The European regulation of corporate social responsibility: The role of beneficiaries' intermediaries

Abstract

Intended beneficiaries have an undeniable relevance to regulation. However, current research has focused mainly on the two-party relationship between rule-making and rule-taking. We attempt to fill this gap by exploring the formal and informal roles that beneficiaries’ intermediaries played in cocreating European Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) rules and associated practices between 2000 and 2017. By linking recent conceptualizations of regulatory intermediaries with the literature on critical political CSR, we offer a more dynamic and contextualized understanding of the roles of beneficiaries’ intermediaries. Specifically, we identify six micro-dynamics through which they influenced the regulatory process. Notably, our findings highlight how the convergence of interests between three groups of beneficiaries’ intermediaries – the NIU (NGO-Investor-Union) nexus – had a key role in reshaping CSR rules. We conclude that, in the European context, the involvement of stronger and better coordinated beneficiaries’ intermediaries is crucial in order to achieve more effective corporate conduct regulation.