Global Sustainability Governance and the UN Global Compact: A Rejoinder to Critics

This article takes the critique by Sethi and Schepers (J Bus Ethics, 2013, in this thematic symposium) as a starting point for discussing the United Nations (UNs) Global Compact. While acknowledging the relevance of some of their arguments, we emphasize that a number of their claims remain arguable...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Authors: Rasche, Andreas (Author) ; Waddock, Sandra (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2014
In: Journal of business ethics
Further subjects:B public–private partnerships
B United Nations Global Compact
B Business regulation
B Soft Law
B Corporate sustainability and responsibility
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Summary:This article takes the critique by Sethi and Schepers (J Bus Ethics, 2013, in this thematic symposium) as a starting point for discussing the United Nations (UNs) Global Compact. While acknowledging the relevance of some of their arguments, we emphasize that a number of their claims remain arguable and are partly misleading. We start by discussing the limits of their proposed framework to classify voluntary initiatives for corporate sustainability and responsibility. Next, we show how a greater appreciation of the historical and political context of the UN Global Compact puts several of their claims into perspective. Finally, we demonstrate that the alleged promise–performance gap rests on a selected and one-sided reading of the initiative. We close by pointing to some challenges that the initiative needs to address in the future.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2216-6