of this paper is the smaller number of selected companies matching the chosen criteria. In addition, a certain degree of subjectivity is likely to have manifested in the process of coding the reports and in the use of the content analysis method.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to research that addresses the fight against corruption and CSR issues with a specific study in a small, Central European country and provides new empirical data on the anti-corruption fight problem.
... The adherence to the UNGC principles in company management has also been associated with the adoption of green strategies. Some studies report a positive impact of adopting these principles on pollution prevention, recycling, and clean energy use (Berliner and Prakash, 2015;Ortas et al., 2015), while others question their effectiveness, raising concerns for potential "bluewashing" (e.g., Jastram and Klingenberg, 2018). Likewise, some studies support that providing economic incentives to top management can play a role in aligning executives' interests with corporate sustainability. ...
... Buhmann et al. (2018) stated that from the neo-institutional perspective, organizations engage with the SDGs primarily to respond to institutional pressures, rather than to significantly improve sustainability practices and performance, also known as greenwashing. In the case of compliance with the SDGs and other UN initiatives, a specific term was even created: bluewashing (with more emphasis on the economic and social factors), referring to the blue UN flag (Berliner and Prakash 2015). From a technology point of view, blue-and/or greenwashing happens when the positive sustainability impacts of a technology are exaggerated and/or overemphasized. ...
This paper responds to recent calls to address the indivisible nature of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework and the related knowledge gap on how SDG targets interlink with each other. It examines how SDG targets interact in the context of a specific technology, point of care (PoC) microfluidics, and how this relates to the concept of responsible innovation (RI). The novel SDG interlinkages methodology developed here involves several steps to filter the relevant interlinkages and a focus group of experts for discussing these interlinkages. The main findings indicate that several social synergies occur when deploying PoC microfluidics, but that the environmental trade-offs may jeopardize the total progress toward the SDGs. More specifically, the environmental sacrifices (use of plastics and lack of recyclability) resulted in the product being cheaper and, thus, better accessible. This work suggests that attention should be given (and prioritized) to the use of renewable and recyclable materials without jeopardizing the accessibility of the product. This should minimize the identified trade-offs. These findings inform how analyzing SDG interlinkages relates to the responsibilities and dimensions of RI in several ways. First, analyzing SDG interlinkages helps to execute the governance responsibility by using the RI dimensions (anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion and responsiveness). Second, analyzing SDG interlinkages gives insights into if and how a technology relates to the do-good and avoid-harm responsibility. This is important to assess the responsiveness of the technology to ensure that the technology can become truly sustainable and leaves no one behind.
... Finally, organisations sometimes lack the motivation to engage in deliberation, allowing only "formal" but not "substantive participation" (Etchanchu & Djelic, 2019: 903), exploiting deliberation spaces for greenwashing (Berliner & Prakash, 2015;Soundararajan, Brown, & Wicks, 2019), or using their power to shift the discourse according to their own benefit (Schormair & Gilbert, 2021;Thompson, 2008). ...
Organisations increasingly use digital nudges to influence their workforces’ behaviour without coercion or incentives. This can expose employees to arbitrary domination by infringing on their autonomy through manipulation and indoctrination. Nudges might furthermore give rise to the phenomenon of “organised immaturity.” Adopting a balanced approach between overly optimistic and dystopian standpoints, I propose a framework for determining the moral permissibility of digital nudging in the workplace. In this regard, I argue that not only should organisations provide pre-discursive justification of nudges but they should also ensure that employees can challenge their implementation whenever necessary through legitimation procedures. Building on Rainer Forst’s concept of the right to justification, this article offers a way to combine contract- and deliberation-based theories for addressing questions in business ethics. I further introduce the concept of meta-autonomy as a capacity that employees can acquire to counter threats of arbitrary domination and to mitigate organised immaturity.
... The study derives a measure of CSR based on membership in the UNGC and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting standards. The UNGC is a prominent voluntary public-private governance initiative that advances principles addressing human rights, labor standards, the environment, and anti-corruption (Berliner and Prakash, 2015;Carby-Hall, 2020). It offers a framework for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that guide CSR practices of companies, and it is the most widely adopted CSR private governance system (Orzes et al., 2018). ...
With the ever-increasing volume and variety of data generated, organisations have to ensure their truthfulness and reliability. This paper provides overview of current research on managing data veracity in a business environment where misinformation is growing. A literature analysis from 2002 to 2023 identified three major themes: methods for ensuring data validity, data processing and optimisation, and data veracity in sustainability performance. In addition, the study highlights the gaps in the current research and proposes future research directions to help develop a better understanding of the themes and organisational implications. The study concludes that data veracity is crucial for future organisational research. Nevertheless, further work is required to refine the definition of data veracity to incorporate ‘truthfulness’ better, understand human capabilities to support it, examine firms’ governance of truthfulness and measure data veracity for social impact. The implications of these findings for data management and the development of relevant theories are discussed.
For some time, Global Governance has made the case that multinational enterprises (MNEs) have become so involved in multistakeholder provisions of public goods that they should be considered as global governors. Their involvement and whether it improves governance, however, remain fiercely debated. In this context, MNEs are frequently framed and discussed as entities sui generis, pursuing private interests while reconciling with broader public expectations. The article argues that the concept of crisis, if adequately theorized, offers a new perspective into this discussion. To do so, I draw from American Pragmatism to introduce crisis both as a challenge for an actor but also a lens into the beliefs expressed throughout for the researcher. Against this dual use of the concept, I develop a typology of crises and relate this to the roles and responses of MNEs that are likely to follow from different crises. As a lens into corporate beliefs, I illustrate the conceptual potential of crisis by looking into how Shell and ExxonMobil respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As an exogenous, rather immediate crisis, the article discusses to what extent their responses reveal a broader acceptance or rejection of new corporate responsibilities. Based on careful reconstruction, the article concludes that neither productively solved the crisis. More specifically, as Shell remains reluctant to engage with it and ExxonMobil outright rejects to do so, ambiguities remain. This is discussed in the broader context of what role MNEs play in world politics as the article ends with the potential of and need for reconceptualizing these actors.
Virtuous leadership is the focus of a growing body of academic literature but is little discussed by contemporary philosophers. Current treatments tend to over‐generalisation: assimilating diverse features to a few broad categories and applying simplified ethical theories. This essay argues that virtue and character education need to be keyed to specific activities, that “virtuous leadership” is in danger of being confused with extrinsic activism, and that the history of ethics in health care provides an instructive example of thinking ethically about practice. Questions commonly posed in the literature—What specific virtues are required for leadership? How may these be formed?—are unduly simple and often rest on faulty assumptions about the nature of leadership and of the structure of virtuous action. Philosophers engaged in advising professionals about the virtues of leadership would do well to consider how the relevant points apply to their own practice.
Much existing empirical research on polycentric climate governance (PCG) systems examines small-N examples. In response, we aim to advance studies of PCG by exploring, and reflecting on, the use of large-N data sets for analyzing PCG. We use Python (a programming language) to create a novel data set from the United Nations’ Global Climate Action Portal. This method allows us to quantify key variables for 12,568 businesses located in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries: the number of businesses’ climate commitments, their progress toward meeting those commitments, and businesses’ memberships in “more polycentric” networks via transnational climate initiatives (TCIs). Our analysis of these data reveals that greater interconnectedness may strengthen climate policy performance, since businesses with memberships in TCIs more commonly achieved their commitments. Additional research using these data, and/or similar methods, could be conducted on climate governance and on other areas of international environmental governance, such as mining and oil production.
Recent regulatory interventions are beginning to mandate climate disclosure in listed firms. Although compelling, prior studies demonstrate that firms can symbolically commit to climate and environmental disclosures yet not undertake action. Neo-institutional theory (NIT) suggests that two strategies exist: the legitimacy perspective, which manifests in symbolic efforts, and the efficiency perspective, which is more consistent with substantive efforts. In this article, we apply NIT to assess the climate transition efforts in large, publicly traded firms in five countries with similar regulatory and economic profiles (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). We gauge climate efforts by membership in corporate climate initiatives (CCIs) and the integration of climate action plans (CAPs). Of the eight CCIs and three CAPs investigated, we find that only two CCIs and one CAP help to improve emissions performance. The majority of firms in our sample, therefore, demonstrate the legitimacy perspective of NIT.
O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar as questões relacionadas à certificação internacional do café e verificar quais as eventuais vantagens em se aumentar a produção certificada, do ponto de vista de acesso a mercados e à diferenciação de preços. Em um primeiro momento, foram apresentadas informações sobre produção mundial e nacional, exportação e principais mercados consumidores do café brasileiro. Posteriormente, discutiram-se as principais certificações para o café, destacando área (hectares – ha) e produção (toneladas métricas) certificada e os principais requisitos para a obtenção de cada certificação. Por fim, algumas questões foram apontadas a partir de contatos com o mercado sobre os desafios e oportunidades da certificação para o café do Brasil. De forma geral, os resultados obtidos permitem concluir que a certificação traz diversos benefícios aos produtores de café. Há o benefício direto que está relacionado ao aumento do preço (preço prêmio) e outros indiretos, como: agregação de valor por meio de medidas que buscam mitigar os riscos ambientais e sociais; melhoria na estrutura de produção; melhoria na gestão dos custos; abertura ao mercado internacional; maior qualidade de vida; recebimento de assistência técnica; agregação de valor da propriedade ao realizar as adequações em sua infraestrutura; entre outros. Todavia, algumas questões precisam ser colocadas para debate no que se refere às certificações, como os custos para a obtenção dos selos, o grande número de certificados que podem conter os mesmos objetivos e que acabam confundindo o consumidor, a competição entre as certificadoras que podem acabar flexibilizando os requisitos para atrair mais produtores e o envolvimento de fazendas certificadas em práticas greenwashing e bluewashing.
This review examines the promises and pitfalls of multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) for sustainable development. We take stock of the literature on the creation, effectiveness, and legitimacy of MSPs and focus on recent research on MSPs committed to achieving the 2030 Agenda and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2030 Agenda conceives of MSPs as vehicles to achieve large-scale sustainability transformations. Yet, research on MSPs under earlier sustainable development initiatives found that they had limited effectiveness and significant legitimacy deficits. We show that recent research on SDG partnerships suggests they reproduce many of the shortcomings of their predecessors and so are unlikely to foster synergies and minimize trade-offs between areas of sustainable development to deliver transformations on a global scale. We also examine recent research on the prospects of governing MSPs to enhance accountability and ensure better institutional designs for achieving transformations, highlighting challenges arising from international political contestation.
The last 20 years have seen the emergence and proliferation of transnational sustainable finance initiatives (hereafter: TSFI). From associations like the Principles of Responsible Investment to pledges like the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge, investors have connected with each other and with other kinds of organisations in transnational fora dedicated to sustainable finance. Taking inspiration from political economy scholarship on global corporate networks, we apply a network perspective to the transnational governance of sustainable finance, examining the overlaps between investors’ membership in TSFI. In particular, we aim to identify those investors’ that hold a large number of TSFI membership (collectors), that connect centrally located TSFI with those at the margins (mediators), and that take on active roles within TSFI (performers). Analysing membership data for 30 TSFI, totalling 10.602 observations, at three analytical levels, we identify a group of 21 investors holding core positions in the global network. The majority of these investors are active in asset management and located in Nordic or continental European political economies. The predominance of some of the world’s largest investors in our three member categories suggests that the transnational governance of sustainable finance relies in part on the activities of actors that are associated with harmful financial practices. Nevertheless, the simultaneous presence of publicly owned enterprises on our list of most connected members also indicates the importance of public leadership in the transnational governance of sustainable finance.
Business and human rights (BHR) scholarship examines the role of business in human rights violations as well as business responsibilities to respect human rights and to provide remedy where needed. BHR scholarship has been thriving over the last several decades, but it is at a turning point that begs for increased cross‐disciplinary exchange. We argue that dealing systematically and explicitly with a human rights perspective in management and organization studies provides BHR scholarship with a new impetus as well as with alternative perspectives on how to understand and further advance human rights obligations on businesses. We advance two BHR conceptualizations that will provide guidance for integrating human rights in management with organization studies research and thereby enlarge the cross‐disciplinary conversation on BHR: BHR as Global Governance and BHR as Sensemaking. This paper expands existing management and organization studies constructs, invites management and organization studies scholars to provide their insights into this important research domain, and discusses the implications of human rights for the firm.
Greenwashing is a well‐understood concept, describing the use of false or misleading claims and symbolism to give an impression of a company or organisation's commitment to environmental protection and sustainability. While many environmental groups use the concept widely to criticise the ‘optics’ strategies of organisations wanting to improve their image while maintaining a business‐as‐usual approach, it has largely been ignored in Geography and related disciplines. This paper argues that we need to take greenwashing seriously. It develops a broad concept of greenwashing, suggesting that the processes of obscuring social and ecological relations via greenwashing are central to the (dis)functioning of contemporary capitalism. A critical theory of greenwashing, therefore, is not simply about challenging ‘bad actors’, but is an essential part of a wider critique of ‘green’ capitalism and Sustainable Development.
This article explores the communication strategies of multinational corporations in response to the Russo-Ukrainian War and the public pressure to divest from the Russian domestic market. By content analyzing official statements from the top 50 revenue-generating multinational corporations in Russia, the article identifies patterns in corporate narratives about the war, their actions and concerns, and potential solutions. The findings reveal that most companies declare scaling down their presence in Russia while maintaining certain basic obligations, prioritizing employee safety, and expressing concerns about the global economy. While few explicitly condemn Russia's aggression, many adopt neutral language to avoid naming Russia as the aggressor. Corporations emphasize the importance of diplomacy, adherence to international law, and the pursuit of peace, but often avoid proposing concrete solutions. Despite variations across industries, countries of origin, and decisions to stay or leave Russia, the differences in statements were not significant. The uniformity of corporate statements and evidence that companies frequently do not follow their declared promises suggest potential “bluewashing” – making vague or false claims of social responsibility or anti-war stances to improve their public image. These findings emphasize the need for multinational corporations to develop sincere and original wartime communication strategies.
Метою статті є вивчення передумов виникнення феномену «bluewashing», аналіз підходів до розуміння та класифікації bluewashing в рамках концепції Глобального договору ООН. В процесі дослідження використовувалися такі методи, як: історичний (для аналізу передумов виникнення феномену «bluewashing»); узагальнення (для аналізу поглядів дослідників щодо критики Глобального договору ООН та щодо підходів трактування поняття «bluewashing»); аналізу і синтезу (для класифікації видів bluewashing за рівнем невідповідності соціальним принципам); абстрактно-логічний (для викладення матеріалу та пропозицій для подальших досліджень. Розглянуті питання виникнення практики «bluewashing» в контексті появи Глобального договору ООН та критики відносно цієї ініціативи. Конкретизовано визначення поняття «bluewashing» та запропоновано класифікувати його за рівнем невідповідності соціальним принципам (нульовий, мінімальний, суттєвий, загрозливий). Перераховані інструменти моніторингу та заохочення самих учасників до уникнення політики, яка може призводити до такої практики як bluewashing. Обґрунтовано поняття «bluewashing», проведено класифікацію bluewashing та запропоновано заходи, що сприяють уникненню та виявленню практики bluewashing для українських компаній. Для підвищення ефективності управління ризиками для українських компаній, які поточно є членами ГД ООН в Україні чи планують вступати до нього, необхідно проводити заходи, дія яких спрямовується на уникнення практики bluewashing.
Do transnational corporations act more responsibly when they are owned by the state and informed by the Nordic societal model? This is explored through multisited ethnographic studies of Norwegian energy and extraction corporations' operations abroad. The book also situates the corporate ethics in the Norwegian 'home context' of the corporations. Case studies are from operations in Brazil, Tanzania, Turkey, China, Northern Kurdistan and the far north of Norway, and include the corporations Norsk Hydro, DNO, Statkraft, and Equinor.
The fashion industry is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Sustainable fashion (SF) aims to address this issue by designing, creating, and marketing socially and environmentally responsible products. This paper provides a broad overview of the extant literature on SF marketing to understand the trends and future directions. The paper starts with a discussion on sustainable consumption and marketing in the particular context of fashion and ends with potential research gaps, which have scope for further work. For the analysis, 97 research papers were selected based on a structured, systematic search with a particular set of keywords. The review finds that marketing SF from a customer’s perspective has been emphasized in the existing literature. Widely studied topics include consumer behavior, purchase behavior, and the attitude–behavior gap. Further research is required to explore how SF can gain from B2B marketing, circular economy, sustainability-oriented innovations, and subsistence markets, particularly in emerging economies. This paper contributes to theory and practice by providing state-of-the-art sustainable fashion marketing research, identifying research gaps, and providing future research directions.
This chapter analyses access to remedies and the efficacy of enforcement mechanisms for corporate sustainability norms at domestic and international levels. It argues that meaningful discussion of remedies and their enforcement must centre on affected communities rather than corporations. Achieving full compliance with sustainability norms already poses enormous challenges, and jurisdictional fragmentation is recognised as a particularly formidable obstacle in the context of developing effective, enforceable remedies. In analysing the barriers faced, a taxonomy using two dimensions – hard law versus soft law, and victim-driven versus external-actor-driven – is presented. Principles for community-centred remedies and enforcement are proposed. They include legal empowerment of affected communities and procedures grounded in international standards. Innovatively, these procedures and remedies are envisioned as forward-looking as well as remedial, and flexible but underpinned by strong incentives for business participation. Effective community-centred remedies are also envisaged as holistic and collaborative, rather than splitting victims into atomised groups.
Purpose
This paper aims to synthesize the corporate social responsibility decoupling (CSRD) literature, CSRD's causes and consequences and discuss other organizational attributes examined by CSRD scholars during 2010 and 2020. The authors provide suggestions for a future research agenda in this domain.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors' systematic literature review (SLR) uses the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework to extract CSRD studies. The authors filter collected articles against quality and relevancy criteria and finally review 175 published articles.
Findings
A theme analysis identifies and structures the many themes related to CSRD. The authors discuss the drivers of CSRD and reveal the consequences companies face after CSRD. The authors also provide a comprehensive CSRD discussion in the context of developed and developing economies. CSR communication is also identified as a tool for decoupling and recoupling.
Research limitations/implications
The identified themes provide a thorough illustration of CSRD literature for new CSRD scholars. The authors also provide suggestions for future research, such as examining country-level policy-making and implications of CSRD variance and identifying cultural and economic hurdles to achieving core CSR purposes.
Practical implications
Policymakers and scholars may adopt the approach that CSRD is a misreporting of information similar to accounting fraud. This is particularly relevant given that an increasing number of CSRD scandals indicate that the purpose of bringing change through corporate CSR has not been adopted well by corporations.
Originality/value
The authors' study offers a comprehensive literature review for the period of 2010–2020. The studies identified are structured into meaningful themes which can provide groundwork for future researchers.
Corporate social performance (CSP) is increasingly viewed as an important business outcome by researchers, investors, and society as a whole. Furthermore, empirical research indicates that CSP is positively related to corporate financial performance. These considerations lead to the question of whether CEO pay is properly structured to provide incentive to the CEO to improve firm CSP. In a sample of 313 firms, the authors found that a short-term CEO pay focus was negatively related to CSP, whereas a long-term focus was positively related to CSP. Implications of these results for future research and CEO pay design are presented.
Political scientists, sociologists, and economists have all sought to analyze the spread of economic and political liberalism across countries in recent decades. This article documents this diffusion of liberal policies and politics and proposes four distinct theories to explain how the prior choices of some countries and international actors affect the subsequent behavior of others: coercion, competition, learning, and emulation. These theories are explored empirically in the symposium articles that follow. The goal of the symposium is to bring quite different and often isolated schools of thought into contact and communication with one another, and to define common metrics by which we can judge the utility of the contending approaches to diffusion across different policy domains.For helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article, the authors wish to thank Barry Eichengreen, Lisa Martin, and John Meyer. Nancy Brune and Alexander Noonan provided excellent research assistance. The authors also wish to acknowledge and thank the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, the UCLA International Institute, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University for funding conferences at which this collection of symposium papers were discussed.
We argue that the social construction of target populations is an important, albeit overlooked, political phenomenon that should take its place in the study of public policy by political scientists. The theory contends that social constructions influence the policy agenda and the selection of policy tools, as well as the rationales that legitimate policy choices. Constructions become embedded in policy as messages that are absorbed by citizens and affect their orientations and participation. The theory is important because it helps explain why some groups are advantaged more than others independently of traditional notions of political power and how policy designs reinforce or alter such advantages. An understanding of social constructions of target populations augments conventional hypotheses about the dynamics of policy change, the determination of beneficiaries and losers, the reasons for differing levels and types of participation among target groups, and the role of policy in democracy.
The contribution of this work is a classification of corporate social action underlying the Social Ratings Data compiled by Kinder Lydenburg Domini Analytics, Inc. We compare extant typologies of corporate social action to the results of our exploratory factor analysis. Our findings indicate four distinct latent constructs that bear resemblance to concepts discussed in prior literature. Akey finding of our research is that positive and negative social action are both empirically and conceptually distinct constructs and should not be combined in future research. Additionally, we recommend that some prior research results be reconsidered to determine whether these newly derived measures might clarify some previous findings.
This article reviews the interdisciplinary literature on the UN Global Compact. The review identifies three research perspectives, which scholars have used to study the UN Global Compact so far: a historical perspective discussing the Global Compact in the context of UN-business relations, an operational perspective discussing the composition and impact of its participants, as well as a governance perspective discussing the constraints and opportunities of the initiative as an institutionalized arena for addressing global governance gaps. The authors contrast these three perspectives and identify key empirical as well as conceptual scholarly contributions. The remainder of this article contains focused summaries of the articles selected for this Special Issue. All articles are introduced and evaluated against the background of the three research perspectives.
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) was created in 2000 to leverage UN prestige and induce corporations to embrace 10 principles incorporating values of environmental sustainability, protection of human rights, fair treatment of workers, and elimination of bribery and corruption. We review and analyze the GC’s activities and impact in enhancing corporate social responsibility since inception. First, we propose an analytical framework which allows us to assess the qualities of the UNGC and its principles in the context of external and internal elements that influence code effectiveness and implementation. Second, we analyze UNGC performance in encouraging companies to become signatory members and bring about demonstrable change in corporate CSR-sustainability activities. In its 10-year report, UNGC has proclaimed growth in both membership and program activity. However, all credible and publicly available data and documentation conclusively demonstrate that the UNGC has failed to induce its signatory companies to enhance their CSR efforts and integrate the 10 principles in their policies and operations. The result has been a loss of public trust and support of UNGC from important constituencies among civil society organizations, and those individuals and groups adversely impacted by corporate activities and resultant negative externalities. This diminished credibility has also made UNGC largely dependent on the corporate sector for its very survival. We conclude that this dependence has in turn impaired and would continue to hinder UNGC’s ability to fulfill its mission. Such an outcome raises serious questions as to the viability, usefulness, and continued existence of UNGC.
Theory suggests that when transaction costs are low, corporations and stakeholders can minimize social costs by transacting to their mutual advantage, but when trans- action costs are high, reducing social costs requires the intervention of a centralized institution. In surprisingly little work have scholars considered what happens in between—when transaction costs exist but recourse to hierarchical institution is barred. I use transaction cost analysis to hypothesize how collaboration between corporations and environmental stakeholder groups will be structured. Ronald Coase's "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960) was one of two articles mentioned by the Nobel Committee when awarding him the 1991 Nobel Prize in Economics. Yet, in his lecture at the award ceremony, Coase argued that the ar-
This article examines the concept of the corporate “social license,” which governs the extent to which a corporation is constrained to meet societal expectations and avoid activities that societies (or influential elements within them) deem unacceptable, whether or not those expectations are embodied in law. It examines the social license empirically, as it relates to one social problem–environmental protection–and as it relates to one particular industry: pulp and paper manufacturing. It shows try the social license is important, the circumstances in which it may encourage companies to go “beyond compliance” with regulation, how its terms are monitored and enforced, and how it interacts with what we term the regulatory and economic licenses. Overall, this research demonstrates that corporate environmental behavior cannot be explained purely in terms of instrumental threats and moral obligations to comply with the law, and that the increasing incidence of “beyond compliance” corporate behavior can be better explained in terms of the interplay between social pressures and economic constraints.
Under the leadership of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the United Nations has played an active role in promoting corporate social responsibility as one means to respond to the challenges of globalisation. The Global Compact has been Annan's major initiative in this domain. It has explicitly adopted a learning approach to inducing corporate change, as opposed to a regulatory approach; and it comprises a network form of organisation, as opposed to the traditional hierarchicbureaucratic form. These distinctive and, for the UN, unusual features lead the Compact's critics to seriously underestimate its potential, while its supporters may hold excessive expectations of what it can deliver. Because organisational issues of this sort will continue to confront the search for viable global governance mechanisms for many years ahead, this paper spells out both the advantages but also the inherent limitations of the learning networks approach.
A consensus has emerged in the burgeoning literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) that “virtuous” firms are often rewarded by the marketplace. Unfortunately, the mechanisms through which those rewards materialize are not well understood. Furthermore, it is difficult for managers and investors to know whether a company is actually engaged in responsible behavior. Thus, many stakeholders rely on institutional assessments of a firm’s social practices to inform their own judgments about that company’s CSR reputation. In this article, we draw on institutional theory and research on reputation and legitimacy to investigate the relationship between institutional endorsements (and repudiation) of CSR and firm financial performance. Our empirical results indicate that institutional intermediaries influence market assessments of a firm’s social responsibility and highlight the importance of the legitimacy-conferring function of expert bodies in understanding the relationship between social and financial performance. Our findings also illustrate the delicate interplay among different social performance assessments, reputation, and measures of financial and operating performance such that operating performance may serve as an advanced indicator of social performance and one type of social performance assessment may temper market reactions to another.
Policy Design for Democracy is a theoretically sophisticated work that draws examples from a wide array of public policy arenas. It summarizes four current approaches to policy theory-pluralism, policy sciences, public choice, and critical theory-and shows how none offers more than a partial view of the policy design characteristics that support and perpetuate democracy. Schneider and Ingram then develop a theory of public policymaking predicated on understanding how differences in policy designs are related to differences in the contexts from which they emerge and how these designs have an impact on democracy.
Human rights norms are today a central aspect of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda. After decades of exclusive attention to the behavior of states, human rights activists began during the late 1980s and 1990s to increase their pressures on corporate actors and demand commitment to and compliance with basic human rights in the business world. Unlike states, corporations lack international legal personality and cannot express commitment by signing on to formal international human rights treaties. Apart from voluntary standards, codes of conduct, and other UN standard-setting activities directed at businesses, the Global Compact (GC) represents to date the main UN sanctioned soft law designed to commit corporations to international standards of human rights and environmental protection. The GC does not replace the main compliance mechanisms set out by the legal obligations assumed by states under international law, but its goal is to supplement those existing mechanisms with an additional, non-binding avenue of promoting universal human rights principles. This essay argues that the relevance of the GC as a means to move businesses towards greater respect for human rights depends to a large degree on the emergence of local GC networks effectively faciliating engagement with civil society, learning about best practices, and providing a forum of deliberation. These services provided by local networks are particuarly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
▪ Abstract The study of compliance with international agreements has gained momentum over the past few years. Since the conclusion of World War II, this research agenda had been marginalized by the predominance of realist approaches to the study of international relations. However, alternative perspectives have developed that suggest that international law and institutions are important influences on the conduct of international politics. This review examines four perspectives and assesses their contribution to understanding the conditions under which states comply with international agreements. Despite severe conceptual and methodological problems, this research has contributed significantly to our understanding of the relationship between international politics and international law and institutions.
Corporate social performance (CSP) is increasingly viewed as an important business outcome by
researchers, investors, and society as a whole. Furthermore, empirical research indicates that
CSP is positively related to corporate financial performance. These considerations lead to the
question of whether CEO pay is properly structured to provide incentive to the CEO to improve
firm CSP. In a sample of 313 firms, the authors found that a short-term CEO pay focus was negatively
related to CSP, whereas a long-term focus was positively related to CSP. Implications of
these results for future research and CEO pay design are presented.
Policy scholars, for at least a generation now, have addressed the usefulness of public-mandated "command and control" environmental regulations as an effica- cious means to promote a cleaner environment. In the United States, these policies go back at least as far as the Clean Air Act of the late 1960s and are quite often designed, evaluated, and generally shepherded under the auspices of the Environmental Pro- tection Agency (EPA). Given a series of mixed evaluations (for a recent review, see Coglianese & Nash, 2006; Prakash & Potoski, 2006) as to their overall effectiveness, the concept of a Voluntary Environmental Program (VEP) was posed as an alterna- tive to the extensive governmental rules and regulations mandated by "command and control" legislation. In general terms, VEPs are self-regulation agreements that can be promoted by firms, governments, industry associations, and/or environmen- tal groups to compel businesses to enhance their environmental protection perfor- mance (Steelman & Rivera, 2006). The idea underlying the voluntary programs concept was consonant with a widespread changing, deregulatory philosophy of government, and was reflected in a number of policy issue-areas, e.g., communications and transportation. However, it was in the area of environmental regulation where Voluntary Programs were most noted, especially under the sponsorship of the EPA (see the Green Lights—later incorporated into Energy Star—and the 33/50 programs). Still, it is important to recognize that the emergence of VEPs was more than just a public policy, as various industries similarly established their own set of VEPs, often in cooperation with and assistance of a government agency; for instance, the American Chemical Council created the Responsible Care Program and the National Association of Ski Areas created a Sustainable Slopes Program (see King & Lenox, 2000; Rivera, deLeon, & Koebler, 2006, respectively). Scholars investigating the VEP phenomenon have observed that there are a number of reasons for firms or industry to adopt VEPs, like as a way of reaching out to consumers with a green signal (thus abetting their comparative differentiation advantage), as a way of obtaining new technologies and information, or as a way of avoiding later, possibly more constraining and invasive government-imposed regulations. VEP scholars, not surprisingly, soon offered a small but growing number of VEP-specific evaluations, finding (again not surpris-
Voluntary programs have become widespread tools for governments and nongovernmental actors looking to improve industry's environmental and regulatory performance. Voluntary programs can be conceptualized as club goods that provide nonrival but potentially excludable benefits to members. For firms, the value of joining a green club over taking the same actions unilaterally is to appropriate the club's positive brand reputation. Our analysis of about 3,700 U.S. facilities indicates that joining ISO 14001, an important nongovernmental voluntary program, improves facilities' compliance with government regulations. We conjecture that ISO 14001 is effective because its broad positive standing with external audiences provides a reputational benefit that helps induce facilities to take costly progressive environmental action they would not take unilaterally.
Combining insights from international relations theory with institutional approaches from organization theory and public policy, this book provides a complete explanation for the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR), showing how global norms influenced CSR adoption in the mining industry. Global normative developments have clearly had an important influence on major mining companies: by the mid-2000s, the majority had adopted sustainable development as a normative frame for their CSR policies and practices. However, there is significant variation between firms in terms of the timing, degree of commitment, and the willingness to assume a leadership role in promoting global standards for the mining industry. The author finds that attributes internal to the firm, including the critical role of leadership, and the way in which management responds to the institutional context and operational challenges faced in different countries are important influences on CSR adoption and important factors explaining variation.
This book examines and evaluates various private initiatives to enforce fair labor standards within global supply chains. Using unique data (internal audit reports, and access to more than 120 supply chain factories and 700 interviews in 14 countries) from several major global brands, including NIKE, HP, and the International Labor Organization's Factory Improvement Programme in Vietnam, this book examines both the promise and the limitations of different approaches to actually improve working conditions, wages, and working hours for the millions of workers employed in today's global supply chains. Through a careful, empirically grounded analysis of these programs, this book illustrates the mix of private and public regulation needed to address these complex issues in a global economy.
This is the first study to evaluate the impact of self-regulation on industrial accidents. We examine Responsible Care in the US chemical manufacturing sector using our author- constructed database of 1,867 firms that own 2,963 plants between 1988 and 2001. Firms’ self- selection into RC is instrumented using pollution-related regulatory pressure on firms that influences their probability of joining RC, but not plant-level accidents. The average treatment effect on the treated indicates that RC reduces the likelihood of accidents by 2.99 accidents per 100 plants in a given year. This 69.3% reduction in the likelihood of accidents, accounting for the plants that participate in RC, translates to back-of-the-envelope avoided losses of 3.8 billion per year. RC also reduces the likelihood of more narrowly-defined accidents, i.e., process safety accidents and accidents related to violations of RC codes, by 5.75 accidents per 100 plants in a given year or by 85.9%.
Institution theory and the resource-based theory of the firm represent two explanations of how organizations adapt to institutional change. These two theories are compared, contrasted, and applied to the context of environmental management. Arguments based on the theories are used to generate hypotheses about the diffusion and efficacy of the ISO 14001 system, a set of voluntary environmental standards. Empirical tests of the factors lying behind adoption of the ISO 14001 standards and whether or not the standards lead to toxic emissions reductions are conducted on a set of 316 electronics facilities located in the United States. Results support the idea that the standards allow facilities to "catch-up" to best practices if they are an especially high producer of toxic emissions. The paper ties the analysis back to current strategic management theories about organizations and institutional change, and then concludes by assessing the value of ISO 14001 versus traditional government regulation from the point of view of professionals and policy-makers.
In recent years a set of new postempiricist approaches to public policy, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, empiricist models in policy analysis. In this book, Frank Fischer brings together this work for the first time and critically examines its implications for the field of public policy studies. He describes the theoretical, methodological and political dimensions of this emerging approach to policy research. The book includes a discussion of the social construction of policy problems, the role of interpretation and narrative analysis in policy inquiry, the dialectics of policy argumentation, and the uses of participatory policy analysis. After an introductory chapter, ten further chapters are arranged in four parts: Part I, Public Policy and the Discursive Construction of Reality (two chapters), introduces the re-emergence of interest in ideas and discourse. It then turns to the postempiricist or constructionist view of social reality, presenting public policy as a discursive construct that turns on multiple interpretations. Part II, Public Policy as Discursive Politics (two chapters), examines more specifically the nature of discursive politics and discourse theory and illustrates through a particular disciplinary debate the theoretical, methodological, and political implications of such a conceptual reframing of policy inquiry. Part III, Discursive Policy Inquiry: Resituating Empirical Analysis (four chapters), offers a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores specific methodological perspectives pertinent to such an orientation, in particular the role of interpretation in policy analysis, narrative policy analysis, and the dialectics of policy argumentation. Part IV, Deliberative Governance (two chapters), discusses the participatory implications of such a method and the role of the policy analyst as facilitator of citizen deliberation .
Even when political interests control bureaucratic outputs, the control of policy outcomes is complicated by trade-offs between controllable versus effective implementation strategies. I use a nested game framework to explain why a cooperative strategy can increase enforcement effectiveness in the narrow administrative game and why principal-agent control problems and collective action problems associated with the strategy lead policy beneficiaries to oppose the effective strategy in the broader political games. Analyses of state-level Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement provide evidence that cooperation does enhance the impact of enforcement in reducing workplace injury rates but that policy beneficiaries oppose and sabotage cooperation. The interactions between administrative effectiveness and interest group politics in this and other implementation situations require that both be analyzed simultaneously, and the nested game framework can provide a systematic approach to such analyses.
An increasingly common regulatory tool is one that delegates the duty to provide information to the regulated entities, creating new problems in principal-agency models of regulation. Failure to comply with regulations mandating information provision is as much due to ignorance of reporting requirements as to willful evasion. A modified detection controlled estimation model for coverage, violation, and detection of facility compliance with the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory, estimated for facilities in Minnesota in 1991. Violation is better understood by those variables associated with the likelihood that the firm is ignorant of TRI reporting requirements, than by those associated with evasion. Firms in violation tend to be small facilities, releasing or transferring small amounts of toxins to the environment.
This article examines how the quality of domestic regulatory institutions shapes the role of global economic networks in the cross-national diffusion of private or voluntary programs embodying environmental norms and practices. We focus on ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 14001, the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world, which encourages participating firms to adopt environmental stewardship policies beyond the requirement of extant laws. We hypothesize that firms are motivated to signal environmental stewardship via ISO 14001 certification to foreign customers and investors that have embraced this voluntary program, but only when these firms operate in countries with poor regulatory governance. Using a panel of 129 countries from 1997 to 2009, we find that bilateral export and bilateral investment pressures motivate firms to join ISO 14001 only when firms are located in countries with poor regulatory governance, as reflected in corruption levels. Thus, our article highlights how voluntary programs or private law operates in the shadow of public regulation, because the quality of public regulation shapes firms' incentives to join such programs.
Norms shape policy when they get translated into concrete programs. What if a widely shared norm gets translated into a weak program? How might this influence the program's legitimacy? We examine these issues in the context of the United Nations Global Compact, a voluntary program that embodies the widely shared norm of corporate responsibility. While both international intergovernmental organization (IGO) and international non-governmental organization (INGO) networks support this norm, they differ on the adequacy of the Compact's program design. We explore how this tension affects the diffusion of the Compact across countries, which vary in their levels of embeddedness in IGO and INGO networks. Our findings suggest that embeddedness in IGO networks encourages adoption, while embeddedness in INGO networks discourages it. Our analysis provides important lessons for sponsors of voluntary governance mechanisms. Widespread support for a norm does not automatically ensure support for a program that claims to embody it.
Governments enact environmental regulations to compel firms to internalize pollution externalities. Critics contend that regulations encourage technological lock-ins and stifle innovation. Challenging this view, the Porter-Linde hypothesis suggests that appropriately designed regulations can spur innovation because (1) pollution reflects resource waste; (2) regulations focus firms’ attention on waste; and (3) with regulation-induced focus, firms are incentivized to innovate to reduce waste. This article explores the regulation–innovation linkage in the context of voluntary regulations. The authors focus on ISO 14001, the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world. Examining a panel of 79 countries for the period 1996–2009, they find that country-level ISO 14001 participation is a significant predictor of a country's environmental patent applications, a standard proxy for innovation activity. The policy implication is that public managers should consider voluntary regulation's second-order effects on innovation, beyond their first-order effects on pollution and regulatory compliance.
In recent years a startling policy innovation has emerged within global and domestic environmental governance: certification systems that promote socially responsible business practices by turning to the market, rather than the state, for rule-making authority. This book documents five cases in which the Forest Stewardship Council, a forest certification program backed by leading environmental groups, has competed with industry and landowner-sponsored certification systems for legitimacy. The authors compare the politics behind forest certification in five countries. They reflect on why there are differences regionally, discuss the impact the Forest Stewardship Council has had on other certification programs, and assess the ability of private forest certification to address global forest deterioration.
How do social movements influence corporations? Recent work suggests that movements can inflict material damage on their targets and shape categories of evaluation in organizational fields. Extending these ideas, we examine the effects of anti-sweatshop campaigns on sales, stock performance, reputation and specialized ratings of U.S. firms, using fixed-effects regression models and event study methods. The analysis demonstrates that social movements can in some circumstances shape both the markets and fields that firms inhabit. Specifically, anti-sweatshop campaigns (1. had negative effects on sales (though only among certain types of firms), (2. influenced stock prices, and (3. shaped specialized ratings of corporate responsibility. They also diminished previously positive corporate reputations (to a modest degree) but did not radically alter reputational hierarchies in the business community.
We provide a theoretical analysis of multitask promotion tournaments in which workers increase their promotion chances by
under-performing (over-performing) on tasks that are de-emphasized (emphasized) in a promotion rule. In some settings the
firm can mitigate such “strategic shirking” by committing to a promotion rule that requires more balance in the performances
across job tasks than would be justified on productivity grounds. The model can explain “Putt’s Law”, which states that competent
workers are sometimes passed over for promotion in favor of incompetent ones. (JEL J24, M53).
This article examines why global corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks have gained popularity in the past decade, despite their uncertain costs and benefits, and how they affect adherents’ behavior. We focus on the two largest global frameworks—the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative—to examine patterns of CSR adoption by governments and corporations. Drawing on institutional and political-economy theories, we develop a new analytic framework that focuses on four key environmental factors—global institutional pressure, local receptivity, foreign economic penetration, and national economic system. We propose two arguments about the relationship between stated commitment and subsequent action: decoupling due to lack of capacity and organized hypocrisy due to lack of will. Our cross-national time-series analyses show that global institutional pressure through nongovernmental linkages encourages CSR adoption, but this pressure leads to ceremonial commitment in developed countries and to substantive commitment in developing countries. Moreover, in developed countries, liberal economic policies increase ceremonial commitment, suggesting a pattern of organized hypocrisy whereby corporations in developed countries make discursive commitments without subsequent action. We also find that in developing countries, short-term trade relations exert greater influence on corporate CSR behavior than do long-term investment transactions.
We use panel data on ISO 9000 quality certification in 85 countries between 1993 and 1998 to better understand the cross-national diffusion of an organizational practice. Following neoinstitutional theory, we focus on the coercive, normative, and mimetic effects that result from the exposure of firms in a given country to a powerful source of critical resources, a common pool of relevant technical knowledge, and the experiences of firms located in other countries. We use social network theory to develop a systematic conceptual understanding of how firms located in different countries influence each other's rates of adoption as a result of cohesive and equivalent network relationships. Regression results provide support for our predictions that states and foreign multinationals are the key actors responsible for coercive isomorphism, cohesive trade relationships between countries generate coercive and normative effects, and role-equivalent trade relationships result in learning-based and competitive imitation.
Drawing upon institutional and stakeholder theories, we explore the ‘causal’ mechanisms of institutionalization and their influence on Sustainable Development initiatives. To test our arguments, we study the registration patterns of 394 large corporations from 12 Western European and Latin American countries into the United Nations Global Compact. Results indicate that the normative and mimetic mechanisms of institutionalization (i.e., academe and peer influence) are better indicators of Sustainable Development initiatives than the coercive one (i.e., government regulation). The implications of these findings are consequential if SD practices continue as an ethical choice, and not a mandated obligation, for corporate decision makers.
One of the emerging areas in the public policy literature concerns new modes of thought about the construction and analysis of public policy. This article extends notions about politics within the ‘policy design’ literature by considering the implications of different political environments for policy design and implementation. Two different political environments – policies with and without publics – that form ends of a continuum of policy publics are discussed. A contrast is drawn between these two polar political environments with respect to differing policy design and implementation challenges, as well as with respect to differing opportunities for policy learning.
Little attention has been given in policy analysis to the creative process of designing solutions to public policy problems. There are a number of difficulties in applying macro-level theories – whether from economics, sociology, philosophy or macro-systems theory – in the policy process. Any macro-level theory will tend to provide inadequate guidance in one or more of three aspects of policy-making: a model of causation, a model for evaluating alternatives and outcomes, and a model of how interventions operate. Our current knowledge about which policy strategies work best under which conditions is at best rudimentary. Academic disciplinary perspectives focus on a narrow repertoire of policy instruments. What is required is a design focus which draws on instruments associated with a range of disciplines and professions. A design perspective involves both a systematic process for generating basic strategies and a framework for comparing them. Such an approach will require at least the following elements: (1) the characteristics of problems (scale, collectiveness, certainty, predictability, independence); (2) characteristics of goals (value-laden, operational, process of goal-setting); (3) characteristics of instruments (suitability of different instruments).
Strategic managers are consistently faced with the decision of how to allocate scarce corporate resources in an environment that is placing more and more pressures on them. Recent scholarship in strategic management suggests that many of these pressures come directly from sources associated with social issues in management, rather than traditional arenas of strategic management. Using a greatly improved source of data on corporate social performance, this paper reports the results of a rigorous study of the empirical linkages between financial and social performance. Corporate social performance (CSP) is found to be positively associated with prior financial performance, supporting the theory that slack resource availability and CSP are positively related. CSP is also found to be positively associated with future financial performance, supporting the theory that good management and CSP are positively related.© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Across Europe, there is considerable interest in establishing stronger links between environmental regulation and standards for environmental management systems (EMSs) such as ISO 14001. If it can be demonstrated that possession of an EMS results in improved environmental or regulatory performance, then there is a case for granting ‘regulatory relief’ in the form of, for example, reduced inspection frequencies. This paper describes the analysis of information on almost 800 sites regulated under the UK's Integrated Pollution Control regime. It demonstrates that having an EMS improves certain procedural aspects of environmental management but does not appear to reduce the likelihood of breaching permit conditions. Interviews with certification bodies revealed the factors, such as differentiation of services in the market for certification, that underlie this finding. It is concluded that some limited recognition of EMS in regulation is warranted, because there is overlap between some regulatory and certification procedures, and because having an EMS facilitates the supply of information necessary for regulation. The broader implications for regulated industry, certification bodies, regulators and wider environmental policymaking are considered. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Does membership in Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) affect states’ human rights behavior? One might expect IGOs with a specific human rights mandate, like the International Labour Organization or the Council of Europe, to have a positive effect on the human rights practices of their member states. But what about other sorts of IGOs, particularly those with no direct connection to human rights issues? This study employs cross-national data on abuses of “physical integrity rights” for 137 countries over the period 1982–2000 to test the hypothesis that IGOs can promote the diffusion of human rights norms by providing venues for interstate socialization. Recent empirical work on IGOs has suggested that this sort of socialization effect can play an important role in promoting democracy and can also lead to a more general convergence among states’ interests. The results presented here suggest that IGOs can have a surprisingly powerful influence on states’ human rights practices as a result of this process.
Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) seek to improve the environment by encouraging, rather than mandating, businesses and other organizations to adopt environmentally protective measures. Since the 1990s, VEPs established by industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations have proliferated around the globe, raising the question of how effective these programs are in securing environmental protection, both on their own and in comparison to traditional mandatory regulations. This article reviews the emerging research literature on VEPs, describing the variation in their structures, providing a framework for assessing their impacts, and summarizing what is known about why organizations engage in voluntary environmental action and what effects these programs have on environmental quality.