The Dynamic of Corporate Self-Regulation: ISO 14001, Environmental Commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

This article examines the institutional impact of environmental management systems (EMSs), focusing on ISO 14001. It develops a pluralistic framework for thinking about the dynamic of corporate self-regulation that we term the polyphonic model. It argues that the adoption of ISO 14001 can move the firm into a new equilibrium trajectory, which enmeshes together environmental and economic goals and reflects greater sensitivity to ecological concerns. There is a positive reciprocal cycle between the pro-environmental structural changes induced by ISO 14001 and the employees' attitudes toward the firm and the environment. In order to examine ISO 14001 institutional impact, we conducted a series of interviews with managers and administered questionnaires to employees in 24 Israeli firms with and without certification. The findings indicate that the perceived environmental commitment of certified firms was higher than that of noncertified firms and was higher among employees that perceived the EMS as more highly integrated in the firm. Perceptions of the standard's integration were also found to be positively correlated with personal environmental commitment. The results also indicate that the increase in the firm's environmental commitment was positively associated with employees' organizational citizenship behavior within certified firms. Further indications of the pro-environmental dynamic induced by ISO 14001 were found in the in-depth interviews.     

Early and late adopters of ISO 14001-type standards: revisiting the role of firm characteristics and capabilities

Environmental management standards (EMS) are important voluntary management tools that aim at reducing the environmental impact of firms’ activities. From ethical motivations through increasingly high pressure from regulatory authorities to expected financial returns, reasons to adopt an EMS are manifold. While they all certainly matter, it is still unclear from the literature which firm-specific organisational capabilities and structural characteristics significantly drive adoption. Using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) on two samples of French firms, we identify firm-specific factors associated with the early or late adoption of ISO 14001-type EMS and we test whether adoption increases labour productivity. We find that adopters are moderately large manufacturing firms that rely on ISO 9001 standards or Total Quality Management. In addition, according to the first sample, early adopters tend to be more technologically complex firms that are active in the European market. These differences are attenuated in the second sample, which may be biased towards more innovative firms. Both samples however concur with the conclusion that, whether early or late, adoption is associated with a higher labour productivity compared to non-adoption. This result still holds when we use fully interacted linear models instead of PSM, and seems to be consistent over time. Thus, implementing EMS might provide win–win opportunities to adopters, without giving any premium to “early birds”.     

Regulating the Oil Palm Boom: Assessing the Effectiveness of Environmental Governance Approaches to Agro-industrial Pollution in Indonesia

The large environmental impacts associated with agro-industrial development in Indonesia are both striking and increasingly important, especially with increased demand for biofuels and the rapid extension of oil palm plantations. Recently, Indonesia has also seen a series of transformations in the regulatory regime for pollution control with decentralization and a shift towards new environmental policy instruments. This article considers the effectiveness of these new approaches, including the widely influential International Organization for Standardizations (ISO) 14001 series for environmental management systems and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification system. Despite the turn towards these new governance approaches, the underlying problems that have undermined bureaucratic regulation in the past continue to haunt attempts to make the sector more sustainable. Efforts to mitigate the increasingly large-scale pollution associated with agro-industrial development will need to be better crafted and combined to suit the characteristics of the industry concerned and to address the wider socio-economic and political realities within which problems are embedded and where any policy tool must be applied.     

Management-Based Regulation: Prescribing Private Management to Achieve Public Goals

We analyze a little-studied regulatory approach that we call management-based regulation. Management-based regulation directs regulated organizations to engage in a planning process that aims toward the achievement of public goals, offering firms flexibility in how they achieve public goals. In this article, we develop a framework for assessing conditions for using management-based regulation as opposed to the more traditional technology-based or performance-based regulation. Drawing on case studies of management-based regulation in the areas of food safety, industrial safety, and environmental protection, we show how management-based regulation can be an effective strategy when regulated entities are heterogeneous and regulatory outputs are relatively difficult to monitor. In addition to analyzing conditions for the use of management-based regulation, we assess the range of choices regulators confront in designing management-based regulations. We conclude that management-based regulation requires a far more complex intertwining of the public and private sectors than is typical of other forms of regulation, owing to regulators' need to intervene at multiple stages of the production process as well as to the degree of ambiguity over what constitutes "good management."     

Control Modes in the Age of Transnational Governance

The article starts with the observation that there are overlaps in, so far, largely unrelated research programs concerned with the legalization in international relations, on the one hand, and transnational regulation and governance, on the other. The analysis of the literature at the interface between the "fourth strata of the geology of international law" and the "governance in the age of regulation" literatures reveals a substantial common interest in structures of transnational regulatory governance. At the same time, the theoretical toolkit of both strands of literature does not match the task of coping analytically with structures and processes in the overlapping realm. To sharpen the analytical edge, the article elaborates hierarchy, market, community, and design as four ideal types of control modes in transnational regulatory spaces. The application of this model to the empirical analysis of a number of regimes underpins the observation that control frequently occurs in hybrid regulatory constellations involving public and private actors across national and international levels. A key example concerns the prominence of domestic regulatory regimes in underpinning transnational governance processes, where national rules achieve extraterritorial effect as much through competitive as through hierarchical mechanisms.     

从监管走向治理--数字货币规制的全球格局与实践共识

全球数字货币正沿着两个方向飞速发展,技术驱动下私人数字货币的自发秩序仍在不断生长,而国家规制下法定数字货币的公权扩张也日趋明显。纵观数字货币规制的全球格局,虽然各国在数字货币ICO和交易所监管思路及其最新发展各不相同,但都是在促进金融创新与防范风险之间寻求最优平衡。因地制宜,我国亦不应采取单一的监管或控制思维,而应更多地寻求公权力机构和私权力平台合作,规制理念宜从政府监管向共同治理模式变革:从链下管制走向链上链下相结合的全域治理,从政府直接监管走向“第三方护卫”的间接治理,从国家规制走向超国家规范的规制治理。     

Regulating the invisible: interaction between the EU and Norway in managing nano-risks

Over the last decade, the need for governance of human health and environmental safety risks of nanotechnology (NT) has received increased attention at international, national and EU levels. There were early calls for increased funding of independent research, risk analysis and voluntary or mandatory regulation, but currently overall regulatory efforts have not materialised. One possible explanation is that research has revealed little need to regulate environmental and health safety risks of NT. Alternatively, there is a gap between politics and governance and the evolving state of knowledge. Such a gap can be caused by various factors including change in interests, saliency and organisation. Organisational challenges related to the science–policy interface at national, international and the EU can affect how new knowledge is channelled into decision-making processes. Decrease in public saliency is another possibility. Finally, opposition to regulation among affected producers may have increased and in turn stalled regulation through lobbying. The two explanations are analysed in a multi-level governance context. Norway is chosen as an interesting case: Highly profiled as a frontrunner i.a. in regulating gene technology, but currently awaiting regulations in the EU due to the European Economic Area agreement.     

How does initial public financing influence private incentives for follow-on investment in early-stage technologies?

One common rationale supporting public financing programs for small firms is that initial public investment creates incentives for follow-on private investment. However, there does not appear to be a unified statement in the literature describing how initial public investment creates incentives for follow-on private investment. Focusing on external private investors, we use a two-stage net present value model to identify four effects from initial public investment on the private decision for follow-on investment. Our empirical analysis uses a sample of non-venture backed firms entering the SBIR program to examine how reduced risk, the number of SBIR awards, and size of initial public investment influence the likelihood of follow-on venture capital investment. We find the probability of follow-on venture capital investment is more likely when firms reach Phase II of the program, is less likely as firms win multiple Phase I and Phase II awards, and is more likely as the size of initial public investment in Phase I increases.

Private roles in food safety provision: the law and economics of private food safety

Private food safety standards play a crucial role in ensuring the safety of the foods we consume. A voluntary instrument, private standards are so widespread to have become de facto mandatory for suppliers who wish to access the most profitable markets. Developed by retailers and business coalitions and enforced through third-party certification, private food safety standards constitute one of the principal food safety governance instruments of agribusiness value chains. Albeit private and voluntary, such standards have profound public implications because they contribute to food safety and protect consumers’ health. This article uses law and economics theory to identify their strengths and vulnerabilities and understand the relationship between public and private regulation. Specifically, it examines whether private standards can fulfill the public interest objective of protecting consumers’ health and whether they compete with or rather complement public regulation. The article argues that private standards have emerged in response to food scares to coordinate complex food value chains and have become ever more relevant in the context of intense market globalization, an area in which public regulation often failed. Among the advantages of private standards, are their flexibility and ability to rapidly respond to new risks. Through their focus on management-based regulation and strong market incentives for producers, private standards promote compliance better than traditional inspection methods. Private standards also present several gray areas including increased risk of capture due to their limited transparency and gaps in enforcement by third-party certifiers. The article suggests areas that deserve additional scrutiny, especially the opacity of standards vis-à-vis consumers and the public sector and the quality and reliability of third party certification.     

Exploring the agency of global environmental consultancy firms in earth system governance

In contemporary global environmental governance, private companies are both recipients of as well as contributors to the development and spread of environmental practices, norms, standards, and legislation. One sector that seems to be of particular significance is the environmental consultancy industry. It assists public and private actors in developing environmental solutions and ensuring implementation and compliance by providing particular knowledge, management, and assessment skills. However, little attention has been paid to the environmental authority and agency of companies active in this field. This exploratory study on global environmental consultancy firms is guided by the basic research questions on agency in earth system governance: What is agency? How do actors acquire authority and become agents? How can we evaluate the effects these agents generate?     

Constructing the License to Operate: Internal Factors and Their Influence on Corporate Environmental Decisions

Voluntary programs intended to improve corporate environmental practices have proliferated in recent years. Why some businesses choose to participate in such voluntary programs, while others do not, remains an open question. Recent work suggests that companies' environmental practices, including their decisions to participate in voluntary programs, are shaped by a license to operate comprised of social, regulatory, and economic pressures. Although these external factors do matter, by themselves they only partially explain business decision making, since facilities subject to similar external factors often behave differently. In this article, we draw from organizational theory to explain why we would expect a company's license to operate to be ultimately constructed by internal factors, such as managerial incentives, organizational culture, and organizational identity, as these shape both interpretations of the external pressures and organizational responses to them. Using qualitative data from an exploratory study of matched facilities that reached different decisions about participating in a prominent voluntary environmental program, we then report evidence indicative of the role of these internal factors in shaping facilities' environmental decisions. Finally, we offer suggestions for future research that could further develop understanding of how internal organizational characteristics influence environmental management decisions, including those concerning participation in voluntary programs.     

Rule‐Intermediaries in Action: How State and Business Stakeholders Influence the Meaning of Consumer Rights in Regulatory Governance Arrangements

The boundaries between public and private actors are increasingly blurred via regulatory governance arrangements and the contracting out of rights enforcement to private organizations. Regulation and governance scholars have not gained enough empirical leverage on how state actors, private organizations, and civil society groups influence the meaning of legal rules in regulatory governance arrangements that they participate in. Drawing from participant observation at consumer law conferences and interviews with stakeholders, my empirical data suggest that consumer rights and, in fact, consumer law, mean different things to different stakeholders tasked with adjudicating consumer rights. Rights afforded consumers who purchase warranties are now largely contingent on first using alternative dispute resolution structures, some created and operated by private organizations with soft state oversight and others run by stakeholders but with greater state oversight and involvement. Using new institutional sociology and regulatory governance theories, I find that stakeholders involved in overseeing and administering these dispute resolution systems filter the meaning of consumer rights through competing business and consumer logics. Because consumer laws mean different things to stakeholders tasked with adjudicating consumer rights, two different rights regimes simultaneously exist in this field. I conclude that how rule‐intermediaries administering private and state‐run dispute resolution systems conceptualize what consumer laws mean in action may have implications for regulatory governance and more broadly, consumers' access to justice.     

The complexities of managed care: operating a voluntary system

The implementation of state-sponsored voluntary case management programs for public assistance recipients creates provider and recipient recruiting problems that are unique to the state's economic environment, its political climate, its historic relationship with providers, its program goals, and its implementation strategies. This implementation study discusses the factors that influenced the operationalization of the Massachusetts managed care program for AFDC families. The issues of provider recruitment and recipient enrollment are examined in relation to the formal program goals of cost containment and access. The operational and bureaucratic problems the state Medicaid staff has experienced in maintaining the program evokes questions of who should administer the programs, who the best types of providers are in light of program goals, and how recipients can be enrolled in a voluntary program.     

Contract Governance in the EU: Conceptualising the Relationship between Investor Protection Regulation and Private Law

The instrumental use of private law, in particular contract law, by the EU raises a complex issue concerning the relationship between contract‐related regulation and traditional private law and underlines the need for conceptualising the interplay between the two from the contract governance perspective. The present article aims to apply this new analytical approach in the investment services field where there is considerable tension between the EU investor protection regulation embodied in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID I and MiFID II) and national private laws. The article explores various models of relationship between investor protection regulation and traditional private law within a multi‐level EU legal order, considering the strengths and weaknesses of each field in pursuing public and private interests involved in financial contracting. This analysis also offers some lessons for the broader narrative of how European integration in regulated areas dominated by public supervision and enforcement could proceed.     

Orchestration as a form of public action: The EU engagement with voluntary sustainability standards

EU authorities have come to engage with transnational private standards in the domain of sustainability in forms which are different from the traditional interplay based on agency relations and incorporation by reference. This phenomenon is evident in the domain of global value chain sustainability where the employment of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) is permitted in certain EU measures. This contribution depicts the main features of orchestration as a distinct form of public action involving transnational private regulation. It lays down the reasons underpinning public ‘use’ of forms of public authority, it highlights the potential for orchestration in publicising transnational private rules and it exposes the hidden dynamics stemming from the interplay between public and private rules. It discusses the conditions under which orchestration can enhance the effectiveness of public measures, and how orchestration can transform transnational private regimes by steering their substance and procedures.     

Private Regulation of the Public Sector: A Neglected Facet of Contemporary Governance

The centrality of regulation among the tools deployed by governments is well established in the social science literature. Regulation of public sector bodies by non-state organizations is an important but neglected aspect of contemporary governance arrangements. Some private regulators derive both authority and power from a legal mandate for their activities. Statutory powers are exercised by private regulators where they are delegated or contracted out. Contractual powers take collective (for example, self-regulatory) and individuated forms. But a further important group of private regulators, operating both nationally and internationally, lack a legal mandate and yet have the capacity to exercise considerable power in constraining governments and public agencies. In a number of cases private regulators operate more complete regulatory regimes (in the sense of controlling standard setting, monitoring, and enforcement elements) than is true of public regulators. While private regulators may enhance the scrutiny given to public bodies (and thus enhance regimes of control and accountability), their existence suggests a need to identify the conditions under which such private power is legitimately held and used. One such condition is the existence of appropriate mechanisms for controlling or checking power. Such controls may take the classic form of public oversight, but may equally be identified in the checks exercised by participation in communities or markets.     

Recent developments in German corporate governance

This paper provides an overview of the German corporate governance system. We review the governance role of large shareholders, creditors, the product market and the supervisory board. We also discuss the importance of mergers and acquisitions, the market in block trades, and the lack of a hostile takeover market. Given that Germany is often referred to as a bank-based economy, we pay particular attention to the role of the universal banks (Hausbanken). We show that the German system is characterised by a market for partial corporate control, large shareholders and bank/creditor monitoring, a two-tier (management and supervisory) board with co-determination between shareholders and employees on the supervisory board, a disciplinary product–market, and corporate governance regulation largely based on EU directives but with deep roots in the German codes and legal doctrine. Another important feature of the German system is its corporate governance efficiency criterion which is focused on the maximisation of stakeholder value rather than shareholder value. However, the German corporate governance system has experienced many important changes over the last decade. First, the relationship between ownership or control concentration and profitability has changed over time. Second, the pay-for-performance relation is influenced by large shareholder control: in firms with controlling blockholders and when a universal bank is simultaneously an equity- and debtholder, the pay-for-performance relation is lower than in widely held firms or blockholder-controlled firms. Third, since 1995 several major regulatory initiatives (including voluntary codes) have increased transparency and accountability.     

Friends,Enemies, or Strangers? On Relationships between Public and Private Sector Service Providers in Hybrid Forms of Governance

Hybrid forms of governance receive special attention in literature on regulatory reforms. It is often assumed that a combination of public and private sector involvement in a regulatory regime is superior to “pure public” or “pure private” regimes. By paying close attention to such hybrids, this article finds that hybrids have two key dimensions: first, the “amount” of public and private sector involvement in a hybrid, and second, the relationship between these sectors. Contrary to the former dimension, the latter hardly receives any attention in scholarship. This article addresses that knowledge gap. It introduces a typology of hybrids based on these two dimensions. A brief case study is introduced to discuss the value of the focus on relationships between public and private sector service providers.     

Industry Self-regulation Under Government Intervention

Industry actors (organizations, associations) can influence the way in which firms comply with regulations. This study examines how this influence process is affected by government intervention. Using official, anonymized data from the entire industry of financial intermediation in the Netherlands (N = 8655 firms), we examine how firms’ affiliations with industry actors relate to (1) voluntary actions aligned with improving regulatory compliance (e.g., requesting audits, attending workshops), and (2) law violations. Industry actors are distinguished between trade associations and the industry’s self-regulatory organization (SRO), which is subject to more government intervention. The analysis employs Poisson regressions to explain count variables, and bootstrapping to assess indirect associations. A series of robustness tests focus on relevant sub-samples, employ exact matching to address possible self-selection, and incorporate lagged dependent variables. The association between affiliations with industry actors and law violations is negative and significant. This association is more indirect for trade associations than for the SRO (i.e., it is more strongly mediated by the voluntary actions firms take and which help to improve compliance). These findings go in line with the theory that government intervention makes industry-self regulation more mandated and less voluntary. Under less government intervention, industry actors may promote more voluntary efforts to comply.     

Privatizing Environmental Resources: The Need for Supervision of Clean Development Mechanism Contracts?

This article argues that a current trend in global sustainable development governance is actively to engage the private sector in participating in the process of implementing global and national policy goals. This trend is based on the notion that the private sector has the ideas, technologies and resources at its disposal that can be channelled to addressing global environmental challenges. This new trend does not, however, take into account the past and present implications of private sector investment in fields such as mining and forestry. Nor does it closely examine how private sector rules will subsequently infiltrate and govern environmental management. On the basis of an examination of current policy developments and contracts in the area of environmental management and their implications for developing countries, this article argues in favour of establishing an authority that oversees the legitimacy and legality of these new contracts, especially in, but not limited to, the area of climate change.