Ecological restoration often depends on substantial funding to be initiated and sustained. So far, the dominant strategies to fund it have been philanthropic altruism or regulatory compulsion. Both ...make important contributions, but the commercial sector is a further source that has thus far not played a significant role relative to its potential. Just as philanthropic and regulatory strategies are both modulated by the law, so too law shapes the commercial sector's participation in ecological restoration. Corporate law and its market context are particularly significant, and they are both a potential hindrance and opportunity. Some options for law reform are available to improve the contribution of the business sector to restoration.
A citizens’ movement in Berlin advocates for the expropriation of housing corporations and has won a significant majority in a popular referendum in September 2021. Building on this proposal, this ...paper develops a general account of expropriation as a measure for corporate reform and thereby contributes to the ongoing debate on the democratic accountability of business corporations. It argues that expropriation is a valuable tool for intervention in a dire situation in some economic sector to enable a re-structuring of the governance of the assets in question. Compared with other tools available, expropriation is a more forward-looking, genuinely political measure that does not depend on the legal assignment of guilt but rather proceeds in a pragmatic and problem-oriented manner. It also allows us to reconsider in how far the market mechanism should be employed in the administration of assets. Objections from private property rights against expropriation fail as corporations generally are privileged, quasi-public institutions that can justifiably be subject to democratic interventions. Expropriation is thus an important addition to the arsenal of corporate reform proposals, especially for those concerned with a broad democratization of the corporation.
Living with the Invisible Hand explores the crucial role the market plays in how institutions shape our lives. Waheed Hussain demonstrates how markets, just like states, act as systems of governance. ...The market coordinates activities of production and consumption, constantly readjusting to changing circumstances. In doing so, it changes the option sets open to individuals, drawing them into patterns that can bypass their private judgments about the merits these patterns hold. Living with the Invisible Hand provides a starting point for a different way of thinking about economic life.
Prior research suggests that board diversity, especially in terms of gender, potentially enhances its effectiveness. However, as a construct, diversity extends beyond gender to encompass board ...members’ other demographic attributes as well as cognitive features such as attitudes, values, beliefs, knowledge, skills and capabilities. We expect these two sides of diversity, which we label demographic and cognitive, to play a critical role in determining a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. For our purpose, CSR performance and disclosure comprise environmental and social dimensions. Our results show that social performance exhibits a positive relation to a board’s demographic and cognitive diversities, while environmental performance relates to cognitive diversity, but not demographic diversity. Moreover, both forms of diversity mediate the positive relationship between social performance and social disclosure quality, while only demographic diversity mediates the positive relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure quality.
Inequality and taxation are fundamental problems of modern times. How and when can democracies tax economic elites? This book develops a theoretical framework that refines and integrates the classic ...concepts of business's instrumental (political) power and structural (investment) power to explain the scope and fate of tax initiatives targeting economic elites in Latin America after economic liberalization. In Chile, business's multiple sources of instrumental power, including cohesion and ties to right parties, kept substantial tax increases off the agenda. In Argentina, weaker business power facilitated significant reform, although specific sectors, including finance and agriculture, occasionally had instrumental and/or structural power to defend their interests. In Bolivia, popular mobilization counterbalanced the power of economic elites, who were much stronger than in Argentina but weaker than in Chile. The book's in-depth, medium-N case analysis and close attention to policymaking processes contribute insights on business power and prospects for redistribution in unequal democracies.
Businesses promote their environmental awareness through green buildings, eco-labels, sustainability reports, industry pledges and clean technologies. When are these symbols wasteful corporate spin, ...and when do they signal authentic environmental improvements? Based on twenty years of research, three rich case studies, a strong theoretical model and a range of practical applications, this book provides the first systematic analysis of the drivers and consequences of symbolic corporate environmentalism. It addresses the indirect cost of companies' symbolic actions and develops a new concept of the 'social energy penalty' - the cost to society when powerful corporate actors limit the social conversation on environmental problems and their solutions. This thoughtful book develops a set of tools for researchers, regulators and managers to separate useful environmental information from empty corporate spin, and will appeal to researchers and students of corporate responsibility, corporate environmental strategy and sustainable business, as well as environmental practitioners.
Both advocates of corporate regulation and its opponents tend to depict regulation as restrictive—a policy option that limits freedom in the name of welfare or other social goods. Against this ...framing, I suggest we can understand regulation in enabling terms. If well designed and properly enforced, regulation enables companies to operate in ways that are acceptable to society as a whole. This paper argues for this enabling character by considering some wider questions about responsibility and the sharing of responsibility. Agents who are less able or willing to act well are obviously more likely to face criticism, mistrust, and adverse responses. It will be more difficult to hold those agents responsible, especially so when there are many who fail in their responsibilities or where there are wide-reaching disagreements about those responsibilities. Regulatory standards, like other norms and ways of defining responsibilities, address these problems: by restricting, they also enable social cooperation. Like other forms of holding responsible, ways of enforcing those standards against recalcitrant agents, or encouraging conformity to them, may also seem restrictive. Again, however, these practices play an important role in enabling responsible agency. This is partly because they can bolster readiness to act well in agents who experience or witness such responses. It is also because they free other agents to exercise initiative and commitment in defining their individual responsibilities in line with higher standards.
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