Borderless Politics: Corporate Lobbying in Multiple Arenas

The research has generated four main findings. Firstly, while large firms respond to evolving global standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR), there are considerable national differences in how firms define and seek to implement these responsibilities. Our content analysis of CSR reports demonstrates that firms in the coordinated market economies of continental Europe engage more substantively with CSR norms and practices than firms in liberal market economies, such as the US, because the former are culturally and institutionally more attuned to taking the demands of non-market actors, such as citizen groups, governments or labor unions, seriously. European firms disclose more and higher quality information about their labor and human rights commitments in these reports than their US counterparts, whose social reporting outside of diversity and health and safety is largely ceremonial in nature. While many US firms have maintained their longstanding attachment to the communities in which they operate, these obligations only rarely translate into commitments to specific stakeholders such as labor unions, government regulators and international organizations - the main promoters of social and labor standards.

Secondly, large firms engage differentially across CSR issues areas. Our analysis reveals that companies in both Europe and the US engaged earlier with environmental than social issues such as labor and human rights. They continue to engage more substantively with the former by publishing better quality data of their environmental impacts, risks and future improvement targets. This finding makes a significant contribution to the literature on CSR and private governance, as very little previous work systematically has examined corporate engagement across issue areas. The interviews we conducted with CSR managers and groups engaged in encouraging and monitoring CSR in the US, UK and Germany confirm this finding and indicate that firms often perceive that the 'business case' for engaging with environmental issues is stronger than for engaging with social issues.

Thirdly, our longitudinal analysis of firm CSR engagement indicates that companies in the US and Europe have expanded the definition of their labor and human rights commitments over time. However, this engagement is both less developed than their environmental commitments and contingent on the nature of stakeholder relations and interest group politics in a firm's home country.

Fourthly, our combined analysis of CSR and corporate public affairs activities has shown that firms investing in public affairs are also more likely to engage in CSR initiatives. This finding holds even when other factors accounting for corporate political and social activity are taken into account. The findings provide, for the first time, empirical support for the view that corporate public affairs and social responsibility activities are complementary elements of a firm's non-market strategy. Moreover, our evidence indicates that public affairs activity drives CSR engagement but not vice versa, highlighting concerns that CSR schemes are used to increase the effectiveness of corporate lobbying and compensate for the negative image of much political activity. A new research question that emerges from these findings is whether CSR brings tangible political benefits to firms, e.g. in the form of improved access to policymakers or greater lobbying success.