International organizations as mobilizing structures: World CSR associations and their disparate impacts on members’ CSR practices, 2000-2016

• Main Authors: POPE, Shawn, LIM, Alwyn
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
• Subjects: International and Area Studies; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3037; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4294/viewcontent/sox023_av.pdf; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4294/filename/0/type/additional/viewcontent/sf_dec_15_523_File003.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

International organizations are key players in globalization, but not all international organizations influence global processes in the same ways. In this paper, we argue that differences in international organizations’ mobilizing structures can shape the extent to which these organizations can positively impact the practices of their members. We present the first comparative and quantitative assessment of world corporate social responsibility (CSR) associations that comprise business participants that act collectively to address pressing social and environmental concerns. We conduct time-series panel regression analyses of a unique dataset of business participation in three core world CSR associations and test their effects on business adoption of three major CSR frameworks and business performance across six major CSR evaluation schemes. Our findings reveal that world CSR associations with participatory structures, compared to those with honorific or convocational structures, more consistently encourage member businesses to adopt CSR policies and to achieve highly evaluated CSR practices. We discuss these results in relation to sociological and world society perspectives on international organizations as well as implications for future research on global corporate responsibility.