Quest for a Global Code of Conduct for TNCs- A Grim Tale

Over the last few decades, a variety of global initiatives for governing both financial and non-financial performance of transnational corporations (TNCs) have been proposed. The objectives of these initiatives share a similar purpose: to minimise conflicts towards developing a sustainable trade environment. However, most of these initiatives have been partially successful. Some of these attempts failed to reach completion, some are obsolete, and one was abandoned. The initiatives that are currently in operation have never been accepted by all stakeholders. A poignant reason for their poor performance is their lack of capacity to include the dynamics of governance beyond government, regulation beyond law, and responsiveness beyond responsibility. This chapter explores the main global initiatives, focusing on the interplay between the core of these initiatives and TNCs’ social responsibility and accountability governance

Implementing corporate social responsibility: Empirical insights on the impact and accountability of the UN Global Compact

The implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is crucial for organizational legitimacy in today’s globalized world. In the absence of a global governance system, several initiatives have emerged to support companies in designing, implementing and communicating CSR. However, research has so far mainly neglected to empirically evaluate the impact of such initiatives on organizational practices. This study aims to close this gap by analyzing on a large quantitative basis how business participants in the largest voluntary CSR initiative - the UN Global Compact (UNGC) - embed CSR into their organizations. Drawing on insights from institutional and stakeholder theory, I derive determinants of UNGC implementation and analyze the accountability of the initiative. My study contributes to the literature in several ways: I develop a theoretical model to describe and explain variation in UNGC implementation, and scrutinize the new measure for UNGC implementation. My results show that the initiative affects organizational practices: Contrary to the bluewashing arguments of UNGC critics, the level of CSR implementation increases with the time of membership in the UNGC. However, my findings also suggest that the declared participant information still lacks credibility - higher UNGC implementation levels are not associated with significantly less UNGC scandals. Implications for CSR research, the Global Compact and its participants are discussed

Converged Approach in Regulation for Socializing Transnational Corporations

The prolonged attempt to create a global code for TNCs was ultimately unsuccessful, yet the simultaneous rise of global frameworks and guidelines by various private bodies highlight the need for monitoring of the performance of TNCs in addition to evaluation of their accountability practice. But none of the current frameworks and guidelines has been successful in laying down a clear way forward for the creation of an accepted global code of conduct for TNCs. The corporate social responsibility movement is a reaction to this need; it assists the shift of the market centred focus of global regulatory framework initiatives to ‘people centred’ (as opposed to country-centred) concerns. Accordingly, the core CSR principles urge that TNCs must not only be compliant but also responsible to their wider stakeholders and the environment. This chapter presents how the implementation of CSR principles in corporations can be an alternative to a global code of conduct for socialising TNCs