Integrating Management Systems and Occupational Health and Safety Regulation

'Best practice' in occupational health and safety (OHS) performance needs to recognize the declining emphasis that is being placed on the capacity of the regulatory state. This article argues that there are more appropriate forms of OHS regulation than direct command and control. The development of a systems-based approach acknowledges the importance of continuous improvement, benchmarking, and internal self-regulation. In order to encourage a systems-based approach, it is suggested that some form of persuasion by coercion by means of law remains a necessary condition for the establishment of an incentive-based 'voluntary' regime.     

Building Norms from the Grassroots Up: Divestment,Expressive Politics,and Climate Change

The fossil fuel divestment movement is at the forefront of civil society initiatives to raise public consciousness about the need for a “fossil‐free” future. Through the lens of the social movement literature, this article shows how the movement has harnessed grassroots activists, engaged in innovative and sometimes disruptive forms of protest, and used cognitive framing and symbolic politics to gain media interest and persuade the public of the importance and legitimacy of its claims as well as to promote a new social norm. The relative instrumental, structural, and discursive power of the movement and its adversaries is also examined, showing how, notwithstanding the fossil fuel industry's deeply embedded structural and instrumental power, the movement has managed to shift the contest onto a terrain where it holds a comparative advantage. Finally, the movement's role in nonstate climate governance is considered, taking account of its interactions with and impact on a range of other climate actors. This article's conclusion is that climate governance is not only an instrumental or pragmatic process of mandating changes in behavior but an expressive and symbolic one of nurturing a new norm and institutionalizing a new set of moral principles.     

Organizational Trust and the Limits of Management‐Based Regulation

This article examines the relationship between management‐based regulation and occupational health and safety through two case studies. The first describes how corporate occupational health and safety systems and standards were interpreted and implemented differently at different mine sites within the same company and examines the particular role of trust between workers and management in explaining variations in occupational health and safety performance. The second explores the difficulties of moving from a highly devolved system of responsibility to a more centralized approach, and the incapacity of externally mandated management‐based regulation to change behavior at site level in the absence of a supportive workplace culture. The article argues that notwithstanding the heavy emphasis currently being placed on both internal (company‐driven) and external (government‐driven) management‐based regulation, a commitment at corporate level does not necessarily percolate down to individual facilities where ritualistic responses or resistant subcultures may thwart effective change. The findings have important implications for the effectiveness of management‐based regulation and meta‐regulation more broadly.     

The New Collaborative Environmental Governance: The Localization of Regulation

This article examines the new collaborative environmental governance, an enterprise that involves collaboration between a diversity of private, public, and non-government stakeholders who, acting together towards commonly agreed goals, hope to achieve far more collectively, than individually. Such an approach appears to blur the familiar sharp boundaries that separate 'the state' from civil society, yet we still know very little about exactly what this blurring of public and private adds up to, and what its implications are. This new form of governance is examined through the lens of three Australian case studies. Each of these studies involves participatory dialogue, flexibility, inclusiveness, transparency, institutionalized consensus-building practices, and, at least to some extent, a shift from hierarchy to heterarchy. The paper examines the relationships between new and old governance, the architecture of these new initiatives, the role of the state, and the importance of negotiating in 'the shadow of hierarchy'.     

Industry Self-Regulation: An Institutional Perspective

Throughout the advanced countries of the world self-regulatory regimes are being introduced. This article suggests that, at least in some contexts, industry self-regulation can be an effective and efficient means of social control that has been largely ignored by economics (which has a focus on individual rather than group behavior) and prematurely discounted by mainstream regulatory theory. The article examines the strengths and to a lesser extent the weaknesses of industry self-regulation from five closely related yet distinct vantage points: mediating institutions; industrial morality; institutionalizing responsibility; institutions responding to external pressure; and the roles of the state and third parties.     

Moving the Goalposts: Financial Market Regulation in Hong Kong and the Crash of October 1987

The article examines the operation of the Hong Kong stock and futures exchanges during the crash of October 1987 and in particular the controversial decision to close the exchanges. It argues that the closure decision exposes a serious conflict of interest and abuse of power on the part of the major decision makers and fundamental flaws in Hong Kong's self-regulatory system. Moreover, these events raise broader questions about the strengths and weaknesses of different regulatory regimes and about the value of different theoretical explanations of regulatory behavior. In particular, it is argued that the most influential theory concerning the regulation of financial markets—that of certain Chicago School economists—raises as many questions as it answers, and that an alternative view which locates cultural and organizational factors at its core provides a more satisfactory explanation of the events of October 1987.     

Social License and Environmental Protection: Why Businesses Go Beyond Compliance

This article examines the concept of the corporate "social license," which governs the extent to which a corporation is constrained to meet societal expectations and avoid activities that societies (or influential elements within them) deem unacceptable, whether or not those expectations are embodied in law. It examines the social license empirically, as it relates to one social problem–environmental protection–and as it relates to one particular industry: pulp and paper manufacturing. It shows try the social license is important, the circumstances in which it may encourage companies to go "beyond compliance" with regulation, how its terms are monitored and enforced, and how it interacts with what we term the regulatory and economic licenses. Overall, this research demonstrates that corporate environmental behavior cannot be explained purely in terms of instrumental threats and moral obligations to comply with the law, and that the increasing incidence of "beyond compliance" corporate behavior can be better explained in terms of the interplay between social pressures and economic constraints.     

Explaining Corporate Environmental Performance: How Does Regulation Matter?

How and to what extent does regulation matter in shaping corporate behavior? How important is it compared to other incentives and mechanisms of social control, and how does it interact with those mechanisms? How might we explain variation in corporate responses to law and other external pressures? This article addresses these questions through an study of environmental performance in 14 pulp and paper manufacturing mills in Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia, and the states of Washington and Georgia in the United States. Over the last three decades, we find tightening regulatory requirements and intensifying political pressures have brought about large improvements and considerable convergence in environmental performance by pulp manufacturers, most of which have gone “beyond compliance” in several ways. But regulation does not account for remaining differences in environmental performance across facilities. Rather, “social license” pressures (particularly from local communities and environmental activists) and corporate environmental management style prod some firms toward better performance compliance than others. At the same time, economic pressures impose limits on “beyond performance” investments. In producing large gains in environmental performance, however, regulation still matters greatly, but less as a system of hierarchically imposed, uniformly enforced rules than as a coordinative mechanism, routinely interacting with market pressures, local and national environmental activists, and the culture of corporate management in generating environmental improvement while narrowing the spread between corporate leaders and laggards.     

Review Essay: Divestment,Nonstate Governance,and Climate Change

This review essay examines the divestment movement's evolution, aims, and strategies as well as why it is both distinctive and important. It then locates the movement within the broader literature on nonstate climate change governance, suggesting how studying the movement may contribute to this literature. Finally, seeking to take stock some five years on from its inception, it assesses the movement's impact and effectiveness over that period.