Mixing business with politics: does corporate social responsibility end where lobbying transparency begins?

Favotto, A. and Kollman, K. (2021) Mixing business with politics: does corporate social responsibility end where lobbying transparency begins? Regulation and Governance, 15(2), pp. 262-279. (doi: 10.1111/rego.12275)

Abstract

Scholars increasingly have argued that the future effectiveness and legitimacy of firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are dependent on more transparent forms of lobbying to ensure firms' policy positions are aligned with their CSR commitments. Very little empirical work, however, has systematically analyzed firms' lobbying disclosures or examined how these firms coordinate their lobbying and CSR activities. We address these empirical questions by analyzing the CSR reports of 150 corporations from Germany, the UK and the US over an 18‐year period and by conducting interviews with the CSR managers of these firms. We find that corporations have become more transparent about their public policy advocacy over time, thus acknowledging that lobbying is a CSR issue. For most firms, however, this commitment to transparency appears to be largely ceremonial. Few firms disclose the specific policy positions they advocate or sufficiently coordinate the work of their lobbying and CSR units to foster greater alignment of these activities. These modest changes in lobbying transparency appear to be driven by legitimacy concerns and, in a few instances, by governance gaps firms perceive to be relevant to their future business interests.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Kollman, Professor Kelly and Favotto, Dr Alvise
• Authors: Favotto, A., and Kollman, K.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Accounting and Finance; College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: Regulation and Governance
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 1748-5983
• ISSN (Online): 1748-5991
• Published Online: 16 October 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Regulation and Governance 15(2): 262-279
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
53856	1	Borderless Politics: Corporate Lobbying in Multiple Arenas	Kelly Kollman	Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)	ES/I036974/1	SPS - POLITICS