Explaining the Effects of Corporate Supply Chain Policy and Attitude to Regulation on Engagement with International Private Standard Setters

This paper attempts to understand the importance of corporate organisational structure and regulatory preference as explanations for the quality and intensity of relations with international standard setting bodies. Focusing on private regulation, primarily international standards setting initiatives, such as ISO standards, we seek to uncover how companies manage social and environmental issues across their supply networks. We argue that companies availing of effective supply chain polices have developed the necessary knowledge, capacity and processes and the desire to exert meaningful control over their supply networks. In order to facilitate this goal international standard setting bodies are called upon to advance private regulation commensurate with this strategy. Our findings suggest that the greater the ability of these policies to influence a company’s supply practices, the more the company engages with international standards institutions. We also report evidence of increased tensions within CSR unit’s relationships with international standards institutions where the supply chain has greater prominence, leading to conflict between departments and potentially to merely ceremonial engagement. We assess these arguments with survey data on 107 large corporations across the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.