Collectively Designing CSR Through Meta-Organizations: A Case Study of the Oil and Gas Industry
Abstract
Few industries have been pressured to develop corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards and policies like oil and gas. This has translated into the creation of non-governmental organizations and branches of the oil and gas firms focused on CSR. However, given the intrinsic complex characteristics of this industry, its global reach, and the fact that its operations affect and involve a wide variety of stakeholders, CSR issues cannot be defined and implemented exclusively at the industry or firm levels, but require the participation of other actors affected directly or indirectly by oil and gas activities. In this paper we argue, first, that oil and gas CSR issues are collectively constructed through meta-organizations (organizations composed by other organizations), and, second, that the complexity and variety of CSR issues require companies to build industry-specific and non-industry-specific collective actions. Based on how oil and gas firms participate in this multi-level co-construction of CSR issues, we created a typology of meta-organizations as infra-sectoral, sectoral, cross-sectoral, and supra-sectoral meta-organizations.
- ... Most industry-level self-regulation occurs through "meta-organizations", i.e. organizations of organizations (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2008), such as standards associations, industry associations, and multi-stakeholder initiatives. This line of work has mostly focused on traditional firms and incumbent industries (Berkowitz, Bucheli, & Dumez, 2017;Christiansen & Kroezen, 2016;Marques, 2017). However, in the sharing economy, platforms are central economic players that differ from the traditional firm (Acquier, Daudigeos, & Pinkse, 2017) and raise specific governance issues (Scherer, Rasche, Palazzo, & Spicer, 2016). ...... The common feature of this wide range of players contributing to business self-regulation is that they constitute 'meta-organizations', that is, organizations whose members are themselves organizations (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2008;Berkowitz et al., 2017;Rajwani et al., 2015). Multi-stakeholder initiatives, for instance, qualify as meta-organizations (Berkowitz et al., 2017;Mena & Palazzo, 2012). ...... The common feature of this wide range of players contributing to business self-regulation is that they constitute 'meta-organizations', that is, organizations whose members are themselves organizations (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2008;Berkowitz et al., 2017;Rajwani et al., 2015). Multi-stakeholder initiatives, for instance, qualify as meta-organizations (Berkowitz et al., 2017;Mena & Palazzo, 2012). Standards organizations like ISO or the Marine Stewardship Council also constitute meta-organizations (Brunsson, Gustafsson, & Hallström, 2018). ...Can platforms close the governance gap in the sharing economy, and if so, how? Through an in-depth qualitative case study, we analyze the process by which new regulation and self-regulation emerge in one sector of the sharing economy, crowdfunding, through the actions of a meta-organization. We focus on the principal French sectoral meta-organization, Financement Participatif France (FPF-Crowdfunding France). We show that this multi-stakeholder meta-organization not only closed the governance gap through collective legal, ethical, and utilitarian work but also preceded and shaped the new market. We present a hybrid governance approach combining a) soft multi-agency regulation, b) self-regulation through a process of "partial meta-organizing", and c) direct civil society participation. We expand the literature by highlighting features of partial meta-organizing by sharing economy platforms and by identifying conditions for successful joint regulation and self-regulation of the sector.
- ... In the area of sustainability issues, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, UN Global Compact, Fair Labor Association, International Organisation for Standardization, and Forest Stewardship Council are well-known examples of MOs. They are relevant in the area of fundamental contemporary societal challenges, such as sustainable development, human rights, and corporate social responsibility, which call for more col- lective action beyond the boundaries of a single orga- nisation (Berkowitz, Bucheli, and Dumez 2017;Spillman 2017). Berkowitz, Bucheli, and Dumez (2017), for exam- ple, have demonstrated that oil and gas companies have implemented CSR principles with the support of different forms of meta-organisation (e.g. ...... They are relevant in the area of fundamental contemporary societal challenges, such as sustainable development, human rights, and corporate social responsibility, which call for more col- lective action beyond the boundaries of a single orga- nisation (Berkowitz, Bucheli, and Dumez 2017;Spillman 2017). Berkowitz, Bucheli, and Dumez (2017), for exam- ple, have demonstrated that oil and gas companies have implemented CSR principles with the support of different forms of meta-organisation (e.g. Concawe, Global Business Initiative) in order to introduce environ- mental and social standards (e.g. ...... Following Ahrne and Brunsson (2005), meta- organisations have three main purposes: organising collective actions among members, fostering interac- tions among members and facilitating the creation of a collective identity. According to scholars focusing on MOs ( Ahrne and Brunsson 2005;Gulati, Puranam, and Tushman 2012), the study of collective action sheds light on how organisations interact with other stakeholders and treat organisational problems that could not be treated through contracts or other mechanisms (Berkowitz, Bucheli, and Dumez 2017). ...We investigate the role of multi-stakeholder meta-organisations (MO) in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). Through an exploratory case study on the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), we contribute to extant SSCM literature by highlighting how sustainability principles emerge in a collective space (roundtable) and then are diffused along and across palm oil supply network, involving direct actors in the palm oil supply network, such as producers and traders, but also manufacturing companies from several industries and sectors. The presence of an MO in the supply chain may change the environment for its members, creating a space for collective action and cooperation. However, some bias in the MO’s governance and decision-making mechanism may limit the positive contribution to SSCM.
- ... In some cases, buyer collaborations have developed into "meta organisations" (MOs), i.e. organisations made up of many members, which are becoming increasingly important for addressing corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues that require collective action (Berkowitz and Dumez, 2016). Berkowitz et al. (2017) for example, considered how CSR issues can be tackled at the industry/sectoral level through MOs. In their study of the oil and gas industry, an MO made up of 18 cross-sectoral major corporations improved CSR through standards setting, reporting guidelines and capability building. ...Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how horizontal collaboration aids organisations in responding to modern slavery legislation and in gaining a socially sustainable competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach: Action research has been conducted in the textiles and fashion industry and a relational perspective adopted to interpret five collaborative initiatives taken to tackle modern slavery (e.g. joint training and supplier audits). The primary engagement has been with a multi-billion pound turnover company and its collaborations with 35 brands/retailers. A non-government organisation and a trade body have also participated. Findings: Successful horizontal collaboration is dependent on both relational capital and effective (formal and informal) governance mechanisms. In collaborating, firms have generated relational rents and reduced costs creating a socially sustainable competitive advantage, as suggested by the relational perspective. Yet, limits to horizontal collaboration also exist. Research limitations/implications: The focus is on one industry only, hence there is scope to extend the study to other industries or forms of collaboration taking place across industries. Practical implications: Successful horizontal collaborative relationships rely on actors having a similar mindset and being able to decouple the commercial and sustainability agendas, especially when direct competitors are involved. Further, working with non-business actors can facilitate collaboration and provide knowledge and resources important for overcoming the uncertainty that is manifest when responding to new legislation. Social implications: Social sustainability improvements aim to enhance ethical trade and benefit vulnerable workers. Originality/value: Prior literature has focussed on vertical collaboration with few prior studies of horizontal collaboration, particularly in a socially sustainable supply chain context. Moreover, there has been limited research into modern slavery from a supply chain perspective. Both successful and unsuccessful initiatives are studied, providing insights into (in)effective collaboration.
- ... Additionally, consumers, NGO initiatives, the ILO and global union federations can clearly support network managers in issuing stronger norms for business conduct in GVN. In this regard, recent considerations of how meta-organizations could be engaged for CSR issues seem a promising avenue for further study (Marques, 2017;Berkowitz et al., 2017). Finally, our model is clearly biased towards research based on supply chain and network governance and practices around transatlantic lead firms. ...Ensuring social responsibility is a continued challenge in value creation processes that are globally dispersed among multiple organizations. We use the literature on interorganizational network management to shed new light on the question of how employment relations can be managed more responsibly in global value networks (GVNs). In contrast to the structure-oriented global value chain perspective, a network management perspective highlights the practices by which employment relations can be addressed in the context of plural forms of network governance. Using examples of GVNs in the automotive and garment industries, we illustrate how the network management practices of selecting, allocating, regulating and evaluating can enable lead firms and suppliers to effectively deal with social responsibility challenges on the level of whole networks. We also discuss how network management practices can handle field-level and firm-level constraints for the management of multi-employer relations in GVNs.
- ... In that perspective, a growing body of literature studies meta-organizations, organizations which members are themselves organizations (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2008). Such unconventional organizations (Brès, Raufflet, & Boghossian, 2017) play a key role in the sectoral governance of sustainable business practices, i.e. those that create shared value for populations and the environment (Berkowitz, Bucheli, & Dumez, 2017). Such studies have focused on corporate social responsibility ( , climate change mitigation (Chaudhury et al., 2016) or general management practices (Leys & Joffre, 2014). ...Organizing practices at the collective level of firms and entrepreneurs, i.e. ‘meta-organizing’, is a necessity for the development and diffusion of sustainable innovations. This paper seeks to build a meta-organization approach of sustainable innovation’s governance. To do so, we conducted a three-stage literature review and analysis to 1) identify organizational capabilities that businesses need to acquire to develop sustainable innovations, 2) uncover attributes of meta-organizations as devices for governance, 3) relate these attributes to the capabilities for sustainable innovations. Our contributions are twofold: first we build a more comprehensive understanding of organizational capabilities, insisting on the overlooked importance of accountability, in addition to existing literature on anticipation, resilience, reflexivity, responsiveness and inclusion. Second, we highlight the key role of meta-organizations in facilitating the meta-governance of these capabilities. We propose a research agenda to further investigate these issues in several families of meta-organizations.
- ... In their paper, Berkowitz et al. ( 2016 ) explore another type of industry-specific aggregate: meta-organizations are organizations composed by other organizations and are used to develop CSR standards and policies. The authors study meta-organizations in the oil and gas industry, an industry that is complex and global in nature and therefore requires cooperation between many diverse stakeholders. ...In this introduction to the special issue of industry-specific corporate social responsibility (CSR), we develop our argument in three steps: Firstly, we elaborate on some theoretical perspectives for industry-specific CSR by referring to cultural business ethics, a theoretical approach which is located between purely business perspectives and purely normative perspectives on CSR. Secondly, we briefly introduce the papers of this special issue, which covers a wide range of theoretical approaches and empirical studies in the field of industry-specific CSR. Thirdly, we draw attention to shortcomings of an industry-specific approach and sketch some theoretical—but also empirically applicable—perspectives for further research that stress cross-sectoral perspectives based on societal needs.
- ... Meta-organizations often position themselves on the corporate sustainability segment (and therefore deal with human rights, environmental issues, fair labor, or the development of local communities), and appear as the de facto device for dealing with sustainability. Berkowitz et al. (2016) show that meta-organizations in the oil and gas industry have been in charge of designing social and environmental responsibility standards. It remains to investigate how those standards actually impact their members and shape their practices, or if and how they are used for greenwashing (Roulet and Touboul, 2015). ...In a seminal paper, Ahrne and Brunsson coined the word‘meta-organization’. More than a label, this worddescribes a challenging and stimulating concept that can be valuable for management studies when approached withdifferent units of analysis and research methodologies.‘Meta-organization’refers to a central phenomenon in thecontemporary world, namely the increasing importance of collective action at the level of organizations, ensuing frommajor issues related to sustainable development, human rights and corporate responsibility. The concept calls for newforms of theorizing of global collective action. The diversity and heterogeneity of meta-organizations raisemethodological issues that require original approaches. In this paper, we show the novelty of the concept of meta-organization; we then address the methodological difficulties and propose a research agenda on meta-organizationsfor management studies.
- International organisations are key actors in global governance. Among them is a growing group of international meta-organisations (IMOs) – organisations whose members are themselves organisations. Understanding how IMOs become worth joining demands an explanation of how they try to gain value in the eyes of prospective members. The article analyses the case of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes, which rapidly amassed a membership in excess of 100 organisations from more than 90 countries. The analysis identifies different aspects of epistemic work through which an IMO may accumulate and assert its authority while it aims to become an attractive body to belong to for potential members. Drawing on the theoretical framework of epistemic governance, the article suggests that IMOs are accumulations of authority that can be utilised in national policy-making.
- Scholars explaining the conditions that lead governments to expropriate local operations of foreign multinational firms largely focus on how large sunk costs decrease the multinationals’ bargaining power vis-à-vis the host government and how some political regimes (dictatorships) are more inclined to expropriate than others (democracies). Those explanations miss important considerations related to the host-country technological and political environment. In response, we develop and analyze a game theoretical model suggesting that expropriation of multinational firm operations is more likely when: (1) the host-country government capability to monitor taxation of multinational firms is lower; (2) the host-country government capability to run said operations is higher; (3) the host-country government is relatively independent from the exports of the multinational firm-led exports, and (4) political competition is highly restricted. Perhaps paradoxically, we also find that multinational firms are more likely to “self-tax” when host-country governments are too lenient. We illustrate these model-based findings with matched case studies of host-country government interactions with multinational firms in the Venezuelan and Norwegian oil industries of the 20th century.
- This special issue wants to embrace and advance the work on meta-organizations. We welcome submissions on all aspects of meta-organization. Submissions can be theoretical, empirical, or methodological in nature. M@n@gement is the first free and open access peer-reviewed journal in management. It is supported by the CNRS and the AIMS. It publishes papers that contribute to strategy, organizational theory, innovation, entrepreneurship, organizational behaviour, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and corporate governance. Deadline for submission is 1st Dec 2019
- We are delighted to announce that the first Toulouse workshop on “Meta-, Macro-, and Partial organization: Advances in Research and Theory” will be held on 13th and 14th of May 2019, in Toulouse School of Management, France. Deadline for submission of extended abstracts is February 15th, 2019. We will welcome submissions on aspects of meta-organization and/or partial organization and/or an integration of both. Submissions that address one of the mentioned concepts are as welcome as combined efforts. They can be theoretical, empirical, or methodological in nature.
- In the contemporary world, there is not only an ever-increasing number of organizations that organize individuals, but these organizations in turn organize themselves into an increasing number of meta-organizations-formal organizations in which members are other formal organizations. In turn, these meta-organizations often form meta-meta-organizations: organizations with meta-organizations as their members. Meta-organizations constitute a salient phenomenon in contemporary society. They coordinate activities across organizational borders, they form organizational identities and they are active in influencing policy decisions of all sorts. Much of global governance takes place through meta-organizations. Meta-organizations typically have the form of an association while the members may be any type of organization: firms, states, civil society associations. The members are autonomous organizations in the sense that the meta-organization cannot force them to join or stay. Examples of meta-organizations include industry associations, trade unions, standards organizations or sports associations but also cooperatives and multi-partner alliances. There are more than 10 000 international meta-organizations. All international government organizations and most international non-governmental organizations are meta-organizations. Large individual-based organizations such as corporations and states typically belong to many meta-organizations. Traditionally, organization scholars have been mainly interested in organizations with individuals as their members. Systematic research about meta-organizing has only just begun. One important theme has been how meta-organizations differ from individual-based organizations (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2005, 2008). There is less systematic knowledge about how and why various meta-organizations differ from one another or how they relate to their environments. In this sub-theme, we aim to bring together new insights on meta-organizations to create and strengthen the basis for theorizing this kind of organization. We welcome both theoretical and empirical studies.
- In response to recent calls for theory to predict and explain the phenomenon of "meta-organizations," we set out to identify the causes of their formation. Using a cross-case comparison of multiple case studies in sub-Saharan Africa, where nine focal firms varied in their response to the complexities of sustainability, we examined how and why some firms approached sustainability through a meta-organization while others did not. Our findings show that meta-organizations may be an effective means of managing the complexity of sustainability when participants exhibit an openness to innovative forms of collaboration-which, in turn, rests on complex systems framing and experiential embeddedness-and when they collectively undergo a four-stage process of meta-organization formation that transforms dormant resources into critical sources for achieving systemic goals. Our results also suggest that meta-organizations may be particularly well suited to addressing institutional and market voids, which typically constitute highly complex economic and social contexts. In addition to making contributions to the extant literature on interorganizational relationships and networks, this paper, to our knowledge, is the first to examine the appropriateness of the meta-organizational form in less developed economies, extending the potential generalizability of its application to multiple economic contexts.
- Environmental sustainability relies on the adequate financing of biodiversity conservation—increasingly from the private sector. Meanwhile, corporate sustainability relies on the effective management of natural capital and ecosystem services used in production. Payments for ecosystem services (PES) offers an important practical mechanism for addressing these issues. However, the uptake of corporate-financed PES has been underwhelming, implying that companies may face institutional and motivational challenges to participate in PES. This article presents an assessment framework to determine the conduciveness of PES to real-world corporate environmental strategies and actions, be they (a) voluntary or compliance-based, (b) reactive or proactive, (c) requiring low or high amounts of data, (d) seeking a direct or indirect return on investment (ROI), (e) conducted proximal to or far from the operation site, (f) short-term or long-term, and (g) utilising internal or external resources. Interview data elicited from public, private, and civil sector actors in Thailand and the Philippines highlights key barriers to corporate-financed PES. Results imply companies may be: (1) hesitant to get involved with unknown or uncertain concepts such as ecosystem services; (2) reluctant to fund the technical studies and repeat payments that PES requires; (3) disinterested in direct ROI—instead content with philanthropic projects that can boost public relations; and (4) bound by protocols that restrict the spatial and temporal scales at which PES can operate. To overcome these challenges, policy makers could devise reputational and economic incentives, and incorporate ecosystem services into existing institutions such as environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and ISO 14001. Meanwhile, PES practitioners (government agencies and NGOs) should use quick and simple metrics to quantify ecosystem services, and tolerate buyer willingness-to-pay. Increasing corporate ecosystem service demand, and participation in PES, will likely require firm-level institutional change, and business strategies to improve supply chain management and mitigate the negative effects of environmental and climate change.
- en The oil and gas (O&G) industry suffers from a negative perception of poor sustainability. O&G companies are therefore engaged in several socially sustainable activities related to community development and environmental protection. This article determines whether the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are equally value‐additive to O&G companies. We measure the company‐specific level of CSR activities from the information provided in the annual financial reports of O&G companies and determine the effects of CSR dimensions on firm value. We find that CSR enhances firm value of O&G companies. While social activities such as employee well‐being and community development are key value‐drivers, environmental and economic sustainable activities have an insignificant impact on the market value of O&G companies. Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Résumé fr L'industrie pétrolière et gazière (O&G) souffre de la perception négative qu'on a de sa faible durabilité. C'est pourquoi les sociétés du secteur pétrolier et gazier s'investissent dans plusieurs activités socialement durables liées au développement communautaire et à la protection environnementale. Dans cet article, nous nous interrogeons sur la valeur ajoutée liée aux dimensions sociales, environnementales et économiques de la responsabilité sociale des entreprises (CSR) de ce secteur. Nous mesurons le niveau d'activité de la CSR de l'entreprise à partir des informations disponibles dans les rapports financiers annuels des sociétés pétrolières et gazières et déterminons les effets des dimensions de la CSR sur la valeur de l'entreprise. Les résultats montrent que la CSR augmente la valeur des sociétés pétrolières et gazières. Par ailleurs, tandis que les activités sociales telles que le bien‐être des employés et le développement communautaire sont des facteurs clés de valeur, les activités environnementales et économiques durables n'ont qu'une incidence négligeable sur la valeur marchande des sociétés pétrolières et gazières Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
- Cette note de synthèse d’Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches offre un retour personnel, réflexif et projectif sur mes travaux sur la Responsabilité Sociale de l’Entreprise (RSE). Après avoir explicité un positionnement épistémologique que je qualifie d’“orienté objet”, le manuscrit dégage trois axes structurants de mes travaux de recherche, afin d’en situer les contributions et les perspectives : 1) les racines historiques et conceptuelles de la RSE ; 2) la RSE comme rationalisation intra-organisationnelle et 3) la RSE comme rationalisation inter-organisationnelle. Dans ce troisième axe, la RSE est envisagée comme processus de responsabilisation de nouvelles formes organisationnelles complexes et multi-acteurs (notamment chaînes globales de valeur). En ouverture, je souligne l’enjeu de mieux articuler les enjeux de responsabilité avec l’émergence de nouvelles formes organisationnelles, à l’heure de la liquéfaction de l’organisation dans des structures diluées. Enfin, je développe mon expérience et ma vision de l’encadrement doctoral. Corporate Social Responsibility: a research agenda at the crossroads between business history, intra- and inter-organizational rationalizations Summary: This Habilitation for Doctoral Supervision (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) develops a personal, reflexive and projective overview of my research trajectory on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Elaborating on my epistemological positioning, I first discuss the specificities of my “object driven” research orientation. Then, I organize my research trajectory around three poles: 1) historical and theoretical foundations of CSR; 2) CSR as intra-firm organizational change and 3) CSR as inter-organizational rationalization. This latter stream considers CSR as part of a wider reponsibilization process, whereby new –and complex- organizational forms (such as Global Value Chains) are made socially and legally responsible. I underline the importance of articulating responsibility issues with the emergence of new organizational forms, in a context of financialization and subsequent dilution of organizational frontiers. Last, I formalize my experience and approach to doctoral supervision.
- A random sample of 146 fortune 500 firms were surveyed in 1996 to determine whether firm size and industry type affect employers' level of involvement and support of ethical and environmental policies and practices. The study found relationships between firm size and ethical and environmental policies and practices. While the majority of firms (90.3%), regardless of size, have a formal written code of ethics, large firms are more likely to employ an ombudsperson to handle ethical concerns and to have a network confidentiality policy. Although most firms (83.5%) have a formal written environmental policy, large firms are more inclined to invest in new ways to reduce the production of various types of waste. Another interesting twist to the study has to do with the relationships found between industry type and ethical and environmental policies and practices. Industries, such as the computers and electronics and scientific and photographics sectors, that are involved with high precision products and industries, such as mining, crude oil, and petroleum refining, that utilize natural resources are more inclined to have a formal written code of ethics and social responsibility. In addition, industries that utilize natural resources are more likely than other industries to have formal written environmental policies and practices.
- This paper extends scholarship on multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in the context of corporate social responsibility in three ways. First, I outline a framework to analyze the strength of couplings between actors participating in MSIs. Characterizing a MSI as consisting of numerous local networks that are embedded in a wider global network, I argue that tighter couplings (within local networks) and looser couplings (between local networks) coexist. Second, I suggest that this coexistence of couplings enables MSIs to generate policy outcomes which address the conditions of a transnational regulatory context. I argue that MSIs’ way of organizing enables them to cope with three challenges: the stability, flexibility, and legitimacy of governance. Reflecting on these challenges, the article identifies a number of problems related to MSIs’ role in transnational governance. Third, I discuss the UN Global Compact as an illustrative case and examine problems and opportunities related to its stability, flexibility, and legitimacy.
- Introduction to the Second Edition - Preface - The Multinational Enterprise in the World Economy - A Long-run Theory of the Multinational Enterprise - Alternative Theories of the Multinational Enterprise - The World's Largest Firms - Predictions and Policy Implications - Index
- Business groups have incurred both frustrating confusion as well as heated discussion regarding their organizational nature and economic contributions. In addition to the conceptual discrepancies regarding business groups that different academic disciplines target and examine, even the definition of business groups that is customarily employed varies across nations and regions. The overall negative undertone that is attached to business groups, however, need not hinder the systematic examination of this business organization. Nor do the variations in national conventions as well as in academic disciplinary orientations regarding the definition of business groups mean that business groups cannot be examined coherently in different nations across time periods. Rather, these suggest a need to classify the primary "business group" forms and to clarify the critical issues pertaining to that organization model before research advances any further. This task is what this article aims to accomplish.
- The Oxford Handbook of Business Groups provides a comprehensive analysis of business groups around the world. Business groupslarge, diversified, often family-controlled organizations with pyramidal ownership structure, such as the Japanese zaibatsu, the Korean chaebol and the grupos econmicos in Latin Americahave played a significant role in national economic growth, especially in emerging economies. Earlier variants can also be found in the trading companies, often set up in Britain, which operated in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Business groups are often criticized as premodern forms of economic organization, and occasionally as symptomatic of corrupt crony capitalism, but many have shown remarkable resilience, navigating and adjusting to economic and political turbulence, international competition, and technological change. Sixteen individual country articles deal with business groups from Asia to Africa, the Middle East to Latin America, while overarching articles consider the historical and theoretical context of business groups.
- This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.
- In the past few years, new theoretical frameworks have been developed in order to identify different dimensions of business power in global governance. These approaches commonly observe the growing discursive power of business representatives and the lack of studies in this field. This chapter addresses this research gap and explores how global companies wield discursive power in order to shape the discourse on sustainable development. Furthermore, this chapter argues that the various social constructions of "sustainable development" stem from the concept's inherent vagueness and ambivalence. This edition first published 2013
- Emerging markets like India have poorly functioning institutions, leading to severe agency and information problems. Business groups in these markets have the potential both to offer benefits to member firms, and to destroy value. We analyze the performance of affiliates of diversified Indian business groups relative to unaffiliated firms. We find that accounting and stock market measures of firm performance initially decline with group diversification and subsequently increase once group diversification exceeds a certain level. Unlike U.S. conglomerates' lines of business, and similar to the affiliates of U.S. LBO associations, affiliates of the most diversified business groups outperform unaffiliated firms.
- This article assesses the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a public-private partnership designed to help resource-rich countries avoid corruption in the management of extractive industry revenues. Thirty-two nations have adopted EITI, and the numbers of implementing nations are rapidly increasing. However, the EITI partnership is not as effective as it could be for three reasons. First, the partners (governments, civil society, and business) have different visions of EITI. Second, some implementing governments have not allowed civil society to participate fully in the process or have not consistently provided civil society with the information they need to hold their governments to account. In this regard it is a limited partnership. Third, in many participating countries, the public and legislators may not be aware of EITI. Thus, although public participation is essential to the success and potential positive spillovers of EITI, the public is essentially a silent partner, limiting the ability of the EITI to succeed as a counterweight to corruption.
- Business groups in emerging economies result when entrepreneurs and firms accumulate the capability for repeated industry entry. Such a capability, however, can be maintained as a valuable, rare, and inimitable skill only as long as asymmetric foreign trade and investment conditions prevail. Cross-sectional and longitudinal data on a variety of emerging economies were used to test this hypothesis and three other competing explanations. The importance of business groups grew with foreign trade and investment asymmetries. The managerial problems and opportunities surrounding the rise and decline of business groups are discussed, especially in the context of the current turmoil in emerging economies.
- The UN Global Compact is a voluntary initiative designed to help fashion a more humane world by enlisting business to follow ten principles concerning human rights, labor, the environment, and corruption. Although the four-year-old Compact is a relatively successful initiative, having signed up over eleven hundred companies and more than two hundred of the large multinationals, and having begun some important projects on globalization issues, there is a serious problem in that very few of the major U.S. companies have joined. While the premier U.S. companies are interested in meeting the legitimate expectations of society, there is concern centering around accountability issues. The accountability issues are in four major areas: 1. Accountability showing that the globalization of the economy actually helps the poor. 2. Accountability showing the corporate performance matches rhetoric. 3. Accountability that provides legitimacy to a two-tier pricing system and other measures that are designed to assist the poor in developing countries. 4. Accountability in the human rights area; what societal expectations are multinational companies accountable for? The article outlines the problems that the Compact brings to the fore and offers some insight from the ethical literature that may address U.S. company concerns or provide new ways of thinking about the issues. It further argues that the forum provided by the Compact may be the most effective means to gain consensus of the role of business in society.
- This paper extends scholarship on multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in the context of corporate social responsibility in three ways. First, I outline a framework to analyze the strength of couplings between actors participating in MSIs. Characterizing an MSI as consisting of numerous local networks that are embedded in a wider global network, I argue that tighter couplings (within local networks) and looser couplings (between local networks) coexist. Second, I suggest that this coexistence of couplings enables MSIs to generate policy outcomes which address the conditions of a transnational regulatory context. I argue that MSIs’ way of organizing enables them to cope with three challenges: the stability, flexibility, and legitimacy of governance. Reflecting on these challenges, the article identifies a number of problems related to MSIs’ role in transnational governance. Third, I discuss the UN Global Compact as an illustrative case and examine problems and opportunities related to its stability, flexibility, and legitimacy.
- Although organizational theorists have given much attention to how environments shape organizations, they have given much less attention to how organizations mold their environments. This paper demonstrates what organizational scholars could contribute if they were to study how organizations shape environments. Specifically, the paper synthesizes work by historians, political scientists and students of corporate political action to document how corporations systematically built an institutional field during the 1970s and 1980s to exert greater influence on the US Federal government. The resulting network, composed of nine distinct populations of organizations and the relationships that bind them into a system, channels and amplifies corporate political influence, while simultaneously shielding corporations from appearing to directly influence Congress and the administration.
- Based on a global corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards, a comparative framework have been produced in order to evaluate corporate social performance in national level. The nine CSR standards are UN Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiatives guidelines, Ethibel Sustainable Index, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Global 100, FTSE4Good, Accountability Rating, SA8000 and World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The procedure of analysis includes weight factors that reflect the importance of each standard. In total, 98 countries out of 133 countries made available by the World Economic Forum, implement at least one CSR standard. The results of the top 20 countries are presented here. The findings show significant difference in CSR standards among the countries, which indicate the different perceptions of the companies or needs of each country.
- Major oil spills normally occur from oil pipelines and oil tankers that are under operational control of companies, namely, oil companies and tanker owners. There are two generic responses for changing the behavior of companies with regard to oil spill prevention: mandatory government regulation or voluntary initiatives often pursued under the banner of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Here we investigate to what extent voluntary CSR initiatives can be effective in oil spill prevention. A global perspective on voluntary mechanisms is taken by looking at the progress of 20 oil and gas firms from around the world toward oil spill prevention, using the companies' 2010 sustainability reports for self-reported oil spill information. The analysis includes ten oil companies from OECD countries (including Exxon and Shell, among others) and 10 oil companies from non-OECD countries (including Brazil's Petrobras and Indian Oil, among others). The study finds that oil spill prevention has generally improved over recent decades. Government regulation played a significant part in these improvements whereas it is less clear to what extent CSR played a significant part in these improvements. Some of CSR's key limitations are highlighted. It is not suggested that CSR should be abandoned; however, new hybrid forms of regulation that combine voluntary and mandatory elements are advocated.
- An international agenda has evolved over the past decade to establish hard and soft rules to govern the impacts of the extractive industries. The international community and some resource-rich states have increasingly embraced norms such as transparency in resource governance. This paper explores how multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative () and the Publish What You Pay () campaign have sought to institutionalize transparency in resource governance. By exploring how, why, and to what effect transparency in resource governance has taken hold in a new petro-economy such as Ghana, I highlight two key findings: the interaction between voluntary and mandatory governance mechanisms and rescaling of authority, and the multi-scalar dimensions of resource governance and subsequent lack of focus on sub-national issues. In concluding, I question the transformative potential of transparency in resource governance, which has significant global implications as the demand for energy and non-energy minerals continues to rise.
- Most scholars and policymakers believe OPEC can and does influence the price of oil by acting as a cartel. This paper argues that most of the conventional wisdom about OPEC is wrong. OPEC rarely if ever influences the oil production rate in its member states. Further, OPEC has almost no lasting impact on world prices, except under rare conditions. There was one occasion on which OPEC did have a significant impact on world oil prices, namely the 1973 oil crisis, but OPEC's role in the event has been greatly misunderstood. The circumstances of the crisis were highly exceptional, making it unlikely that the organization could ever have a similar impact on world oil prices again. This paper seeks to correct the misunderstanding about OPEC's role, and replace it with a better understanding of the organization. I argue that OPEC is dysfunctional as a cartel, as it has little or no causal impact on its members' choices about production levels or investment in production capacity. OPEC's role is obscured in part by the complexity of the world oil market, and in part by misdirection by policymakers, especially within OPEC. Many scholars, especially economists, have argued that OPEC should be understood as a cartel designed to solve a Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) coordination game. Yet OPEC's persistence is better understood as a widespread failure to update beliefs about the organization, a failure that is driven by information asymmetry and politics. The fact that such a widespread belief about the world's most important commodity market could be wrong can help us better understand international regimes.
- A number of studies suggest that natural resources can have a negative impact on the developing prospects of countries, a phenomenon that has been labelled the resource curse. In particular, recent studies suggest that this resource curse is related to the institutional level of resource rich countries. This paper reviews international initiatives to address the resource curse, with an emphasis on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and petroleum-related aid initiatives. We argue that these initiatives only to a limited extent reflect the implications of the resource curse literature. Suggestions are made on policy and further research needed to improve the effectiveness of international foreign policy initiatives in terms of addressing institutional problems underlying the resource curse.
- Comparatively few studies have analyzed the social behavior of multinational corporations (MNCs) at a cross-national level. To address this gap in the literature, we propose a "transnational" model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that permits identification of universal domains, yet incorporates the flexibility and adaptability demanded by international research. The model is tri-dimensional in that it juxtaposes: 1) Bartlett and Ghoshal's (1998, 2000) typology of MNC strategies (multinational, global, "international," and transnational); 2) the three conceptual domains of CSR (human rights, labor, and the environment) proposed by the UN Global Compact (Compact 2003); and 3) Zenisek's (1979) description of three CSR perspectives (ideological, societal, and operational). The end result is a multidimensional typology that permits the organization and development of empirical CSR research in an international setting.
- The UN Global Compact epitomizes the current state of the politics of international development in three distinct ways. First, the Compact illustrates a major turn in development thinking. After decades of hostile relations, the UN and business now acknowledge their common interest in the promotion of sustainable development. Second, the Compact brings to light the gradual emergence of more inclusive forms of global governance, in response to the failure of traditional mechanisms of development cooperation. Third, ongoing discussions about the Global Compact attest to the competing worldviews that structure today's development debate. Overall, the Compact demonstrates that, beyond its ever changing dynamics, international development ultimately remains a political, rather than a technical, process.
- In this essay we argue that institutional scholarship has become overly concerned with explaining institutions and institutional processes, notably at the level of the organization field, rather than with using them to explain and understand organizations. Especially missing is an attempt to gain a coherent, holistic account of how organizations are structured and managed. We also argue that when institutional theory does give attention to organizations it inappropriately treats them as though they are the same, or at least as though any differences are irrelevant for purposes of theory. We propose a return to the study of organizations with an emphasis upon comparative analysis, and suggest the institutional logics perspective as an appropriate means for doing so.
- Greenwood, Hinings and Whetten (2014) present two major criticisms of current institutional scholarship, and see need for a broad redirection: Institutional organization theory, they argue, has lost sight of the claim to study organizations and, with its overwhelming focus on isomorphism and similarity, has fallen short on adequately theorizing differences across organizations. In our essay, we offer support as well as a riposte. First, while we agree that the organizing of collective efforts needs to be at the core of organization research, we warn that focusing on formal organization – a rationalized cultural product itself – may direct attention away from studying alternative modes of organizing, and underestimates the dynamic developments that have transformed contemporary organizations into increasingly complex objects of inquiry. Second, we are concerned that, by abandoning the analysis of similarities in favor of differences, institutional theory may eventually lose sight of its pivotal quest: to study institutions.
- Bringing together the fields of sociology, political science, and management and organization studies, Ursula Muhle offers in this unique volume an authoritative overview of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Muhle first considers the origins of CSR during the 1970s, highlighting the various approaches to CSR and explaining its early shortcomings. She then turns to the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative to investigate why, since the mid-1990s, CSR has been on the rise. Finally, Muhle employs several case studies as well as interviews with business executives and politicians to illustrate why businesses worldwide now view CSR as a key component to their success. "The Politics of Corporate Social Responsibility "will be welcomed by scholars and CSR practitioners alike.
- There has been a dramatic uptake of sustainability reporting (SR) and sustainability management practices over the last two decades, in turn raising questions about the relationship between external disclosure and internal practice of corporate sustainability. Previous literature has emphasized the role of external pressures in driving SR adoption. However, as recent practitioner surveys also identify the existence of internal motives for SR, a more comprehensive analysis of this relationship is needed. In order to address this issue, we develop a framework accounting for four company-level SR configurations, resulting from different levels of importance of external and internal motives for SR. Then, four exploratory cases serve to illustrate these configurations and to describe the respective roles of SR at the company level. As considerable diversity among these SR practices is found, our findings point to the relevance of both external and internal motives in understanding SR contribution to corporate sustainability. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
- Against the background of new models of corporate-community engagements in response to the failings of old models by oil transnationals, this article attempts an assessment of the implementation of the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) by Chevron and Shell on sustainable community development in host communities in Nigeria’s oil belt. It argues that though the GMoU represents a radical departure from the past in terms of participation and ownership of development projects with the benefits these entail, its potency for sustainable development is hampered by a number of old challenges, namely, the enormity of the development challenge in the Delta thrown up by the failings of an absentee state, the structural constraints imposed on corporations by the profit-maximizing motive and cultural factors that not only prevent effective participation but also promote voicelessness of marginalized groups such as women. The implications of these to sustainable development are explored.
- 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 (UN) Global Compact’s journey over the last 12 years can be summarized as building and integrating UN issues into the global corporate responsibility movement. This summary begs the question as to how a policy speech developed for the UN secretary-general has evolved into an innovative public–private partnership initiative. This article argues that the following four factors contributed to creating enabling ingredients for the UN Global Compact’s growth: continued relevance of the initiative’s underlying idea, sustained institutional leadership support, governmental support (political back-up), and operational viability. Based on the author’s personal experience with the initiative from its inception, the article highlights what is required for an initial idea to be developed into a vibrant operational entity in the context of a multilateral organization. Specially, the article reflects on how the aforementioned four attributes have interacted with each other throughout the last 12 years.
- 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.
- The corporate citizenship (CC) concept introduced by Dirk Matten and Andrew Crane has been well received. To this date, however, empirical studies based on this concept are lacking. In this article, we flesh out and operationalize the CC concept and develop an assessment tool for CC. Our tool focuses on the organizational level and assesses the embeddedness of CC in organizational structures and procedures. To illustrate the applicability of the tool, we assess five Swiss companies (ABB, Credit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis, and UBS). These five companies are participants of the UN Global Compact (UNGC), currently the largest collaborative strategic policy initiative for business in the world (www.unglobalcompact.org). This study makes four main contributions: (1) it enriches and operationalizes Matten and Crane’s CC definition to build a concept of CC that can be operationalized, (2) it develops an analytical tool to assess the organizational embeddedness of CC, (3) it generates empirical insights into how five multinational corporations have approached CC, and (4) it presents assessment results that provide indications how global governance initiatives like the UNGC can support the implementation of CC.
- Being a controversial industry, oil companies turn to corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a means to obtain legitimacy. Adopting a case study methodology, this research examines the characteristics of CSR strategies and CSR communication tactics of six oil companies by analyzing their 2011–2012 web site content. We found that all six companies engaged in CSR activities addressing the needs of various stakeholders and had cross-sector partnerships. CSR information on these companies’ web sites was easily accessible, often involving the use of multimedia technologies and sometimes social media platforms. Furthermore, to boost the credibility of their CSR messages, these companies utilized a variety of tactics, such as factual arguments and two-sided messages. In sum, this research unveils the interconnectedness among business strategy, CSR practices, and CSR communication in oil companies’ attempt to gain legitimacy in an environment of controversy. The article ends with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the research findings.
- Little is known about employees’ responses to their organizations’ initiatives in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Academics have already identified a few outcomes regarding CSR’s impact on employees’ attitudes and behaviours; however, studies explaining the underlying mechanisms that drive employees’ favourable responses to CSR remain largely unexplored. Based on organizational identification (OI) theory, this study surveyed 155 employees of a petrochemical organization to better elucidate why, how and under which circumstances employees might positively respond to organizations’ CSR initiatives in the controversial oil industry sector. Findings first support that perceived CSR (i.e. environmental CSR) positively relates to employees’ OI which is known as an important antecedent of employees’ outcomes (Riketta, J Vocat Behavior, 66(2):358, 2005). Furthermore, results highlighted that the relationship between perceived CSR and employees’ OI is mediated by organizational trust. Finally, this study also revealed that some contingency factors such as employees’ attributions of self-centred motives to their organization’s investment in environmental issues can moderate the relationship between perceived CSR and organizational trust. Based on these findings, it is argued that CSR initiatives can support organizations’ efforts to maintain a strong relationship with their employees, and gain their support even in a controversial industry sector.
- This article suggests that when the phenomenon of standards and standardisation is examined from the perspective of organisation studies three aspects stand out: the standardisation of organisations, standardisation by organisations, and standardisation as (a form of) organisation. Following a comprehensive overview of existing research in these three areas, we argue that the dynamic aspects of standardisation are underrepresented in the scholarly discourse. Furthermore, we identify the main types of tension associated with standardisation and the dynamics they generate in each of those three areas, and show that, while standards and standardisation are typically associated with stability and sameness, they are essentially a dynamic phenomenon. The article highlights the contributions of this special issue to the topic of standards as a dynamic phenomenon in organisation studies and makes suggestions for future research.
- The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is a Global Public Policy Network supporting ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labor standards, environmental protection, and anti-corruption. Networks such as the UNGC are an organizational form with distinct structural properties and specific requirements regarding coordination. Relationships among network partners are typically complex, reciprocal, and trust-based. Despite the relevance of trust for a successful coordination of networks, the literature on the UNGC remains relatively silent when it comes to this phenomenon. The conditions and mechanisms that contribute to the constitution of trust in the UNGC are poorly understood. Based on research in network theory, the authors argue that the trust of participants and other stakeholders supporting the UNGC is a key precondition to enhance collaboration and to develop further the initiative. Against this background, the aim of this article is to develop a systematic approach to foster the constitution of trust in the UNGC. A thorough investigation of the connection between trust and the UNGC may help identify concrete measures for increasing the scale and scope of collaboration between stakeholders and stimulating not only collective learning but also the implementation of the Global Compact’s ten principles.
- In this article, we examine the empirical association between firm value and CSR engagement for firms in sinful industries, such as tobacco, gambling, and alcohol, as well as industries involved with emerging environmental, social, or ethical issues, i.e., weapon, oil, cement, and biotech. We develop and test three hypotheses, the window-dressing hypothesis, the value-enhancement hypothesis, and the value-irrelevance hypothesis. Using an extensive US sample from 1995 to 2009, we find that CSR engagement of firms in controversial industries positively affects firm value after controlling for various firm characteristics. To address the potential endogeneity problem, we further estimate a system of equations and change regression and continue to find a positive relation between CSR engagement and firm value. Our findings support the value-enhancement hypothesis and are consistent with the premise that the top management of US firms in controversial industries, in general, considers social responsibility important even though their products are harmful to human being, society, or environment.
- In order to meet China’s rapidly increasing demand for oil, Chinese oil companies have been investing in oil production around the world. This article addresses one specific aspect of the more generalized fears expressed about China’s increasing demand for natural resources which is the impact that its oil companies will have on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement. In doing so, it limits its analysis to the three main Chinese oil companies: the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and their investments in sub-Saharan Africa.While acknowledging that Chinese oil companies are unlikely to push resource-rich governments to promote democracy or respect human rights, fears of their negative impact on CSR in the resource extractive industries are misconceived and overblown. Such fears are based on fundamental misconceptions of what CSR can do and how much its Western proponents have achieved. They are also based on misconceptions of the role of Chinese oil companies in global energy markets and they do not withstand a critical comparative evaluation of the respective CSR performance of Western and Chinese oil companies. In addressing the question posed in our title – are Chinese oil companies really different on CSR? – the answer is yes, but the differences are not all that big nor do they matter all that much.
- This article critically examines the nature and quality of governance in community representation and civil society engagement in the context of trans-national large-scale mining, drawing on experiences in the Anosy Region of south-east Madagascar. An exploration of functional relationships between government, mining business and civil society stakeholders reveals an equivocal legitimacy of certain civil society representatives, created by state manipulation, which contributes to community disempowerment. The appointment of local government officials, rather than election, creates a hierarchy of upward dependencies and a culture where the majority of officials express similar views and political alliances. As a consequence, community resistance is suppressed.Voluntary mechanisms such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) advocate community stakeholder engagement in decision making processes as a measure to achieve public accountability. In many developing countries, where there is a lack of transparency and high levels of corruption, the value of this engagement, however, is debatable. Findings from this study indicate that the power relationships which exist between stakeholders in the highly lucrative mining industry override efforts to achieve "good governance" through voluntary community engagement. The continuing challenge lies in identifying where the responsibility sits in order to address this power struggle to achieve fair representation.
- We present a model of rational behavior by which we characterize business ethical dilemmas as trade-offs between processes and consequences. As an illustration, we formulate the oil industry's business ethical dilemma as a trade-off between a socially detrimental process (emitting greenhouse gases, hence inducing a risk of climate change) and a self-interested consequence (profits). The proposed framework allows us to specify two types of strategies, differing by whether priority is given to the consequences or to the processes. We analyze and illustrate these strategies at both the behavioral and the discursive levels. In particular, communication strategies raise questions about good faith in business argumentation, in the sense that business discourse may or may not be consistent with actual assumptions and/or actual behaviors. We conclude on possible drivers of more ethical business behavior.
- The article considers the success of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in con trolling the price of crude oil as a possible example that the destructive logic of collective action may be circumvented. It is argued that the OPEC countries have succeeded in the pursuit of their collective cause due to the ability and willingness of Saudi Arabia to make good the damage perpetrated by free-rider conduct. Yet, the recent (March 1982 — March 1983) conflict over pricing- and production policy was a war of nerves, from which an accord emerged only after a painful game of threats and brinkmanship.
- During the past seven years, the United Nations Global Compact has become the largest voluntary corporate-citizenship initiative attempting to elevate and level the norms of corporate behavior in world markets. Its strategy of attracting volume of members versus commitment to performance of the Compacts 10 principles does not provide a base of innovators and early adopters necessary to gain respect from the vast majority of international companies. Thus, the Compact is unlikely to instill the norms embedded in its ten principles in the world market in any meaningful way to engender fairer and more efficient global markets.
