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The Three Pillars of Corporate Social Reporting as New Governance Regulation: Disclosure, Dialogue, and Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

David Hess
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Abstract

In this article I examine corporate social reporting as a form of New Governance regulation termed “democratic experimentalism.” Due to the challenges of regulating the behavior of corporations on issues related to sustainable economic development, New Governance regulation—which has a focus on decentralized, participatory, problem-solving-based approaches to regulation—is presented as an option to traditional command-and-control regulation. By examining the role of social reporting under a New Governance approach, I set out three necessary requirements for social reporting to be effective: disclosure, dialogue with stakeholders, and the moral development of the corporation. I then assess current social reporting practices against these requirements and find significant problems. In response, I propose one option for solving those problems, and encourage future researchers to consider the demands of these three requirements and the possible trade-offs between them when attempting to find ways to improve social reporting practices.

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Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 447 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2008

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References

Notes

1 KPMG Global Sustainability Services, KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2005, at 4 & 11 (2005), available at http://www.kpmg.nl/Docs/Corporate_Site/Publicaties/International_Survey_Corporate_Responsibility_2005.pdf. The average was brought down by United States corporations. One hundred of the Global 250 corporations are based in the United States, but only 35 percent of those companies published a social report. Id. at 11.

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77 Id. at 7.

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79 Id. at 11–13.

80 Id. at 13–17.

81 Id. at 16.

82 Id.

83 Id. at 17–24.

84 Id. at 24.

85 Id. at 25–36.

86 Id. at 5.

87 Id.

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