Borderless Politics: Corporate Lobbying in Multiple Arenas
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Aberdeen
Department Name: Sch of Social Science
Abstract
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Organisations
Publications
Bernhagen P
(2012)
Routledge Handbook of International Organization
Bernhagen P
(2022)
Beyond lobbying: the political determinants of adopting corporate social responsibility frameworks in the European Union and the USA
in Interest Groups & Advocacy
Bernhagen, P
How and Why Do Corporations Combine Lobbying with Social Responsibility?
in ECPR General Conference, University of Glasgow 3 - 6 September 2014
Favotto A
(2016)
Engaging firms: The global organisational field for corporate social responsibility and national varieties of capitalism
in Policy and Society
Favotto A
(2021)
When Rights Enter the CSR Field: British Firms' Engagement with Human Rights and the UN Guiding Principles
in Human Rights Review
Favotto A
(2019)
Mixing business with politics: Does corporate social responsibility end where lobbying transparency begins?
in Regulation & Governance
Favotto, A
The Social Lives of Firms: Globalizing Norms vs National Corporate Social Responsibility Practices
in ECPR General Conference, University of Glasgow 3 - 6 September 2014
| Description | The research has generated four main findings. Firstly, while large firms respond to evolving global standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR), there are considerable national differences in how firms define and seek to implement these responsibilities. Our content analysis of CSR reports demonstrates that firms in the coordinated market economies of continental Europe engage more substantively with CSR norms and practices than firms in liberal market economies, such as the US, because the former are culturally and institutionally more attuned to taking the demands of non-market actors, such as citizen groups, governments or labor unions, seriously. European firms disclose more and higher quality information about their labor and human rights commitments in these reports than their US counterparts, whose social reporting outside of diversity and health and safety is largely ceremonial in nature. While many US firms have maintained their longstanding attachment to the communities in which they operate, these obligations only rarely translate into commitments to specific stakeholders such as labor unions, government regulators and international organizations - the main promoters of social and labor standards. Secondly, large firms engage differentially across CSR issues areas. Our analysis reveals that companies in both Europe and the US engaged earlier with environmental than social issues such as labor and human rights. They continue to engage more substantively with the former by publishing better quality data of their environmental impacts, risks and future improvement targets. This finding makes a significant contribution to the literature on CSR and private governance, as very little previous work systematically has examined corporate engagement across issue areas. The interviews we conducted with CSR managers and groups engaged in encouraging and monitoring CSR in the US, UK and Germany confirm this finding and indicate that firms often perceive that the 'business case' for engaging with environmental issues is stronger than for engaging with social issues. Thirdly, our longitudinal analysis of firm CSR engagement indicates that companies in the US and Europe have expanded the definition of their labor and human rights commitments over time. However, this engagement is both less developed than their environmental commitments and contingent on the nature of stakeholder relations and interest group politics in a firm's home country. Fourthly, our combined analysis of CSR and corporate public affairs activities has shown that firms investing in public affairs are also more likely to engage in CSR initiatives. This finding holds even when other factors accounting for corporate political and social activity are taken into account. The findings provide, for the first time, empirical support for the view that corporate public affairs and social responsibility activities are complementary elements of a firm's non-market strategy. Moreover, our evidence indicates that public affairs activity drives CSR engagement but not vice versa, highlighting concerns that CSR schemes are used to increase the effectiveness of corporate lobbying and compensate for the negative image of much political activity. A new research question that emerges from these findings is whether CSR brings tangible political benefits to firms, e.g. in the form of improved access to policymakers or greater lobbying success. |
| Exploitation Route | Based on our findings, future academic research should examine the extent to which CSR brings tangible political benefits to firms, e.g. in the form of improved access to policymakers or greater lobbying success. A related question that emanates from our findings is whether and to what extent the public goods produced by CSR (quality of the physical environment, labor standards, human rights, justice and the rule of law) outweigh any losses with regard to these goods that may result from corporate political activity aimed at reducing the costs associated with public regulation in these areas. To disseminate our findings beyond the scholarly community, we co-organized workshops for CSR managers of UK companies with Scottish Business in the Community in September 2015 in Edinburgh and in January 2016 in Aberdeen. At these workshops, we discussed emergent CSR best practices. Furthermore, we have drafted policy briefings for policymakers, CSR managers and NGOs on these topics, which we also disseminated at a workshop in London in January 2016 funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration grant and co-organized by the Corporate Social Responsibility Coalition (CORE). Finally, we have published an article in The Conversation on the impact of the Volkswagen emissions scandal on corporate ethics strategies. There are numerous ways in which nonacademic users can take our findings forward: Regulation of non-financial corporate reporting could be informed by our findings regarding the differential speed and intensity at which CSR has advanced in different areas. In addition, our findings can inform the strategies of civil society organizations by providing evidence-based explanations of how and why firms engage in voluntary initiatives as well as identifying which CSR issues are more/less amenable to a voluntary or co-regulatory approach. Finally, CSR managers seeking to improve their firms' performance across a wider range of issue areas can build their strategies on the evidence presented in our work. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Energy Environment Financial Services and Management Consultancy Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Government Democracy and Justice Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology Transport Other |
| URL | http://www.abdn.ac.uk/research/borderlesspolitics/ |
| Description | Outside the academic sector, our findings on the political and social engagement of corporations have been used in two principal ways: First, our research has informed guidance that firms in the UK receive on how to structure and implement their corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and programmes. Second, our findings on UK corporations' engagement with the business and human rights agenda have been incorporated into the Scottish government's consultation on a National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights. 1) During the course of the project we developed working relationships with Business in the Community (BITC) Scotland and CORE - Putting people and the planet at the core of business. BITC Scotland is a business-led charity located in Edinburgh that works with member corporations and organizations to address common economic and social problems such as environmental degradation, youth unemployment, education, and creating a fairer workplace. BITC Scotland has been interested in our findings on the evolving nature of CSR practices in advanced industrial democracies. Based on this interest and BITC's desire to disseminate our findings to their member organizations, we agreed to co-organize a series of workshops on CSR Best Practice. From September 2015 until May 2016 we co-organized three such workshops in Scotland, each of which was hosted by one of BITC's member organizations: (1) Edinburgh workshop hosted by the Royal Bank of Scotland in September 2015 (2) Aberdeen workshop hosted by the UK Oil and Gas Industry Association in January 2016 (3) Inverness workshop hosted by Lifescan Scotland Ltd in May 2016. The workshops used the results of our research on the evolving nature of CSR norms, practices and standards to summarize and explain current notions of best practice to representatives of BITC's member organizations, generally Scottish corporations but also charitable foundations and local government officials. To facilitate discussion at these workshops we limited participation to 20 participants at a time. Participants included CSR managers from medium-sized and large firms representing most sectors of the economy, as well as representatives from NGOs and the public sector. The feedback from the attendees was very positive. We used suggestions from the participants to re-structure the content of the workshops as we went along to better highlight the findings that managers found most helpful for promoting CSR within their own organizations. To augment the dissemination of our results via these workshops we drafted a CSR Best Practice Policy Briefing and distributed it to the participants of the workshops. Based on the popularity of the workshops we also created a 'CSR Check List' slide show with voice over that summarizes our findings about contemporary best practice. We are currently working with BITC Scotland to incorporate the slide show into the online resources and guidance the organization provides for its members. Outside Scotland, we worked with CORE, a London-based NGO that promotes corporate social responsibility. We co-organized a workshop for their member organizations in January 2016 that used our research to outline current knowledge about the efficacy of voluntary CSR initiatives and the conditions under which corporations engage with such initiatives. During the workshop we presented our findings on UK firms' engagement with human rights practices. These findings and the discussion that followed have fed into a project in which CORE is engaged to create an index of corporate human rights performance. The workshop participants represented a diverse mix of civil society organisations and economic sectors. Feedback was very positive. 2) We were invited by the Equality, Human Rights and Third Sector Office of the Scottish Government to contribute a policy briefing based on our project findings as part of its consultation on implementing a National Action Plan (NAP) on the topic. The NAP is part of a broader UN initiative to improve the human rights practices of business corporations called the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which recommends that national governments implement such plans. In the briefing we drew on our analysis of firms' social responsibility disclosures to illustrate the extent to which UK corporations are engaging with the UNGPs as well as with human rights practices more broadly. We also presented material from our interviews with corporate managers to highlight the barriers that exist to greater business engagement with these practices as well as how governments can help incentivize corporations to overcome these barriers. The findings in the policy briefing as well as our published research on which these findings are based are cited in a draft baseline report commissioned by the Scottish Government and compiled by researchers at St Andrews University. To summarize, our research has had an impact on the guidance that BITC Scotland and CORE are able to offer their member organizations on how to structure and implement their corporate responsibility practices and programmes. Our findings on UK corporations' engagement with the business and human rights agenda have also been incorporated into the Scottish government's consultation on a National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Energy,Environment,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology,Transport,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal Economic Policy & public services |