Sustainability and Social Justice
The Contested Politics of Corporate Governance: The Case of the Global Reporting Initiative
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has successfully become institutionalized as the preeminent global framework for voluntary corporate environmental and social reporting. Its success can be attributed to the "institutional entrepreneurs" who analyzed the reporting field and deployed discursive, material, and organizational strategies to change it. GRI has, however, fallen short of the aspirations of its founders to use disclosure to empower nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The authors argue that its trajectory reflects the power relations between members of the field, their strategic choices and compromises, their ability to mobilize alliances and resources, and constraints imposed by the broader institutions of financial and capital markets. The authors draw three notable implications from this study. First, institutional theory needs to pay more attention to economic structures, strategies, and resources. Second, institutional entrepreneurship by relatively weak societal groups such as NGOs is inherently constrained by the structural power of wider institutions and by the compromises required to initiate change. Third, the strategies of NGOs represent a form of power capable of shifting, if not transforming, the field of corporate governance. © 2010 Sage Publications.
Publication Title
Business and Society
Publication Date
3-1-2010
Volume
49
Issue
1
First Page
88
Last Page
115
ISSN
0007-6503
DOI
10.1177/0007650309345420
Keywords
corporate social responsibility, global reporting initiative, Institutional entrepreneurship, NGOs, nonfinancial reporting, nongovernmental organization
Repository Citation
Levy, David L.; Brown, Halina; and de Jong, Martin, "The Contested Politics of Corporate Governance: The Case of the Global Reporting Initiative" (2010). Sustainability and Social Justice. 410.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_idce/410