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Social licence and environmental protection: why businesses go beyond compliance

Author

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  • Gunningham, Neil
  • Kagan, Robert
  • Thornton, Dorothy

Abstract

Traditionally, corporations which complied with the dictates of applicable legislation would have regarded not just their legal, but also their social obligations, as ending at that point. Socio-legal research suggests that corporations complied with law only for instrumental reasons (to avoid legal penalties) or, because "regulations are taken to be a measure of societal expectations, and [are] thus interpreted as a guide to an organisation's moral and social duties," (Wright, 1998: 14). From this traditional point of view, corporations could be expected to take actions which went 'beyond compliance' only where they saw some self-interest in doing so, such as increasing profit, usually over the short-term (Porter and Van der Linde, 1995)

Suggested Citation

  • Gunningham, Neil & Kagan, Robert & Thornton, Dorothy, 2002. "Social licence and environmental protection: why businesses go beyond compliance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 35990, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:35990
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/35990/
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    3. Magat, Wesley A & Viscusi, W Kip, 1990. "Effectiveness of the EPA's Regulatory Enforcement: The Case of Industrial Effluent Standards," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 331-360, October.
    4. George J. Stigler, 1974. "The Optimum Enforcement of Laws," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 55-67, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Prakash,Aseem, 2000. "Greening the Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521664875.
    6. Regens, James L. & Seldon, Barry J. & Elliott, Euel, 1997. "Modeling compliance to environmental regulation: Evidence from manufacturing industries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 683-696, December.
    7. A Neale, 1997. "Organisational learning in contested environments: lessons from Brent Spar," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 93-103, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Krupa, Joel, 2012. "An indeterminate future: Assessing the need for greater US–Canada transmission integration," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 99-101.
    2. Andrea B. Coulson, 2009. "How should banks govern the environment? Challenging the construction of action versus veto," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 149-161, March.
    3. Velásquez, Teresa A., 2012. "The science of corporate social responsibility (CSR): Contamination and conflict in a mining project in the southern Ecuadorian Andes," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 233-240.
    4. Prasenjit Banerjee & Rupayan Pal, 2016. "Honor and Stigma in Mechanisms for Environmental Protection," Working Papers id:10883, eSocialSciences.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

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