Enhancing Corporate Accountability under the Criminal Code through Enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility

Purpose While corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards are amongst the most widely adopted instruments for supporting firms in becoming more accountable, firms who adopt them frequently fail to comply. In this context, the purpose of this study is to explore to what extent CSR standards are designed for accountability. In the analysis, this paper investigates design characteristics related to accountability across different standard types, namely, principle-based, reporting, certification and process standards. Design/methodology/approach This study reviews the design characteristics of 50 CSR standards in a systematic and comparative fashion. This paper combines qualitative deductive coding with exploratory quantitative analyses methods to elucidate structural variance and patterns of accountability-related design characteristics across the sample. Findings This study finds that the prevalence of design characteristics aimed at fostering accountability varies significantly between different types of standards. This paper identifies three factors related to the specific purpose of any given standard that explain this structural variation in design characteristics, namely, implementability, comparability and measurability. Practical implications Non-compliance limits the effectiveness and legitimacy of CSR standards. The systematic exploration of patterns and structural variation in design characteristics that promote accountability may provide valuable clues for the design of more effective CSR standards in the future. Social implications Better understanding the role of design characteristics of CSR standards is critical to ensure they contribute to greater corporate accountability. Originality/value This study strives to expand the current understanding of the design characteristics of CSR standards beyond individual cases through a systematic exploration of accountability-related design characteristics across a larger sample.

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The limits to self-regulation and voluntarism: from corporate social responsibility to corporate accountability

Amicus Curiae ◽

10.14296/ac.v2014i99.2287 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2014 (99) ◽

Author(s):

Renginee G. Pillay

Keyword(s):

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Corporate Accountability ◽

Corporate Social

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The Role of Sustainable HRM in Sustainable Development

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su131910668 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (19) ◽

pp. 10668

Author(s):

Barbara Duvnjak ◽

Andrej Kohont

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Strategic Human Resource Management ◽

Extensive Literature ◽

Corporate Accountability ◽

Proposed Model ◽

Corporate Social ◽

The Relationship

Achieving sustainability is becoming a primary agenda for many societies throughout the world. However, we are currently witnessing a surprising stagnation in progress toward this goal. Neoliberal values of individualism, privatization and competitive advantage are proving to be hard to breach. Hence, there is a pressing need for change. Through an extensive literature overview, the present paper identifies existing misconceptions and differences in the comprehension of concepts such as sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and the relationship between strategic human resource management (HRM) and sustainable HRM. It describes and acknowledges the hindrances that sustainable HRM faces in practice, with a particular focus on the predominant schema of strategic HRM and the misconception of corporate social responsibility. The aspiration of the paper is to pose a new model of sustainability by implementing sustainable HRM at the center of sustainable development and corporate accountability. The proposed model is intended as a measurement of the levels of sustainable development in which organizations find themselves and report on, and as a more comprehensive model of sustainable HRM, which has the potential to be applied in practice.

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The corporate cuckoo in the neoliberal nest: reconnecting civil society with big business

Alternatives to Neoliberalism ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781447331148.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Bryn Jones

Keyword(s):

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Civil Society ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Social Movement ◽

Trade Unions ◽

Corporate Accountability ◽

Civil Society Organisations ◽

Small Investors ◽

The Uk ◽

Corporate Social

As this book’s Introduction explains, corporations and their controllers have been the principal, organisational beneficiaries of neo-liberal ‘freedoms’. In his chapter Jones describes the abuses of their enhanced powers and the protest campaigns which this aggrandizement has generated from social movement and civil society organisations. Jones identifies the gradual shift in these campaigns from pressure for corporate social responsibility (CSR) to more radical demands for corporate accountability. After reviewing the reform proposals of these and other advocates, he isolates the shareholder ‘ownership’ as the Achilles heel of executive and therefore, corporate power; at least in the UK. He identifies relatively modest proposals to adopt Swedish-style accountability to investors; provided these reforms include a guaranteed role for the small investors which could include civil society representatives and ‘stakeholders’ such as trade unions. Reforms which could concretise the Polanyian forms of social re-embedding set out in O’Donnell’s and other chapters, particularly the Conclusion to this book.

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