Development of Norms Through Compliance Disclosure |
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Authors: | Björn Fasterling |
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Institution: | (1) LegalEDHEC Research Center, Accounting, Law, Finance and Economics Department, EDHEC Business School, 24 Avenue Gustave Delory, CS 50411, 59057 Roubaix Cedex 1, France |
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Abstract: | This article introduces compliance disclosure regimes to business ethics research. Compliance disclosure is a relatively recent
regulatory technique whereby companies are obliged to disclose the extent to which they comply with codes, ‘best practice
standards’ or other extra-legal texts containing norms or prospective norms. Such ‘compliance disclosure’ obligations are
often presented as flexible regulatory alternatives to substantive, command-and-control regulation. However, based on a report
on experiences of existing compliance disclosure obligations, this article will identify major weaknesses that prevent them
from becoming effective mechanisms to discipline a certain type of behaviour. It will be argued that regulatory recourse to
compliance disclosure obligations is nonetheless worthwhile if we view them as mechanisms that can initiate a dialogue about
norm interpretation, application and norm desirability. From this perspective, compliance disclosure obligations serve less
to discipline companies by making corporate practices transparent, and more to trigger a process of norm development, in which
the law, companies and their stakeholders interact. This article provides an illustration of how mandatory disclosure, if
it is restricted to a unilateral communication process, may produce no effective results (or even prove counterproductive),
whilst highlighting the alternative potential of disclosure as an initiator of dialogue, supported by laws, geared towards
the development and refinement of norms applicable to business in a global context and the values they promote. |
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