Marking their own homework: The pragmatic and moral legitimacy of industry self-regulation

Bowen, Frances (2019) Marking their own homework: The pragmatic and moral legitimacy of industry self-regulation. Journal of Business Ethics, 156 (1). 257–272. ISSN 0167-4544

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Abstract

When is industry self-regulation (ISR) a legitimate form of governance? In principle, ISR can serve the interests of participating companies, regulators and other stakeholders. However, in practice, empirical evidence shows that ISR schemes often under-perform, leading to criticism that such schemes are tantamount to firms marking their own homework. In response, this paper explains how current management theory on ISR has failed to separate the pragmatic legitimacy of ISR based on self-interested calculations, from moral legitimacy based on normative approval. The paper traces three families of management theory on ISR and uses these to map the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of ISR schemes. It identifies tensions between the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of ISR schemes, which the current ISR literature does not address, and draws implications for the future theory and practice of ISR.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: corporate social responsibility,governance,industry self-regulation,legitimacy,regulation,business and international management,business, management and accounting(all),arts and humanities (miscellaneous),economics and econometrics,law,sdg 12 - responsible consumption and production ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1400/1403
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Responsible Business Regulation Group
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 17 Apr 2019 14:30
Last Modified: 21 Apr 2023 00:01
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/70621
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3635-y

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