The article engages with the recent studies on multilevel regulation. The starting point for the argument is that contemporary multilevel regulation—as most other studies of (postnational) rulemaking—is limited in its analysis. The limitation concerns its monocentric approach that, in turn, deepens the social illegitimacy of contemporary multilevel regulation. The monocentric approach means that the study of multilevel regulation originates in the discussions on the foundation of modern States instead of returning to the origins of rules before the nation State was even created, which is where the actual social capital underlying (contemporary) rules can be found, or so I wish to argue. My aim in this article is to reframe the debate. I argue that we have an enormous reservoir of history, practices, and ideas ready to help us think through contemporary (social) legitimacy problems in multilevel regulation: namely all those practices which preceded the capture of law by the modern State system, such as historical alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practices.
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The SDGs provide an important framework for businesses to address sustainable development and grand challenges (Kolk, Kourula and Pisani, 2017; Montiel et al, 2021) and SMEs, as major contributors to economic and entrepreneurial activity, are key actors in achieving national SDG targets (Sonntag et al, 2022). This study addresses the gap in the literature on SMEs and SDG action and draws on the attention-based view that emphasizes bounded managerial cognition processes and attention patterns that affect firm behavior and attention to issues and opportunities (Joseph and Wilson, 2018; Ocasio, 1997, 2011; Sullivan, 2010). Focusing specifically on attentional structure and coherence, we argue that structural mechanisms facilitate SDG integration in organizational strategy and that the relationship is influenced by attentional coherence, the degree to which attentional perspective of managers (top-down) and attentional engagement of employees (bottom-up) is aligned. Using data from the 2022 Dutch SDG Barometer (van den Berg et al, 2023), we empirically test hypotheses on a sample of 172 Dutch SMEs. The findings show a positive and significant effect on SDG strategic integration from communication and collaborative mechanisms that involve external stakeholders. However, our findings indicate that attentional coherence is not significant in influencing this relationship. We discuss the implications of our findings for academics, policymakers and practitioners.
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ABSTRACT. It is now generally accepted that the quality of the regulatory arrangements should be appraised not only by looking at the institutional design, but also by evaluating the factual enforcement and implementation of regulations. It is therefore advised that national governments take a more active stance in supervising the regulatory enforcement by different regulatory agencies. However, in some cases, government’s activism might be an impeding factor in regulatory enforcement. That this is not so crazy idea shows the analysis of the regulatory enforcement by Lithuanian Competition Authority in the area of competition policy during the years of integration to the European Union. For example, not only political and financial independence of the Competition Authority was difficult to establish, but also functions and competences of the regulatory agency were changed a number of times, which hampered the effectiveness of the agency’s performance while enforcing the competition law. In addition to often changes of functions, also the scope of competences was changing. As a result, the variety of tasks attributed to the Lithuanian Competition Authority caused the growing overload of work, which further hindered its regulatory practice. The question is who can be blamed for that? Was it just the inexperience of the government who was seeking for the best institutional design and could not stop with redesigning the regulatory agency or was it the intentional behaviour guided by some concrete interests as a result of a regulatory capture? The analysis of the regulatory enforcement during the period of 15 years does not allow for disregarding of the second possibility.
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