Zoekresultaten

Signalling responsibility? Applying signalling theory to the ISO 26000 standard for social responsibility

Many global challenges cannot be addressed by one single actor alone. Achieving sustainability requires governance by state and non-state market actors to jointly realise public values and corporate goals. As a form of public-private governance, voluntary standards involving governments, non-governmental organisations and companies have gained much traction in recent years and have been in the limelight of public authorities and policymakers. From a firm perspective, sustainability standards can be a way to demonstrate that they engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a credible way. To capitalise on their CSR activities, firms need to ensure their stakeholders are able to recognise and assess their CSR quality. However, because the relative observability of CSR is low and since CSR is a contested concept, information asymmetries in firm-stakeholder relationships arise. Adopting CSR standards and using these as signalling devices is a strategy for firms to reduce these information asymmetries, by revealing their true CSR quality. Against this background, this article investigates the voluntary ISO 26000 standard for social responsibility as a form of public-private governance and contends that, despite its objectives, this standard suffers from severe signalling problems. Applying signalling theory to the ISO 26000 standard, this article takes a critical stance towards this standard and argues that firms adhering to this standard may actually emit signals that compromise rather than enhance stakeholders' ability to identify and interpret firms' underlying CSR quality. Consequently, the article discusses the findings in the context of public-private governance, suggests a specification of signalling theory and identifies avenues for future research.

Open for Business: Pathways to strengthen CGIAR's responsible engagement with the private sector

The ‘Living Q’ an interactive method for actor engagement in transnational marine spatial planning

The interaction of stakeholders is regarded key in modern environmental and spatial planning. Marine/maritime spatial planning (MSP) is an emerging marine policy domain, which is of great interest worldwide. MSP practices are characterized by diverse approaches and a lack of transnational cooperation. Actors with various backgrounds have to identify mismatches and synergies to jointly aim towards coherent and coordinated practices. The ‘Living Q’ is a communication method to make actors aware systematically about their viewpoints in an interactive, communicative and playful environment, while it draws on results of a proceeding ‘Q Methodology’ study. Results from ‘Living Q’ exercises with international expert’s groups from European Sea basins show that the method is capable to foster communication and interaction among actors participating in ‘Living Q’ exercises, while having the potential to generate added value to planning processes by actor interaction in a collaborative setting.

Study and work paving the way for Moroccan migrants: the entrepreneurial path to transnational and domestic business activities

In this article we look at the various paths taken by transnational and domestic entrepreneurs based on their education and work experience. These act as catalysts for skills that allow migrant entrepreneurs to better position themselves in different markets. Differences in migrant entrepreneurs allow us to better understand the strategies employed and the consequences for society and the economy at both domestic and transnational levels. Earlier research has extensively analysed individual characteristics of migrant entrepreneurs and, to a much lesser extent, the geographical nature of their business activities.This article addresses this gap by looking at the geographical orientation of migrant entrepreneurs’ businesses. The research question is as follows: In what ways are transnational or domestic activities of Moroccan migrant entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Italy influenced by skills acquired in earlier experiences? We provide empirical evidence on the different paths leading to domestic and transnational activities using a micro-level perspective of the experiences collected in the narratives of first-generation Moroccan migrant entrepreneurs who have migrated to Milan or Amsterdam (N=70).Four different paths combining these two life experiences emerged from the interviews: #1 Job-based, #2 Education-driven, #3 Job-education merger, and #4 By chance (neither education nor work experience). The most relevant paths for migrant entrepreneurs seem to be the first (#1) and third (#3) paths. Furthermore, our findings show that transnationally oriented entrepreneurs have an extended business-oriented education and rely on skills learned, in contrast to domestically oriented entrepreneurs who become entrepreneurs ‘by chance’.

Vehicle4 Energy Services (V4ES) evaluation for upscaling and transnational potential

This report is intended to collect, present, and evaluate the various solutions applied in individual operational pilots for their (upscaling and transnational transfer) potential, in terms of opportunities and barriers, over the short and long(er)-term. This is done by identifying the main characteristics of the solutions and sites and the relevant influencing factors at different local (dimension) contexts.The analysis provides insights in barriers but also opportunities and conditions for success across four main dimensions that make up the local context landscape. We consider two main roll-out scenarios:1. Upscaling within the boundaries of the country where the operational pilot (OP) took place2. Transnational Transfer relates to the potential for transferring a (V4)ES solution to any of the other three (project) countriesThere are several aspects within the four main dimensions that are cross-cutting for all four countries, either because EU legislation lies at its roots, or because market conditions are fairly similar for certain influencing factors in those dimension.Ultimately, both Smart Charging and V2X market are still in their relevant infancies. The solutions applied in various SEEV4-City pilots are relatively straightforward and simple in ‘smartness’. This helps the potential for adoption but may not always be the optimal solution yet. The Peak shaving or load/demand shifting solutions are viable options to reduce costs for different stakeholders in the (electricity) supply chain. The market is likely to mature and become much smarter in coming 5 – 10 years. This also includes the evolvement (or spin-offs) of the solutions applied in SEEV4-_City as well. At least in the coming (approximately) 5 years Smart Charging appears to have the better financial business case and potential for large scale roll-out with less (impactful) bottlenecks, but looking at longer term V2X holds its potential to play a significant role in the energy transition.A common denominator as primary barriers relates to existing regulation, standards readiness and limited market availability of either hardware or service offerings.

The application of arbitration in transnational private regulation

This paper investigates the prospective application of arbitration by Transnational Private Regulation (TPR). It builds on the study of TPR developed by Fabrizio Cafaggi et al. TPR addresses the ever-increasing transfer of regulatory power from national to global levels, and from public to private regulators. TPR entails private regulatory co-operation be-yond the jurisdictional boundaries of States through voluntary standards. The regimes of TPR are built by a variety of actors, such as companies, NGOs, independent experts, and epistemic communities. Examples of TPR can be found in food safety, forestry management, trade, and derivatives, among other fields. More specifically, they concern private actors engaging in transnational coordination of standard setting such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) that was developed to foster responsible management of the world’s forests. There are four main characteristics of TPR: legitimacy, quality, effectiveness, and enforcement. I will describe those four characteristics in brief here. First, the legitimacy of TPR is built around consent through voluntary entry, participation, and exit of regulated entities. Important to this contribution is that the legitimacy of TPR goes beyond its legal dimension, measured by purely legal standards. Hence, the legitimacy of TPR is largely determined by standards developed by social and economic institutions relevant to specific TPR regimes. The role of those institutions in standard settings is higher in private TPR regimes than private-public TPR regimes, where some forms of compliance are mandatory. Second, the quality of TPR corresponds to the ex ante and ex post evaluation cycle of regulatory processes. It is also linked with the transparency of TPR. Third, the effectiveness of TPR is measured according to the extent to which the objectives of TPR (or selected TPR regimes) are met. And finally, enforcement of TPRis understood as ‘ensuring compliance with commitments’. Enforcement of TPR can take place through courts, administrative agencies, and private dispute resolution—including the arbitration at the core of this contribution. Cafaggi’s study identified rather selective use of arbitration in TPR, but also recommended changes to make arbitration law more adaptable to TPR. Furthermore, the study recommended that more specialized dispute resolution institutions are created to exclusively serve TPR. Against this background, I shift the main focus of analysis from TPR to arbitration. Whereas Cafaggi argued that arbitration may be suitable for TPR as a means of private enforcement, in this paper I go even further, arguing that arbitration as a means of informal, out-of-court dispute resolution is well suited to strengthen the normativity of TPR. This is so because private arbitration actors (including, inter alia, arbitrators and arbitral institutions) are already equipped with the tools necessary to facilitate cross-border TPR, which is done through informal standards and procedures with origins in the communitarian values and reputational mechanisms used by different communities before the development of modern States. The roots of most private justice regimes—including arbitration—are informed by communitarian values such as collaboration, participation, and personal trust. Those values, together with other core characteristics of arbitration correspond to all core characteristics of TPR, making both systems comparable and complementary. The analytical framework incorporated in this paper follows the four core characteristics of TPR. Hence, the paper is organized into five sections. The first section contains the introduction. In the second section, I analyze the legitimacy of arbitration vis-à-vis the legitimacy of TPR. In the third section, I investigate the accountability of arbitration as a means of quality signaling vis-à-vis TPR. In the fourth section, I focus on the remedies available to arbitrators in a view of TPR’s effectiveness. Finally, in the fifth section, I analyze enforcement through arbitration and its impact on the exclusiveness versus complementarity of TPR regimes. Conclusions follow, including recommendations for future research. Part of topic "The blurring distinction between public and private in international dispute resolution"