This research emerged in the context of a growing interest among academics and practitioners at that time in corporate social responsibility, CSR. Some proponents of using market-based tools, instead of direct regulations, to influence the behavior of firms touted the information disclosure-based approach to be a powerful form of “civil regulation”. This multiyear project, funded by the National Science Foundation, examined the Global Reporting Initiative, GRI, through the lens of the institutional theory, focusing on the character and effectiveness of GRI as an emergent societal institution. In collaboration with Martin de Young at Technical University of Delft we tested the belief, then popular among academics and practitioners, that information disclosure can in many instances be an effective substitute to direct regulations and market-based incentives. The results of our research directly challenged this belief.
Related articles and book chapters
- Brown, H.S., de Jong, M. and Lessidrenska, T. 2009. “The Rise of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as a Case of Institutional Entrepreneurship.” Environmental Politics. 18(2): 182-200.
- Brown, H., De Jong, M., and Levy, D. 2009. Building Institutions Based on Information Disclosure: Lessons from GRI’s Sustainability Reporting” Journal of Cleaner Production 17(4): 571-580.
- Vergragt, P.J. and H.S. Brown. 2008. Genetic Engineering in Agriculture: New Approaches to Generating Societal Consensus. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 75: 783-798.
- Levy, David L. and Halina Brown. 2010. “The Global Reporting Initiative: Collaboration and conflict in the development of non-financial reporting.” In: Subhash Jain and Ben Kedia (eds.), Enhancing Global Competitiveness through Sustainable Environmental Stewardship. pp. 129-152. London: Edward Elgar
- Brown, Halina S. “Global Reporting Initiative” 2011. In Thomas Hale and David Held, eds. Handbook of Innovations in Transnational Governance, Polity Press, pp. 91-95.
- Levy, David L. and Halina Brown 2011. “The Global Reporting Initiative: The Promise and Limitations of Non-Financial Reporting for Corporate Governance.” In: Reed, Utting and Mukherjee-Reed (eds). Business, Non-State Regulation and Development, New York: Routledge, pp. 46-60.
- Vergragt, P.J. and H.S. Brown. 2010. “Genetic Engineering in Agriculture: The Role of Small Scale Experimentation and Standardized Sustainability Reporting for Risk Management and Policy Development”. In: Michael Baram Ed. Safety in Applying Genetic Engineering in Agriculture. Springer.
- Levy, D., Brown, H.S., and de Jong, M. 2010. “NGO Strategies and the Politics of Corporate Governance: the Case of Global Reporting Initiative.” Business and Society 49: 88-115.