The Contribution of Environmental and Social Standards Towards Ensuring Legitimacy in Supply Chain Governance
Increasingly, companies implement social and environmental standards as instruments towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) in supply chains. This is based on the assumption that such standards increase legitimacy among stakeholders. Yet, a wide variety of standards with different requirement...
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| Contributors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2009
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| In: |
Journal of business ethics
Year: 2009, Volume: 89, Issue: 4, Pages: 509-523 |
| Further subjects: | B
Corporate social responsibility
B environmental and social standards B Legitimacy B Supply Chain |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Increasingly, companies implement social and environmental standards as instruments towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) in supply chains. This is based on the assumption that such standards increase legitimacy among stakeholders. Yet, a wide variety of standards with different requirement levels exist and companies might tend to introduce the ones with low exigencies, using them as a legitimacy front. This strategy jeopardizes the reputation of social and environmental standards among stakeholders and their long-term trust in these instruments of CSR, meaning that all expenses for their implementation are of no avail for the companies. Therefore, this paper highlights which criteria are important for the selection, implementation and improvement in order to achieve a company's aim, but also to strengthen the legitimacy of social and environmental standards. This research is based on conceptual thought and some existing empirical research, comparing four different social and environmental standards, revealing weaknesses and strengths. It exposes the basic conditions for the success of such standards among stakeholders and identifies the need for more empirical data. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10551-008-0013-9 |