Harnessing SD and CSR within Corporate Self‐regulation of Weak Economies— A Meta‐regulation Approach

• Published date: 01 December 2013
• Date: 01 December 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12020
• Author: Mia Mahmudur Rahim

Harnessing SD and CSR within

Corporate Self-regulation

of Weak Economies—

A Meta-regulation Approach

MIA MAHMUDUR RAHIM

ABSTRACT

The semantic of the terms “sustainable development”

and “corporate social responsibility” have changed over

time to a point where these concepts have become two

interrelated processes for ensuring the far-reaching

development of society. Their convergence has given

dimension to the environmental and corporate regulation

mechanisms in strong economies. This article deals with

the question of how the ethos of this convergence could

be incorporated into the self-regulation of businesses in

weak economies where nonlegal drivers are either inad-

equate or inefficient. It proposes that the policies for

this incorporation should be based on the precepts of

meta-regulation that have the potential to hold force

majeure, economic incentives, and assistance-related

strategies to reach an objective from the perspective of

weak economies.

Mia Mahmudur Rahim is a Lecturer, School of Accountancy, Queensland University of

Technology, Brisbane, Qld, Australia. E-mail: mia.rahim@qut.edu.au.

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Business and Society Review 118:4 513–537

© 2013 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.,

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INTRODUCTION

Sustainable development (SD) and corporate social respon-

sibility (CSR) unequivocally affirm that economic and envi-

ronmental approaches should support the long-reaching

development of the society. Their convergence received consider-

able preference in corporate regulation of strong economies. In

weak economies, this convergence has been contributing to sig-

nificant reformation in the regulatory environment that guides

corporate governance. Most of these economies do not have the

environment that enables different actors to have an effect on this

convergence, and their environmental and corporate regulations

have not yet delineated stakeholders’ rights, limitations, and abili-

ties concerning influencing corporate governance (Braithwaite

2006). The environmental and corporate regulation frameworks of

weak economies do not have much influence on how business

enterprises should accommodate their environmental responsibili-

ties and different stakeholders other than the government and

stockholders (Ward and World Bank. Private Sector Advisory

Services Dept. Corporate Social Responsibility Practice 2004). One

of the reasons for this is that the groups working on these

regulation issues in weak economies lack political motivation, the

ability to disseminate information, and the capacity to create

public credibility effectively (Hutter and O’Mahony 2004). More-

over, due to the high degrees of poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance,

nonstate actors in the civil sphere of weak economies are lagging

behind in corporate issues. Therefore, although these types of

actors in strong economies are able to monitor the environmental

performance of businesses and to some extent, can impose sanc-

tions against particular corporate behavior (Bruyn 1999; Hutter

2006), equivalent actors in weak economies are not in a position

to garner public support for such actions. Under these circum-

stances, how the ethos of this convergence could be incorporated

into the environmental regulation of a weak economy is an impor-

tant issue to be dealt with.

This article focuses on “meta-regulation” to incorporate the

ethos of this convergence at the core of self-regulated corporate

responsibility. Meta-regulation is a comparatively new regulatory

approach in which different forms of regulation regulate one

another. It attempts to link social and environmental values to

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